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[DieH@rd]

Good race footage of iRacing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qCAfkPjvgCo&hd=1

 

[call_kotaku]

Those are not the reports I've been hearing. Kinect 1 latency was quite high and the uses for VR was limited.

But the 2 has by accounts from the various gaming websites that have tested, improved markedly.

Also, while it's not suitable for head tracking, body tracking latency doesn't need to be quite as rigorous. Especially for body parts that are out of sight (i.e. legs).

Also, you can nonetheless find ways of integrating the data from a laggy camera sensor - like the ideas I mentioned involving detecting obstacles and people coming into the user's space.

Do we have actual numbers on latency, in terms of the raw latency of the hardware and whatever processing it would need? The footage that leaked for the Kinect fighting game made it look unplayable even outside of VR. I don't know if Carmack's Quakecon talk where he referred to Kinect as a high-latency zero-button mouse was referring to the old Kinect or the upcoming one.

 

[Durante]

As far as I can remember, Kinect 2 has indeed improved markedly over its predecessor -- to a minimum of 60 ms end-to-end latency. That's still too much for VR.

Edit: for direct data acquisition that is, some of the indirect/support roles Zaptruder envisions it could work.

 

[bj00rn_]

As far as I can remember, Kinect 2 has indeed improved markedly over its predecessor -- to a minimum of 60 ms end-to-end latency. That's still too much for VR.

It's too much for the head tracking, because it may provoke motion sickness.. But for body-tracking it's fine.

 

[Durante]

It's too much for the head tracking, because it doesn't help on the motion sickness.. But for body-tracking it's fine.

IMHO, that depends on whether the body tracking is just mainly for immersion or the direct interaction mechanic. And I guess on the genre as well. But just as I wouldn't want to use Kinect 2 as a primary input in a regular (played on a flat display) action game due to response times, the same is at least as true for VR.

 

[Durante]

There's a new very in-depth interview with Palmer at Gamasutra.

One thing you spoke about during your GDC talk is that the reduction of latency is a huge priority on your end -- you want to get as much latency out of the loop as you can on the hardware side, right?

PL: That is absolutely true. And actually, the stuff that we're doing in the lab right now, we think that we've got latency basically solved. We think that, for the consumer launch, we're going to be able to get latency to the point where it's not even an issue -- it's a completely nonexistent issue, completely beyond the level of human perception.

So it is a really hard thing to solve. We think, on our side, we're going to be able to get the latency down to next to nothing. Where the difficulty is going to remain is with game developers, and how they do buffering in their engines, how they do vsync. How their game engines handle rendering and whether they can stay at 60 or 90 or 120 frames per second. And that's going to be the difficulty. Because if we make perfect hardware, developers still have to make low-latency game loops.

 

[Blizzard]

There's a new very in-depth interview with Palmer at Gamasutra.

This is great news on the hardware front, since I felt like hardware latency and/or predictive motion in software was still bothering me a bit.

 

[Soi-Fong]

This is great news on the hardware front, since I felt like hardware latency and/or predictive motion in software was still bothering me a bit.

Wonderful interview! Surprised there was no questions about Sony's rumored VR headset.

 

[Durante]

Wonderful interview! Surprised there was no questions about Sony's rumored VR headset.

The interview preceded that articular rumour, but this answer is still applicable:

Obviously you got a really good head start, and you've got really good technical chops. But in the end, this is probably going to be one of the first products in this sphere, but there are going to be people following you. What is going to keep you ahead of the curve as competition starts to catch up?

PL: Well, we have the first mover advantage. We've got a really good SDK that makes it really easy for game developers to port games over and make virtual reality games. I think we've got the best team in the industry so far. I think that we're going to continue to make the best hardware in the industry. As long as we can make the best hardware, have the best people, and make the best software for developers, I think that we'll be able to stay in front.

And there will be other people, I'm sure, and in a way that's good, because the more people get into the space the more that legitimizes it. We're not just one crazy company. It shows that there actually is a market and that there are plenty of people that are interested in doing it besides us, and I think that it might mean more content. The more players that there are in this industry, the easier that it will be to make virtual reality content if there are multiple platforms that it can be on.

 

[E-Cat]

I thought this was interesting regarding the FoV:

PL: The HD prototypes that we're showing do have a lower field of view than the dev kit, because we're using the same optics that we used for the dev kit in these prototypes. We just swapped out a panel, we didn't change the optics, or the ergonomics, or anything else.

The field of view for the consumer version, we do plan on increasing. And not just the field of view, but also the clarity of the optics and their sensitivity to adjustment, so that people can have a much more clear view across their entire field of view, rather than having it blurred in the edges.

PL: Optically, as you go past 100 degrees, there are a lot of limits of optics you run into, and it can't just be solved with clever design. They're just the hard limits of refractive optics, and it's very hard to get around those. You can greatly increase the size -- like, if you double the size of the panel, then you can get a little further, but you're not doubling the field of view for doubling the size of the panel. It's diminishing returns. You end up with a huge headset with a slightly improved field of view. There are a few tricks that I am trying that I think that are going to be able to pump the field of view up beyond even where we are right now.

One of the issues with going at a larger field of view -- we're already at a fairly low resolution in terms of pixels per degree -- most of our vision is focused out here [gestures to the sides of his field of view in real life]. Let's say that you wanted to up the field of view to 200 degrees. Now are you cutting the resolution in half, it's actually even worse than that, because you have resolution here that's cut in half, but you're also throwing away all that resolution into the edges where you can't, unfortunately, utilize most of it most of the time. So it's a set of tradeoffs. How much field of view do you have, and what kind of pixels per degree compromise are you trying to make? But, like I said, I have a few tricks.

 

[ProcrasDANation]

GAF I received my dev kit and to my sincere disappointment get violent motion sickness. I don't want to sell it on eBay for profit and happy to get it to a legit person for cost plus how you want it shipped. Reach out to me if you are keen

 

[plagiarize]

GAF I received my dev kit and to my sincere disappointment get violent motion sickness. I don't want to sell it on eBay for profit and happy to get it to a legit person for cost plus how you want it shipped. Reach out to me if you are keen

Dramamine and more time in the headset. You will more than likely be able to get over the motion sickness if you stick with it.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

GAF I received my dev kit and to my sincere disappointment get violent motion sickness. I don't want to sell it on eBay for profit and happy to get it to a legit person for cost plus how you want it shipped. Reach out to me if you are keen

You measured your eye-distance, right?

 

[Azure Dream]

Dramamine and more time in the headset. You will more than likely be able to get over the motion sickness if you stick with it.

Some people alternatively use ginger pills or similar ginger products, if Dramamine seems like a scary "medical" jump to you. I've never tried either, so I can't attest to their effectiveness.

It's definitely a case of taking in VR a little at a time, in short periods. Learning to steer with your head, and not with the Right Stick, when you can avoid it. Walking more in demos, instead of running everywhere. That sort of thing.

Some demos are also really bad at circumventing things that cause queasy stomachs. I found a lot of the early Japanese demos were really, really bad about motions and settings that would cause me to feel ill quickly.

On the plus side, many people have claimed that after the initial period, they get their "VR legs", and in a few cases claim it's even purged them of car sickness they got before.

 

[Zaptruder]

IMHO, that depends on whether the body tracking is just mainly for immersion or the direct interaction mechanic. And I guess on the genre as well. But just as I wouldn't want to use Kinect 2 as a primary input in a regular (played on a flat display) action game due to response times, the same is at least as true for VR.

To hear the press report on the Kinect 2, the motion input latency is imperceptible. Suffice it to say, it sounds like it's been made acceptable for all but the most latency discerning players.

So maybe not as great for down to the mm fighting game with unforgiving rulesets (1 hit kills) - but those are issues that can be designed around.

 

[jacksepticeye]

If I ordered one now how long would it take to arrive? I'm sick of hearing all this great stuff about it and not actually being able to play with one myself

 

[RetroMG]

I spent all last night reading about this and now I really want one. I'm pretty sure my wife would kill me though.

Is it true that you can watch 3d movies on it? I thought I read that.

 

[jacksepticeye]

I spent all last night reading about this and now I really want one. I'm pretty sure my wife would kill me though.

Is it true that you can watch 3d movies on it? I thought I read that.

Last I heard (long time ago) you could set them up in the 3D cinema thing like you're sitting in a theater watching it. I don't know fi you can just watch a straight movie in 3D though

 

[buenoblue]

My oculus rift is due for delivery tomorrow, I'm so exited ill Barely sleep lol. With new consoles and my 1080p 3d projector, and now the rift it's a good time to be a gamer.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

I spent all last night reading about this and now I really want one. I'm pretty sure my wife would kill me though.

Is it true that you can watch 3d movies on it? I thought I read that.

Yup, there's a demo someone made where you can load up videos and watch them in a theater.

IIRC, it was able to play 2D movies and also 3D movies like Avatar. Pretty rad.

 

[bj00rn_]

I spent all last night reading about this and now I really want one. I'm pretty sure my wife would kill me though.

Is it true that you can watch 3d movies on it? I thought I read that.

You can with Stereoscopic Player f.ex., but with the low resolution there's little point right now.

 

[E-Cat]

Elon Musk is using the Rift for his SpaceX holographic gesture interface:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNqs_S-zEBY&hd=1

Comes up around two and a half minutes, but the whole video is interesting.

 

[Technobabel]

I hope it's okay to post our Rift-enabled projects here. I recently created VALKYRIE, a game made in a week as part of the 7-day FPS game jam, and last night I finished adding Rift support.

Gameplay video

VALKYRIE Mac Download

VALKYRIE Windows Download

Non Rift-Enabled Builds

 

[EVIL]

was this posted before? HydraDeck Humans

The realism you can get with these scanned in models is insane.

edit: you can download the demo here to try out yourself
http://ir-ltd.net/multi-sky-3d-scan-tools/

you need an oculus and a hydra controller

PS WARNING, naked people in demo.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

I hope it's okay to post our Rift-enabled projects here. I recently created VALKYRIE, a game made in a week as part of the 7-day FPS game jam, and last night I finished adding Rift support.

Gameplay video

VALKYRIE Mac Download

VALKYRIE Windows Download

Non Rift-Enabled Builds

Looks a bit confusing, just by watching the video. But I liked Dungeon Hearts so I will give it a try (without OR )

 

[Stimpack]

My apologies if this has been asked/answered before, but is the connection box for the Rift going to be needed for the consumer version as well? Does anyone know? If not, what will they use in its place?

I haven't been keeping up with the Rift as much as I would like to.

 

[Technobabel]

Looks a bit confusing, just by watching the video. But I liked Dungeon Hearts so I will give it a try (without OR )

Always happy to hear from someone who liked Dungeon Hearts! Yeah I can see why it looks confusing in the video, the cubist nature doesn't provide much context. There's a how-to-play on the site with the non Rift builds, it's not nearly as complicated as it looks

 

[ratcliffja]

I'm really excited for the Oculus Rift tech, but one big downside for me is that I typically play games with my wife watching or playing, so I'd love for there to be a way for my wife to join in. Right now it seems she'd need her own computer AND her own headset. Ideally, there would at some point be a possibility for 2 headsets with the same computer. It would likely require a pretty powerful graphics card and/or significantly dropping the FPS, but it would be better than requiring 2 computers.

 

[cbox]

To combat the motion sickness, the first thing I did when we got the Rift was just stand still in the demos and look around. It helped immensely, and the more I used it the better it got for me. I still can't try a racing game, but I'm confident that I will be able to one day.

My friend came by and tried it, and went RIGHT into all the insane demos. He feels no motion sickness ever, and I'm incredibly jealous because he got the best experience right out of the box.

 

[PGamer]

So are these now shipping relatively soon after making an order? Last time I checked I think it was was a few month delay. I might consider ordering one if it doesn't take too long.

 

[YuShtink]

So are these now shipping relatively soon after making an order? Last time I checked I think it was was a few month delay. I might consider ordering one if it doesn't take too long.

There's no absolute certainty, but anywhere from 4 weeks to 2 months at this point is realistic.

 

[DopeyFish]

To combat the motion sickness, the first thing I did when we got the Rift was just stand still in the demos and look around. It helped immensely, and the more I used it the better it got for me. I still can't try a racing game, but I'm confident that I will be able to one day.

My friend came by and tried it, and went RIGHT into all the insane demos. He feels no motion sickness ever, and I'm incredibly jealous because he got the best experience right out of the box.

Do you typically get motion sickness elsewhere? (In real life)

Genuinely curious

 

[Anthony Soprano]

Regarding that developers get four months free access to Unity Pro - does this mean after four months, I'll no longer be able to access the software required to write for the Rift without paying the $1.5k license?

I was hoping to do some neat stuff with this down the road, but by the time I learn what I'm doing, I think much more than four months would have gone by.

 

[Kokonoe]

Was hoping this was near out already as I haven't kept track of it. Still excited as ever, hopefully the consumer model is out by next March.

 

[MrBig]

Regarding that developers get four months free access to Unity Pro - does this mean after four months, I'll no longer be able to access the software required to write for the Rift without paying the $1.5k license?

I was hoping to do some neat stuff with this down the road, but by the time I learn what I'm doing, I think much more than four months would have gone by.

UDK has free support, and crytek is working on support for cryengine.

 

[GraveHorizon]

Don't know if these were already posted, but there's a video of STEM being used with the Rift demonstrating positional headtracking, and another one showing both hands and feet being used. After seeing that, it immediately makes no headtracking seem stupid. And the feet one looks a little janky due to no joint positioning, but it's still awesome. I'm sooooo ready.

 

[bj00rn_]

I'm really excited for the Oculus Rift tech, but one big downside for me is that I typically play games with my wife watching or playing, so I'd love for there to be a way for my wife to join in. Right now it seems she'd need her own computer AND her own headset. Ideally, there would at some point be a possibility for 2 headsets with the same computer. It would likely require a pretty powerful graphics card and/or significantly dropping the FPS, but it would be better than requiring 2 computers.

If nothing else, she can watch on the monitor which is not in use while you play on the OR anyway. You can either use the second hdmi port and duplicate the OR video, or split the hdmi signal with a splitter and route one cable to the monitor.

 

[StaSeb]

At gamescom I had the opportunity to talk to Palmer for 10 Minutes. No mindblowing new insights here, but a pleasent little talk about where these guys are right now and what is happening next. The english video can be found here - youtube-version following in a while.

Hope, you like it!

 

[Faith]

Very interesting, thanks for the interview! So the consumer version with 1080p screen and position tracking will be out around summer 2014.

I hope I have no problems because of my glasses (-1.5 diopter).

 

[buenoblue]

Ordered on 21st August, received today 6th September. Was expecting 6 to 8 weeks. gonna be a long day at work. Any hidden gems, games or demos to look out for. I am rift enabled.

 

[StaSeb]

So the consumer version with 1080p screen and position tracking will be out around summer 2014.

I would not dare to expect any releasedate except "2014". Concerning the retail-version and optics - we talked a little more about that while the rift-demo. The OculusVR-guys seem to be very keen on making the final hardware quite adjustable to the specific user. Hopefully they find a good balance between flexibility and ease of use.

 

[GeoGonzo]

So the consumer version with 1080p screen and position tracking will be out around summer 2014.

Huh, Palmer actually said that? I can't watch the video till I get home in a few hours.

That'd be interesting. They could be launching very, very close to Sony's presentation of VR glasses for the PS4, if as rumoured they are targetting E3 2014.

 

[StaSeb]

Ordered on 21st August, received today 6th September. Was expecting 6 to 8 weeks. gonna be a long day at work. Any hidden gems, games or demos to look out for. I am rift enabled.

Congratulations on the quick delivery. You have great things ahead of you. And you should start your journey here: https://share.oculusvr.com/!

 

[StaSeb]

Huh, Palmer actually said that?.

"It will be multiple months, not multiple years [until release]"
And the retail product will be 1080p at least! Palmer keeps pointing out, that they are pushing hard to increase resolution and reduce latency.

 

[GeoGonzo]

I see, thank you! (For the record and being silly: 23 months is also "months not years")

 

[gofreak]

I guess for sure there'll be a new dev kit revision that more closely matches the consumer model, at some point sooner.

Confirmation of position tracking is good news!

 

[Kokonoe]

1080p? Beautiful. Can't wait till that happens.

 

[buenoblue]

Anybody have any experience with iracing and the rift. I do enjoy racing games and have a Dfgt wheel, just not sure if its worth the subscription.

 

[Faith]

I see, thank you! (For the record and being silly: 23 months is also "months not years")

200 years = 2400 months.

He says months, so it will be out 2014.

 

[hoverX]

Ordered on 21st August, received today 6th September. Was expecting 6 to 8 weeks. gonna be a long day at work. Any hidden gems, games or demos to look out for. I am rift enabled.

What the heck? I ordered on the 15th...