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[Vyse The Legend]

Recommended or not, if you read the article Oculus does say it's possible, and pretty clearly.

So if a dev wants to create a room scale game it's not Oculus or the tech that's stopping them. And I would bet Oculus will change their stance anyway when Touch releases.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Touch controllers come with Room Scale VR cameras and that is why they kept delaying Touch. Just speculation but it seems viable.

I'm pretty sure they said Touch might come with another camera a while ago. The FoV on the Rift camera is such that two of them should allow 360 tracking in a wide space. There are a few problems that Oculus faces:

1. A second camera means connecting something else to your PC, and having to run that cable to the opposite side of your room. They could not ship a new system with Touch (i.e. adopting Valve's lighthouse), because the Vive HMD is what does most of the heavy lifting for the positional tracking.
2. The computation for tracking everything and interpreting the camera data will need to be done on your PC, so that will likely mean taxing your CPU more and more room for errors in the positional tracking.
3. The cable on the Rift HMD is much shorter than the Vive's, so the "room scale" will be smaller and/or require extension cables. Considering the lack of space people have in their homes, a smaller play area is not necessarily a bad thing, but a shorter cable does leave room for the possibility of you tangling the cable up or it jerking you back if you go too far.
4. They NEED a Chaperone-like solution. IGN posted a video last week, that showed one of their editors punching a TV with the Touch controllers, because she did not know the wall was there or that she was near it. I fully expect them to know this, and be working on it.

All of that is to say that YES the Rift can and will support room-scale. It'll look different than Valve's, but the technical ability for it do it was never in question.

 

[artsi]

of course its possible, but if it isn't the default setup then it's useless.

It requires moving two cameras, not exactly rocket science. A help screen explaining the setup when you start a room scale game should suffice.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Why do first person "Cockpit" games make us "less" sick than just walking in first person? Do our brains see a cockpit and think "Car, everything is ok", or something?

I assume the nausea you get in VR is similar to Car Sickness?

Third person movement has less chance to make you sick as well right?

So why not make a game where you "move" in third person and can zoom in to first person when you are stopped? You could even use the same "move to cover" mechanic as The Division.

Are Third Person Shooters and RPGs going to be the first somewhat traditional AAA experiences we get in VR?

That would be interesting and I'd bet someone is testing it. The only issue I could think of is there might be some issues transitioning between the two perspectives (on the human side, not the tech side).

 

[Krejlooc]

It requires moving two cameras, not exactly rocket science. A help screen explaining the setup when you start a room scale game should suffice.

Those two cameras need to be placed in the corner of the room and yet still remain tethered to your computer. It's not rocket science, but it certainly isn't as straight forward and easy as lighthouse.

 

[mrklaw]

I was somewhat convinced that Oculus would officially support a room-scale-like setup at least to some extent with Touch a week or two back, but their comments since then seem to indicate that this won't happen.

same. And I can see their logic. Other than the potential limits of tracking using cameras at long ranges due to resolution, they may want to emphasise more 'close in' movement tracking which is why they've gone generally for a front facing setup, compact hand controllers that allow the hands to get much closer to each other, and the gesture recognition features for multiplayer interaction.

I personally think 360 + movement is more important but I can understand another viewpoint. Oculus' stance seems odd though considering they put LEDs on the back of the headset specifically to support 360 movement on the headset.

 

[Monger]

It's not useless if it means developers of room scale games for Vive can also provide support for it on Rift knowing Rift owners who want that experience can reconfigure their setup to play them.
Their audience is fairly niche as it is, it would make sense for them to expand that to a subset of Rift owners of it's not overly difficult to support.

We're playing a guessing game here. That's the problem with not supporting it officially as a recommended setup.

Some developers, Fantastic Contraption devs for instance, will support opposing cameras regardless. Lack of chaperone was an issue there. Others have said that it depends on Oculus's official stance because it doesn't make sense to support it otherwise. You're already divvying up a small market. First they need a rift, then they need to have bought touch and then they need to have set up a non-recommended configuration.

 

[DOT DASH DOT]

This is why I'm leaning towards Vive. It's not a deal breaker that Oculus doesn't have it but when you're spending upwards of $600 USD, whats another 200 to ensure that you do have the capability?


Edit: Oh and you get touch controllers included with the 200 USD premium.

And camera, and also mobile phone support! Don't underestimate that sweet addition. Some could argue that being able to escape the long arm of the Mrs is a good thing, especially if you get texts through about changing your babies nappy whilst blasting space pirates or something haha.

 

[artsi]

Those two cameras need to be placed in the corner of the room and yet still remain tethered to your computer. It's not rocket science, but it certainly isn't as straight forward and easy as lighthouse.

Not as easy, true, but I'm sure most people with a VR HMD have used some kind of a cord / cable before and can think of a solution to this difficult problem

 

[Krejlooc]

Not as easy, true, but I'm sure most people with a VR HMD have used some kind of a cord / cable before and can think of a solution to this difficult problem

my solution is to use the rift exclusively for sitting down, and the vive exclusively for standing up.

 

[Croatoan]

same. And I can see their logic. Other than the potential limits of tracking using cameras at long ranges due to resolution, they may want to emphasise more 'close in' movement tracking which is why they've gone generally for a front facing setup, compact hand controllers that allow the hands to get much closer to each other, and the gesture recognition features for multiplayer interaction.

I personally think 360 + movement is more important but I can understand another viewpoint. Oculus' stance seems odd though considering they put LEDs on the back of the headset specifically to support 360 movement on the headset.

So, how will Oculus support, you know, genres that require turning? I am talking a future VR Skyrim or COD experiences.

If VR wants the mainstream, or even current "core" gamer, someone is going to have to figure out how to "Untether" the VR player from a 10x10 square, or seat. Teleportation wont do it, and Front facing in place mini-games and Job simulators won't either.

Omni-treadmills could but will never be adopted by the mainstream.

 

[viveks86]

I was somewhat convinced that Oculus would officially support a room-scale-like setup at least to some extent with Touch a week or two back, but their comments since then seem to indicate that this won't happen.

Yeah I think it's a foregone conclusion at this point.

"Technically possible so that fans on forums can bicker about it endlessly, but of no real consequence since there will be no official support, and by extension, no content"

 

[qa_engineer]

And camera, and also mobile phone support! Don't underestimate that sweet addition. Some could argue that being able to escape the long arm of the Mrs is a good thing, especially if you get texts through about changing your babies nappy whilst blasting space pirates or something haha.

So I was thinking about the mobile phone support. How does that work? Is it a bluetooth connection from the phone directly to the headset and the communication is handled via an application on the computer? Will I be able to simply pick up the phone via a prompt inside the vive headset and speak into my gaming headphone/headset?

 

[Guardian Monkey]

So, how will Oculus support, you know, genres that require turning? I am talking a future VR Skyrim or COD experiences.

If VR wants the mainstream someone is going to have to figure out how to "Untether" the VR player from a 10x10 square, or seat. Front facing mini-games and Job simulators will not cut it.

Omni-treadmills are not going to be the solution for the mainstream either.

CV2. Dont expect touch controllers with the cv1 i think. I would expect a new tracking system with cv2.

 

[Zalusithix]

The computation for tracking everything and interpreting the camera data will need to be done on your PC, so that will likely mean taxing your CPU more and more room for errors in the positional tracking.

I came across an article a while back where I believe Oculus stated that the CPU load was somewhere in the vicinity of 1-2% of one core per additional camera. 1-2% of what CPU at what speed I don't know, nor do I know whether they were talking about physical cores or logical. Regardless, it shouldn't be too much of an additional load. Processing an image where only IR light spots exist is easier than processing a visible light spectrum image.

Still sucks having to route the cameras back to the PC and deal with it at all though.

Edit:

CV2. Dont expect touch controllers with the cv1 i think. I would expect a new tracking system with cv2.

No touch controllers for CV1? Oh hell would that blow up in their faces. =P

 

[Krejlooc]

So, how will Oculus support, you know, genres that require turning? I am talking a future VR Skyrim or COD experiences.

If VR wants the mainstream someone is going to have to figure out how to "Untether" the VR player from a 10x10 square, or seat. Front facing mini-games and Job simulators will not cut it.

Omni-treadmills are not going to be the solution for the mainstream either.

the rift can track you 360 degrees even from one camera - it has IR LEDs on the back of the headset. If all you're worried about is spinning in place, the rift can do that out of the box. You could simply use a swivel chair as many gear VR games do, if you find a way to keep the cables above you using a boom stand or something.

 

[KingSnake]

It's not useless if it means developers of room scale games for Vive can also provide support for it on Rift knowing Rift owners who want that experience can reconfigure their setup to play them.
Their audience is fairly niche as it is, it would make sense for them to expand that to a subset of Rift owners of it's not overly difficult to support.

That's the exact issue with this, it puts all the weight for this on Vive. If developers do it for Vive, Oculus could benefit too, because HTC/Valve approach is not to lock software behind hardware. And it tells developers that Oculus doesn't bet on this tech, so again the only reliable market for them is Vive's. Is practically like trying to sabotage the market just because you're late to the game.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

the rift can track you 360 degrees even from one camera - it has IR LEDs on the back of the headset. If all you're worried about is spinning in place, the rift can do that out of the box. You could simply use a swivel chair as many gear VR games do, if you find a way to keep the cables above you using a boom stand or something.

What about controllers though? It cant track through your body.

 

[Fret]

It's not useless if it means developers of room scale games for Vive can also provide support for it on Rift knowing Rift owners who want that experience can reconfigure their setup to play them.
Their audience is fairly niche as it is, it would make sense for them to expand that to a subset of Rift owners of it's not overly difficult to support.

It requires moving two cameras, not exactly rocket science. A help screen explaining the setup when you start a room scale game should suffice.

Irrelevant - if roomscale isnt default on the Rift then it will not be supported fully by the user, which is what I was saying

 

[Krejlooc]

What about controllers though? It cant track through your body.

The controller the rift comes with doesn't track at all.

 

[Croatoan]

the rift can track you 360 degrees even from one camera - it has IR LEDs on the back of the headset. If all you're worried about is spinning in place, the rift can do that out of the box. You could simply use a swivel chair as many gear VR games do, if you find a way to keep the cables above you using a boom stand or something.

I am all for VR but it seems really limited right now. I hope by CV2 or 3 (or Vive 2) the big PC guys will have figured out how to completely eliminate sickness so all types of motion can be supported. Then maybe by CV4 (or vive3) they need to eliminate the cord all together (gonna take a miracle of wireless technology )

I still feel like consumer friendly VR is 10 years away.

 

[DOT DASH DOT]

So I was thinking about the mobile phone support. How does that work? Is it a bluetooth connection from the phone directly to the headset and the communication is handled via an application on the computer? Will I be able to simply pick up the phone via a prompt inside the vive headset and speak into my gaming headphone/headset?

Yes it Bluetooth, from what's been said you can answer calls and talk through the mic, not sure if the one built into the Vive is used, or if the headphones overrides it. You can read texts and reply with pre made sentences and words.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

The controller the rift comes with doesn't track at all.

I am talking about touch not the xbox one controller. People are not going to do room scale with a xbox one controller.

 

[Krejlooc]

I am all for VR but it seems really limited right now.

of course it is

I am talking about touch not the xbox one controller. People are not going to do room scale with a xbox one controller.

we're not talking about room scale tracking. we're talking about lateral rotation.

 

[Compsiox]

I am all for VR but it seems really limited right now. I hope by CV2 or 3 (or Vive 2) the big PC guys will have figured out how to completely eliminate sickness so all types of motion can be supported. Then maybe by CV4 (or vive3) they need to eliminate the cord all together (gonna take a miracle of wireless technology )

This will be sooner than you think.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

CV2. Dont expect touch controllers with the cv1 i think. I would expect a new tracking system with cv2.

What makes you think that? There are Touch dev units out there already. We've already seen plenty of trailers for Rift games with Touch support. You really think they're going to wait another 1-2 years before they put them out when they already work?

My bet is they're out by October (when PSVR launches). Hopefully before then though.

 

[Zalusithix]

This will be sooner than you think.

Not if they continue to increase the resolution.

 

[EviLore]

I was somewhat convinced that Oculus would officially support a room-scale-like setup at least to some extent with Touch a week or two back, but their comments since then seem to indicate that this won't happen.

Yep. I don't see Oculus actually being relevant in the PC space at this rate now that they're strongly downplaying room-scale. Room-scale is here, it works perfectly with Lighthouse, room-scale experiences are ridiculously awesome and as soon as you try one you won't want to be dropping premium dollars on VR gear that can't do it.

You want this in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIEuB7H9TOE

The end.

 

[viveks86]

The controller the rift comes with doesn't track at all.

Think he is referring to touch with a swivel chair (not room scale), which would have occlusion problems with 2 front facing cameras, let alone one (and a swivel chair in the way).

 

[Krejlooc]

Not if they continue to increase the resolution.

that won't be a limiting factor once foveated rendering comes into play.

Think he is referring to touch with a swivel chair, which would have occlusion problems with 2 front facing cameras, let alone one.

considering we're talking about spinning with one camera touch was never being discussed in the first place.

 

[Compsiox]

Not if they continue to increase the resolution.

As shown by the Consumer Oculus Rift's optics it's not necessary to increase it substantially.

Edit:

And yeah foveated rendering.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

What makes you think that? There are Touch dev units out there already. We've already seen plenty of trailers for Rift games with Touch support. You really think they're going to wait another 1-2 years before they put them out when they already work?

My bet is they're out by October (when PSVR launches). Hopefully before then though.

My only thoughts are that they are reworking room scale which may mean new sensors.

 

[flyinpiranha]

That's the exact issue with this, it puts all the weight for this on Vive. If developers do it for Vive, Oculus could benefit too, because HTC/Valve approach is not to lock software behind hardware. And it tells developers that Oculus doesn't bet on this tech, so again the only reliable market for them is Vive's. Is practically like trying to sabotage the market just because you're late to the game.

So because Oculus is taking their time and not releasing official word on an unfinished product they are "sabatoging" the market?

 

[Fret]

I think with wireless the bigger issue is battery life, I can't imagine it would be particularly long with current battery tech

 

[artsi]

my solution is to use the rift exclusively for sitting down, and the vive exclusively for standing up.

I think that will be my solution in the end too.

 

[Thanati]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

My bad. With the internet being as it is, I thought it was a troll comment.

 

[Compsiox]

Yep. I don't see Oculus actually being relevant in the PC space at this rate now that they're strongly downplaying room-scale. Room-scale is here, it works perfectly with Lighthouse, room-scale experiences are ridiculously awesome and as soon as you try one you won't want to be dropping premium dollars on VR gear that can't do it.

You want this in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIEuB7H9TOE

The end.

Thank you senpai. Well said.

 

[viveks86]

considering we're talking about spinning with one camera touch was never being discussed in the first place.

I think you were talking about one camera. The rest were talking about the future of VR tracking and Oculus' support for it. The swivel chair solution is basically only viable for 360 head tracking. Nothing more. You already know that, of course. Just explaining where the others are coming from

 

[Krejlooc]

My only thoughts are that they are reworking room scale which may mean new sensors.

I don't see Oculus sticking with an optical outside-in tracking solution past CV1. I think they, and Sony, are going to go with an inside-out positional tracking system soon enough. Everyone knows its more ideal than an outside-in system, but logistics were the limiting factor. Valve showed them how to do it with elegance. I think everyone will ape valve's solution soon enough.

Though I could see an outside-in camera still being used for maybe some sort of body tracking at one point, in conjunction with the inside-out positional tracking.

 

[Thanati]

Yep. I don't see Oculus actually being relevant in the PC space at this rate now that they're strongly downplaying room-scale. Room-scale is here, it works perfectly with Lighthouse, room-scale experiences are ridiculously awesome and as soon as you try one you won't want to be dropping premium dollars on VR gear that can't do it.

You want this in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIEuB7H9TOE

The end.

That looks ridiculously fun!

 

[Wrestlemania]

Those two cameras need to be placed in the corner of the room and yet still remain tethered to your computer. It's not rocket science, but it certainly isn't as straight forward and easy as lighthouse.

It's not like lighthouse isn't without it's cabling problems - currently I'm trying to work out the best place to position them so I can easily get them to power sockets and it's not going to be particularly easy.

 

[Krejlooc]

I think you were talking about one camera. The rest were talking about the future of VR tracking and Oculus' support for it.

The question asked was how does one turn without roomscale tracking. The answer is that turning doesn't require roomscale tracking, lateral rotation can be accomplished using even a single camera. Of course you'll need multiple vantage points for positional tracking to combat occlusion, but for CV1, lateral rotation doesn't require touch nor does it require multiple cameras. It can be solved with a singular camera because the headset tracks in 360 degrees.

All this is moot - I don't see COD VR or Skyrim VR coming out for CV1 at all. I don't think many games will experiment with lateral rotation at all, outside of the vive (which gets around that in the obvious way).

It's not like lighthouse isn't without it's cabling problems - currently I'm trying to work out the best place to position them so I can easily get them to power sockets and it's not going to be particularly easy.

They can also run off of batteries, for weeks at a time on a single battery.

 

[Zalusithix]

that won't be a limiting factor once foveated rendering comes into play.

Foveated rendering reduces rendering cost by rendering part of the image at a lower resolution, not the bandwidth required for the transmission of the resulting frame. The frame itself will be full resolution, and lossless transmission of it will take as much bandwidth as if the entire thing was rendered at native resolution.

 

[KingSnake]

So because Oculus is taking their time and not releasing official word on an unfinished product they are "sabatoging" the market?

Looking at the statement that started this whole discussion, it definitely looks like the gloves are off.

 

[Wrestlemania]

Yep. I don't see Oculus actually being relevant in the PC space at this rate now that they're strongly downplaying room-scale. Room-scale is here, it works perfectly with Lighthouse, room-scale experiences are ridiculously awesome and as soon as you try one you won't want to be dropping premium dollars on VR gear that can't do it.

You want this in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIEuB7H9TOE

The end.

Having played that, it should work pretty easily with Touch and two front facing cameras. You don't have to turn around a full 360 and it's mostly just turning to face other directions. The expected tracing volume for Touch will cover it fine.

 

[The Elite]

Yep. I don't see Oculus actually being relevant in the PC space at this rate now that they're strongly downplaying room-scale. Room-scale is here, it works perfectly with Lighthouse, room-scale experiences are ridiculously awesome and as soon as you try one you won't want to be dropping premium dollars on VR gear that can't do it.

You want this in your life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIEuB7H9TOE

The end.

Sure, I want that in my life, but I don't have the space for it. Not at all. Even reaching out my hand to shoot and fire is going to cause problems that even a chaperone can't solve. I know these experiences can scale down with room size but the problem is that freedom of physical mobility in that space will still be hampered. I am not sure it will be the same experience in a 7x7 foot space as it would be in a full 15x15.

There will be people who can create a comfortable space to do this and I think it will be a fantastic experience for them but it's just not something I see ever being widely utilized. I feel like, even with Room Scale being able to scale down to smaller spaces, you still have to deal with creating a specialized space to have these sorts of experiences.

Great technology and it looks fantastic but I'm not sure it will ever be adopted by a mass audience. I do hope there is enough of an audience for it to stick around in some form though and to drive developers to continue to work on Room Scale experiences and games.

I admit, I have yet to try it though but even if I am over-the-moon in love with it after using it there are still real physical limitations that I would have to deal with bringing that home.

 

[Krejlooc]

Having played that, it should work pretty easily with Touch and two front facing cameras. You don't have to turn around a full 360 and it's mostly just turning to face other directions.

Here, a better example of a game that is not possible on the rift, even with touch and multiple cameras:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KirQtdsG5yE

 

[Croatoan]

of course it is



we're not talking about room scale tracking. we're talking about lateral rotation.

What kills me is that, due to the input limitations, most of the software looks like Wii Tech demos in VR. Which will be cool for like a couple of goes and then go stale fast.

IMO, VR has more problems than waggle did because we can't even make the player move without causing many of them to vomit.

HTC and Oculus should have pumped money into Near Light Field displays (like Nvidia is developing), which eliminate motion sickness, instead of rushing to market with something that will damage VR moving forward.

Without motion sickness we could freely use any type of control method and have games in every genre.

 

[Wrestlemania]

They can also run off of batteries, for weeks at a time on a single battery.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. That is excellent news! Christ, it's going to be so difficult working out which one to keep.

 

[flyinpiranha]

I'm really saddened by the whole fact that every VR thread, forum, post, whatever has become "roomscale or bust". It's really taking away from the time a lot of developers have spent on these products.

 

[Wrestlemania]

Here, a better example of a game that is not possible on the rift, even with touch and multiple cameras:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KirQtdsG5yE

Yeah, no idea if opposing cameras will be able to cope with that. But neither will my living room!