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The High-end VR Discussion Thread (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Playstation VR)

Okay, few things.

Eve: Valkyrie is the real deal. Not sure why I waited so long to check it out. Now this is what i expected VR to be. Bonkers. Love it.

Also, perhaps the best gaming related purchase I have made in quite some time...

K7Tb.jpg

Was $20 and worth every penny. Can be found here at Amazon.

I was planning and doing the exact same thing, just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Here's something I've noticed as we're getting into summer - wearing a VR headset for a prolonged period while the weather is warm is really not pleasant. And that's with a Rift which I found a lot less prone to overheating my face.

Add "suitable AC" into the min-spec VR build requirements. ;)
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Here's something I've noticed as we're getting into summer - wearing a VR headset for a prolonged period while the weather is warm is really not pleasant. And that's with a Rift which I found a lot less prone to overheating my face.
Riftz are a real thing for me right now (Zits called by the Oculus Rift). Hoping it is just my skin getting used to materials, but my nose and brows right now are breaking out like I just hit puberty.

I was planning and doing the exact same thing, just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet.
vermadas had me a little worried there as they were valid points about the strap, but as I said above the straps are not even holding it up. The unit just rests on the head itself. So yeah, it is a great solution to me. I linked it above but if you need the link again let me know.
 

III-V

Member
Riftz are a real thing for me right now (Zits called by the Oculus Rift). Hoping it is just my skin getting used to materials, but my nose and brows right now are breaking out like I just hit puberty.

Yikes that sucks, but I am sure you are not gonna be the only one.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Anyway, The touch controllers will never work well with room scale, or even standing in some cases, with today's camera configuration. Which is why Oculus doesn't really want to talk about it.

Isn't the Touch going to ship with an extra sensor? Or are you referring to issues even with multiple sensors?
 

Tain

Member
Isn't the Touch going to ship with an extra sensor? Or are you referring to issues even with multiple sensors?

I'm assuming he's referring to the forward-facing dual-camera layout Oculus is suggesting in marketing, as the "unofficial" opposite-corner layout that game devs have shown in videos gives the same results as Vive room-scale.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I'm assuming he's referring to the forward-facing dual-camera layout Oculus is suggesting in marketing, as the "unofficial" opposite-corner layout that game devs have shown in videos gives the same results as Vive room-scale.

Minor nitpick, but opposite cameras will give similar results to the Vive lighthouses, but not exactly the same. They'll give 360 coverage over a zone, but the zone itself will be smaller than the Vive due to the lower FoV of the cameras compared to the lighthouses.
 

cakefoo

Member
Minor nitpick, but opposite cameras will give similar results to the Vive lighthouses, but not exactly the same. They'll give 360 coverage over a zone, but the zone itself will be smaller than the Vive due to the lower FoV of the cameras compared to the lighthouses.
Not 100% scientific, but I just googled "70 degree angle" and traced it onto a piece of paper, and lined it up on the wall. A 7-ft high camera will have roughly a 2 foot deadzone at chest height, and 4 foot deadzone at floor level. So if you have the room to back the camera outside your play area, it shouldn't be much of an issue.

The thing that does compound things though, is that from what I've read/seen, the Rift cameras do not have a very long range. It's only about 11.5ft. So if your cameras are 4 feet outside your playspace, you can only get reliable, floor to arm's reach, 360 tracking corner to corner, in a 5x5ft playspace. Theoretically.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Went a little crazy on the Steam Sale (I now see the Oculus store has a sale as well, not sure what they were thinking not matching the prices), and let me just say that ADR1FT is fucking bonkers.

Excuse my French but I am using it to get the point across. Ever since I saw the reveal for ADR1FT it is partially why I wanted the Rift, and it is pretty much what I imagined VR would be like. And the good news is I did not really get sick at all. I felt a small tinge coming on so I took a break, it is why I am posting here, but that was after 22 minutes and it was really just me being safe rather than sorry.

Also checked out Windlands, and yeah, that made me a bit more nauseous, but again nothing crazy. Really think I am just getting my legs still so to speak. And I have figured out if I start sweating a little, it is coming, so I am being proactive in stopping.

So yeah, it has been a full 5 days with VR now, and I believe I am sold.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Apparently some of the Oculus sales do match the Steam sale price on certain titles.
Yep. I was referring to all of the games though. Why not just price match them all? And if anything, they should do their best to beat the Steam prices no?
Because if the choice is getting a game on a locked down environment or getting the game in an open environment, well I do not know about you but I am going open every single time.
I only see about 2 to 3 games where they actually beat the Steam price, and it is not by a whole lot, and it is also not titles I would label as cream of the crop.

I guess kudos to them for even doing the sale though. But they really imho should have at least matched, if not beaten. They are not winning any popularity contests with the public at large right now.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
So one game I did pick up from the Oculus store, and like as a total time waster, is Darknet. First time hearing of or playing it. I guess it is a mobile game or something, but it is damn fun. Visually cool too even though simplistic.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
I am having a real annoying issues with the Oculus Home App and wondering if anyone else is having it.

It starts up with my computer even though it is not listed anywhere in the Startup Items? On Windows 10 of course.

Also if I go to close the app, it reopens immediately. It only finally closes fully after 3 times of quitting it. No matter what, it takes 3 times to close it.
I click the X to close it, it opens up again right away.
Click the X to close it again, it opens up right away again.
Click the X to close it and it finally stays closed.
It is 3 times every single time. No exception.

I see no setting at all in the Oculus app about the app automatically starting with Windows or anything along those lines. I also see no setting to have the app start if the Rift is plugged in.

So is anyone else seeing this behavior? I am wondering if I should go ahead and uninstall the app completely and reinstall it, which will be a minor annoyance since I have a decent amount installed, but if it solves this issue I am going to have to do it.

I have yet to unplug my Rift from my comp though. I will do that after posting this to see if that is somehow the culprit. Since I got the mannequin head I did just plan on leaving it all setup, and it does not seem as if I should have to unplug it all the time, but maybe I do??

Any feedback as to what others are experiencing is greatly appreciated. Especially it starting up on its own at startup is really damn annoying. It uses 11% of my memory just idle.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Something triggering your headset is my guess...the sensor inside is picking something up, so it keeps trying to load Oculus Home. What color is the light in the headset? If it's white, it's detecting as if someone's trying to wear it.
 

Wallach

Member
I am having a real annoying issues with the Oculus Home App and wondering if anyone else is having it.

It starts up with my computer even though it is not listed anywhere in the Startup Items? On Windows 10 of course.

Also if I go to close the app, it reopens immediately. It only finally closes fully after 3 times of quitting it. No matter what, it takes 3 times to close it.
I click the X to close it, it opens up again right away.
Click the X to close it again, it opens up right away again.
Click the X to close it and it finally stays closed.
It is 3 times every single time. No exception.

I see no setting at all in the Oculus app about the app automatically starting with Windows or anything along those lines. I also see no setting to have the app start if the Rift is plugged in.

So is anyone else seeing this behavior? I am wondering if I should go ahead and uninstall the app completely and reinstall it, which will be a minor annoyance since I have a decent amount installed, but if it solves this issue I am going to have to do it.

I have yet to unplug my Rift from my comp though. I will do that after posting this to see if that is somehow the culprit. Since I got the mannequin head I did just plan on leaving it all setup, and it does not seem as if I should have to unplug it all the time, but maybe I do??

Any feedback as to what others are experiencing is greatly appreciated. Especially it starting up on its own at startup is really damn annoying. It uses 11% of my memory just idle.

I mean, if you have it on that stand when your computer starts up I imagine it is triggering the sensor on the inside of the headset since it thinks it is on someone's head. I think you are supposed to use a transparent version of one of those as a stand if you use one to avoid that, right?
 

Lurch666

Member
I've heard that storing headsets in this fashion isn't really a good idea because it puts extra wear on the straps. Also, it looks like it's triggering the proximity sensor; the IR LEDs are visible which should only happen if the headset on and active.

Just checked my rift.It's inactive.Just sitting on top of my pc (not attached to a plastic head or anything),oculus store isn't running and the LED's are active (checked with my phone camera).Looks like they are on all the time when the headset has power.
 

vermadas

Member
Just checked my rift.It's inactive.Just sitting on top of my pc (not attached to a plastic head or anything),oculus store isn't running and the LED's are active (checked with my phone camera).Looks like they are on all the time when the headset has power.

Interesting. I remember trying to get a look at the IR LEDs with my phone camera so I could avoid obstruction when attaching a command strip to mount a Leap Motion, and I couldn't see them without triggering the sensor.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Something triggering your headset is my guess...the sensor inside is picking something up, so it keeps trying to load Oculus Home. What color is the light in the headset? If it's white, it's detecting as if someone's trying to wear it.

I mean, if you have it on that stand when your computer starts up I imagine it is triggering the sensor on the inside of the headset since it thinks it is on someone's head. I think you are supposed to use a transparent version of one of those as a stand if you use one to avoid that, right?
BAAHHH!!

Does anyone have a need for a tan mannequin head??? LOL

I really thought moving it out of the sensors view and putting it on a plastic surface would mean it was no longer active, but apparently not.

Well that mystery is solved.

I am not spending anymore money on mannequin heads.

I suppose I could always just unplug it and plug it in, but that is not what I was hoping to do.

Thanks for the clarification. The answer was literally staring me in the face.
 

Tain

Member
Quick video of what Future Pinball VR looks like thru the HTC VIVE headset just holding my phone up to the screen and moving the HMD around.
Most of the edge blur is from the phone moving to far from lens's but it gives a very good idea of what Pinball actually looks like in VR.
Physics 2.7 for FP aren't all that bad either.

Heres the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kKrPdTnT-E&feature=youtu.be

Is there a way to get nudging in FP to not behave in a way where I can hold the nudge axis and literally float the ball around the table? Bugged me when I tried FP in VR.
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
BAAHHH!!

Does anyone have a need for a tan mannequin head??? LOL

I really thought moving it out of the sensors view and putting it on a plastic surface would mean it was no longer active, but apparently not.

Well that mystery is solved.

I am not spending anymore money on mannequin heads.

I suppose I could always just unplug it and plug it in, but that is not what I was hoping to do.

Thanks for the clarification. The answer was literally staring me in the face.

This is hilarious. Glad you got it sorted out. I guess those internal sensors must be just be looking for proximity.
 

Tain

Member
Does anybody know how Job Simulator on PSVR handles things behind the player? Is there some kind of view-flip button? I can't imagine it expecting you to do anything facing away from the camera while you're occluding the motion controllers with your body.

edit: I guess it uses 180 degree environments. Eeesh. I wonder if we'll start seeing some roomscale Vive games adopted to these forward-facing VR setups by using a basic flip button.
 

Zalusithix

Member
This is hilarious. Glad you got it sorted out. I guess those internal sensors must be just be looking for proximity.

What else would they be looking for? When it's on your head, there's no motion. A simple proximity sensor is the best way to go about detecting if it's being worn. I suppose you could use an extremely sensitive capacitive sensor to do proximity detection where it wouldn't be thrown off by a fake head, but that's considerably more expensive for an odd edge case. Could also use a pressure sensor on the facial interface/strap area, but that'd be tricked the same way.
 

vermadas

Member
BAAHHH!!

Does anyone have a need for a tan mannequin head??? LOL

I really thought moving it out of the sensors view and putting it on a plastic surface would mean it was no longer active, but apparently not.

Well that mystery is solved.

I am not spending anymore money on mannequin heads.

I suppose I could always just unplug it and plug it in, but that is not what I was hoping to do.

Thanks for the clarification. The answer was literally staring me in the face.

It's hollow right? You could try drilling/cutting a hole in the right spot ;)
 
Edit: /high-five

BAAHHH!!

Does anyone have a need for a tan mannequin head??? LOL

I really thought moving it out of the sensors view and putting it on a plastic surface would mean it was no longer active, but apparently not.

Well that mystery is solved.

I am not spending anymore money on mannequin heads.

I suppose I could always just unplug it and plug it in, but that is not what I was hoping to do.

Thanks for the clarification. The answer was literally staring me in the face.
Use a Dremel or something to cut a hole in the mannequin's head, opposite the proximity sensor.
 

bloodydrake

Cool Smoke Luke
Is there a way to get nudging in FP to not behave in a way where I can hold the nudge axis and literally float the ball around the table? Bugged me when I tried FP in VR.

i use joy to key to map my analog nudge controller to the keyboard nudge keys and disable the analog nudge support completely.. both VP and FP have this goofy issue where it reads the input continuously and doesn't just register the nudge and magnitude for a timeslice of 10ms or something
 
You'd have to know the FOV of the sensor
Seems like simply making a hole wider than the sensor itself should be sufficient. It's FOV — such as it is — will radiate within the head, and I doubt the far side will be close enough to trigger the sensor.

Edit: You'd want a fairly good sized hole anyway, so you don't need to fiddle with it so much to line it up when you put it away.
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
What else would they be looking for? When it's on your head, there's no motion. A simple proximity sensor is the best way to go about detecting if it's being worn. I suppose you could use an extremely sensitive capacitive sensor to do proximity detection where it wouldn't be thrown off by a fake head, but that's considerably more expensive for an odd edge case. Could also use a pressure sensor on the facial interface/strap area, but that'd be tricked the same way.

Temperature (in addition to proximity).
 
I really want the Vive. I really really do. But 1) I can't dedicate basically any amount of space to it right now and it seems like a waste of the Vive to do it sitting, and 2) I'm kind of waiting until the technology is good enough that there's a wireless model. I hate wires. I hate them so much

I guess I also want to see how this whole Oculus/Vive thing shakes out. The fact that there are games exclusive to a certain HMD is... Unsettling
 

Onemic

Member
I really want the Vive. I really really do. But 1) I can't dedicate basically any amount of space to it right now and it seems like a waste of the Vive to do it sitting, and 2) I'm kind of waiting until the technology is good enough that there's a wireless model. I hate wires. I hate them so much

I guess I also want to see how this whole Oculus/Vive thing shakes out. The fact that there are games exclusive to a certain HMD is... Unsettling

If you're waiting for wireless, you'll probably have to sit out till at least gen 3.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Temperature (in addition to proximity).
An IR thermopile could potentially work, but when you're at that point where you're doing sensor fusion just to detect presence, you might as well go down the capacitive route IMO. You'd have to be dead to fool that. Or using a conductive mannequin head... I don't think those are too common though. ;)
 

theWB27

Member
So I just demoed the psvr caged shark vid best buy. Stood in line for a good hour and a half and thought the image put on the tv screen looked good.

Once the demo started I was a little shocked at how lesser the quality was. But as the demo went on I got used to it and it didn't look so rough.

I will say screen door effect was real when you focused on the cage or background. Once the shark came around the screen door almost went away. I got much less of that when I tried the great vr ocean demo.

The headset is crazy light. Sometimes my glasses feel heavier than this thing did. I'm also satisfied with the field of view. I never noticed my visuals being cut off.

I'll hopefully be able to get this day one. Very excited.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Good idea to those who suggested cutting a hole out of the mannequin head. Wish I knew exactly where the proximity sensor was on the headset and I just Googled and had no luck. For some reason I am thinking smack dab in the middle but who knows? So does anyone know.

Perhaps this mannequin head idea is not dead yet.
Perhaps. LOL
 

Wallach

Member
Saw Carmack tweeted this the other day:

John Carmack said:
VR desperately needs better typography. One of the things I'm working on. https://viljamis.com/2016/typography-for-user-interfaces/

It's an interesting topic I think, since it seems like text legibility varies all over the place from app to app. It sounds like for Carmack's part he's looking at creating special layers to improve text readability which could be used specifically for UI elements. He also seems to indicate that three-dimensional text is really bad for VR, which I suppose makes sense even though I hadn't thought about it before. Not sure why that woman's making a fool of herself in the replies.

Good idea to those who suggested cutting a hole out of the mannequin head. Wish I knew exactly where the proximity sensor was on the headset and I just Googled and had no luck. For some reason I am thinking smack dab in the middle but who knows? So does anyone know.

Perhaps this mannequin head idea is not dead yet.
Perhaps. LOL

If you hold the Rift away from yourself you can see the sensor up near the top of the inside part, between the eyes. There is a small LED to the right of it that will light up if you put your finger over it.
 
What did you guys get to play? If you have tried Rift or Vive, how did the display quality and tracking stack up?
I played Valkyrie and Headmaster. I've only used Gear — dunno what phone, but a new one — and PSVR has a way better screen. I'm gonna try to hit some more demos tomorrow — The Heist can only be played at Gamestop because Best Buy don't want gun violence in their showroom — so I'm saving a longer writeup until I get a little more time with it.

But yeah, first impressions… take a minute to adjust the headset so the lenses are actually centered in front of your eyes. Considerable IQ drop if you miss the sweet spot, but it's easy to find once you know to look for it. Massive screen-door reduction from Gear. I didn't notice it at all in Valkyrie, but I was pretty distracted trying to learn the controls while keeping track of my targets. Plus, space. I did finally notice it when I was between lessons in Headmaster, but it took me a minute to actually realize what it was, whereas it was immediately apparent when I tried that 3D Avengers trailer on Gear. Gear felt like being super close to a CRT, while PSVR was more like wearing one of those mesh came bags over your head, but like one made out of black spider web or something. I could really only see it as I panned my head, and then only because it was the only thing not moving, if that makes sense. lol

Edit: People should go check it out and see for themselves though.
 
Here, this seems worthy of a cross-post from the PSVR demo thread…
Tried it out and I am stunned. Honestly stunned...

After having devved on both Vive and Rift and Gear VR for a year now, I am surprised by what Sony has put out.

It is WAY MORE comfy than the Vive and even comfier than the Rift. It's literally floating in front of your face and that's big for me. Honestly, as a dev it's fucking refreshing to see a headset that's not putting all it's weight on my face.

It's refreshing that I can focus on the content in front of me without the headset getting in the way. What Sony has done with this headset is made it in a way that the headset disappears and you don't even realize you're wearing one. At most, you just feel like you're wearing a crown. The crown design that Sony went with is genius. You can tell out of the 3 manufacturers who has the most experience with hardware. And another thing, I can wear it with my glasses and not have to worry about it!

Screenwise, I can honestly say what Sony has is on-par with both the Vive and the Rift which really surprised me. Here you have a 1080p screen and I don't know what wizardry Sony is doing that I barely noticed the screen-door effect. The screen itself is also way better than Gear VR which you can tell immediately has SDE. I think it goes to show resolution isn't the only factor.

I played Battlezone and the VR Worlds and loved both. The PS4 can seriously push some impressive graphics. Framerate wise, I had no issues and I couldn't tell a difference from the Rift and Vive.

Tried out the Move controllers and while they're not as comfy as the Oculus Touch controllers we have at the studio, tracking wise they work really well. I'd say they compare pretty well to Vive controllers as well.

If Sony can get the messaging out right and get people to try these out which they are already doing a better job at than Oculus and Vive which I haven't seen demo'd anywhere in my area, they're definitely in for a good holiday.

Edit: Here's the Touch we have at work.
 
What did you guys get to play? If you have tried Rift or Vive, how did the display quality and tracking stack up?

I was able to play Battle Zone and The Deep(shark dive) demo at a about Best buy here in Phoenix. Battle Zone was hectic fun. But I felt the greatest sense of presence from the Shark demo. I had no problems reading any text and the screen door effect was much less noticeable then I thought. Way better then my Gear VR.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I wonder if it would be feasible to have curved screens to match the curved lenses so that you didn't need to warp the image on the computer?
 

Crispy75

Member
I wonder if it would be feasible to have curved screens to match the curved lenses so that you didn't need to warp the image on the computer?

If they could be made to curve in both directions, yes. Curving in just one axis makes the optics more complicated.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Here, this seems worthy of a cross-post from the PSVR demo thread…

My biggest issue with PSVR is the lack of roomscale. It shows a complete lack of foresight and awareness on Sony's part. Even Oculus is begrudgingly adding it for the rift.

I am glad to hear that the headset is comfy, though I wonder if it will fly off your face at intense moments. Then again, since its a chair VR platform I guess that isn't going to be a problem.
 
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