[b]--------------MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE OCULUS RIFT part 1-------------[/b]
I too had a chance to play around with the devkit, and will also share my thoughts. I'll try to address some questions that I previously had but that I haven't seen answered before. Please note that I only spent a few hours with the Rift all up. I tried the built-in demo, Museum of the Microstar, Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
I'll be frank. In its current state, it's bloody awful. It's blurry, low-res, and the screen-door effect is strong. The headtracking feels like a poorly implemented gimmick at the moment. Frankly, the Rift in its current form [b][i]doesn't even deserve to be called Virtual Reality[/b][/i], since the headtracking is so limited and laggy that you wouldn't dream of using it as anything other than a supplement to your gamepad/mouse.
WHAT'S IT LIKE HAVING A SCREEN SO CLOSE TO YOUR EYES?
Not great. I don't know if it's because of the closeness of the screen, or because of the limitations of the OR prototype itself, or both, but the image is fuzzy and poor. Did you ever stick your face right up against an analogue TV when you were a kid, to the point where the image becomes kind of fuzzy and vague? Well, that's kind of what this feels like. Another example that comes to mind is the Sega Game Gear from the early 90s and how I remember that looking.
The image is nice and big and warm - the size is the best thing about it. Despite the low resolution, it feels bigger than a nice 27" monitor, using a projector, or even being at the cinema. But the quantity of the image is certainly not matched by the quality. The pixels are so far apart from each other that sometimes your mind struggles to organise them into a coherent whole. It tends to be hard to make out detail or read text unless it's quite close to you. And due to the lag and blur, forget about trying to make out detail unless you stop moving.
IS IT COMPATIBLE WITH REGULAR GLASSES?
Not really, as the lenses risk scratching your glasses. However it comes with 3 sets of lenses that are said to suit most people, even if they are long sighted or short sighted.
HOW DOES THE HEADTRACKING FEEL?
At the moment, awful. It's very laggy, and I found it very blurry. Yes, it is genuinely nice to look up at the sky with your head and see the sky in the virtual world. But the lag to get there is unpleasant. It feels like this: You swivel your head, a quarter-second later the screen starts moving to catch up to your head's new position, the screen start blurring and shaking, then another quarter-second later, it finally settles on your new location. It's like bad vsync input-lag, but several times worse, and with camera-shake thrown into the mix.
HOW DOES THE MOVEMENT FROM HEADTRACKING WORK IN CONJUNCTION WITH MOVEMENT FROM KEYBOARD/GAMEPAD/MOUSE?
In everything I played, the headtracking was essentially mapped to the mouse. In other words, you can't move with your head, but you can steer with it. And just like in conventional gaming, your WASD (or left stick) is dependent on your mouse (or in this case head orientation). So, when you press W (or up on the stick), you will walk in whichever direction you happen to be looking.
Note, however, that the mouse and right analogue stick still work. In fact, they are very necessary (see below). So, it's kind of like having two 'mice'. When you move your mouse left, the camera swivels left; when you swivel your head left, the camera also swivels left; if you move your head and mouse left at the same time, the camera will swivel left but twice as fast.
--------------MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE OCULUS RIFT part 1-------------
I too had a chance to play around with the devkit, and will also share my thoughts. I'll try to address some questions that I previously had but that I haven't seen answered before. Please note that I only spent a few hours with the Rift all up. I tried the built-in demo, Museum of the Microstar, Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
I'll be frank. In its current state, it's bloody awful. It's blurry, low-res, and the screen-door effect is strong. The headtracking feels like a poorly implemented gimmick at the moment. Frankly, the Rift in its current form doesn't even deserve to be called Virtual Reality, since the headtracking is so limited and laggy that you wouldn't dream of using it as anything other than a supplement to your gamepad/mouse.
WHAT'S IT LIKE HAVING A SCREEN SO CLOSE TO YOUR EYES?
Not great. I don't know if it's because of the closeness of the screen, or because of the limitations of the OR prototype itself, or both, but the image is fuzzy and poor. Did you ever stick your face right up against an analogue TV when you were a kid, to the point where the image becomes kind of fuzzy and vague? Well, that's kind of what this feels like. Another example that comes to mind is the Sega Game Gear from the early 90s and how I remember that looking.
The image is nice and big and warm - the size is the best thing about it. Despite the low resolution, it feels bigger than a nice 27" monitor, using a projector, or even being at the cinema. But the quantity of the image is certainly not matched by the quality. The pixels are so far apart from each other that sometimes your mind struggles to organise them into a coherent whole. It tends to be hard to make out detail or read text unless it's quite close to you. And due to the lag and blur, forget about trying to make out detail unless you stop moving.
IS IT COMPATIBLE WITH REGULAR GLASSES?
Not really, as the lenses risk scratching your glasses. However it comes with 3 sets of lenses that are said to suit most people, even if they are long sighted or short sighted.
HOW DOES THE HEADTRACKING FEEL?
At the moment, awful. It's very laggy, and I found it very blurry. Yes, it is genuinely nice to look up at the sky with your head and see the sky in the virtual world. But the lag to get there is unpleasant. It feels like this: You swivel your head, a quarter-second later the screen starts moving to catch up to your head's new position, the screen start blurring and shaking, then another quarter-second later, it finally settles on your new location. It's like bad vsync input-lag, but several times worse, and with camera-shake thrown into the mix.
HOW DOES THE MOVEMENT FROM HEADTRACKING WORK IN CONJUNCTION WITH MOVEMENT FROM KEYBOARD/GAMEPAD/MOUSE?
In everything I played, the headtracking was essentially mapped to the mouse. In other words, you can't move with your head, but you can steer with it. And just like in conventional gaming, your WASD (or left stick) is dependent on your mouse (or in this case head orientation). So, when you press W (or up on the stick), you will walk in whichever direction you happen to be looking.
Note, however, that the mouse and right analogue stick still work. In fact, they are very necessary (see below). So, it's kind of like having two 'mice'. When you move your mouse left, the camera swivels left; when you swivel your head left, the camera also swivels left; if you move your head and mouse left at the same time, the camera will swivel left but twice as fast.
----part 2
IS THERE HOPE FOR THE RIFT TO BECOME A TRUE VR DEVICE?
I think so. At the very least, it will require a wireless version of the headset, and a wireless controller. Ideally, it will use something like the Omni - a 'cage' with a treadmill that lets you freely walk around without fear of bumping into your furniture. Even more ideally, it will utilise some sort of mocap technology or motion controller, so that you can move your arms around in the virtual space.
However, it will probably work quite well simply sitting down in a swivel chair. With a wireless Rift and gamepad, you'd be able to happily swivel around 360 degrees, and the headtracking will start to mean something, rather than just being a means of temporarily looking around while the traditional controls do all the heavy lifting.
WAIT - WEREN'T YOU ONE OF THE FORUM MEMBERS WHO WAS VOCALLY SINGING THE PRAISES OF THE RIFT?
Yes. And I have to eat a slice of humble pie here. To those people who I argued with: you were right!
Though in my defense, I always maintained that the beauty of the Rift was not that it was going to floor us all with its first commercially released version. The beauty is that it has singlehandedly created a viable foot-in-the-door for the VR market. I always said that we weren't going to see truly satisfying VR until future updated versions of the Oculus Rift were made, or even until other companies start competing with it. My mind hasn't changed in this regard.
DO YOU HAVE HOPE FOR THE RIFT AND/OR VR BECOMING COMMERCIALLY VIABLE ON A LARGE SCALE?
I think it's definitely possible, though there are many hurdles they need to overcome. Once the hype is over, I can't see the average consumer accepting the Rift if it's anything like the current devkit. I don't care if they sell it for $5 - it just isn't compelling in its current state for any kind of serious gaming.
The screen needs vast improvement, but that's the least of my worries, since that easily can and will improve, as screens always do. The physical comfort of the device needs a lot of improvement too, though again I'm not worried there.
The headtracking is more of a worry, as it's currently little more than an impotent gimmick. I'm honestly surprised that they can even get away with calling this devkit a VR device, since the headtracking is so crippled. The team is testing a wireless version, though that will likely add to their already significant latency problems.
I guess it all depends on how much the Rift improves before release. If it improves [b]A LOT[/b], then it may create a sustainable niche in the market for VR. From there, technological advancements will inevitably catch up until one day it, or something like it, becomes actually fun, easy, and beautiful to use.
IS THERE HOPE FOR THE RIFT TO BECOME A TRUE VR DEVICE?
I think so. At the very least, it will require a wireless version of the headset, and a wireless controller. Ideally, it will use something like the Omni - a 'cage' with a treadmill that lets you freely walk around without fear of bumping into your furniture. Even more ideally, it will utilise some sort of mocap technology or motion controller, so that you can move your arms around in the virtual space.
However, it will probably work quite well simply sitting down in a swivel chair. With a wireless Rift and gamepad, you'd be able to happily swivel around 360 degrees, and the headtracking will start to mean something, rather than just being a means of temporarily looking around while the traditional controls do all the heavy lifting.
WAIT - WEREN'T YOU ONE OF THE FORUM MEMBERS WHO WAS VOCALLY SINGING THE PRAISES OF THE RIFT?
Yes. And I have to eat a slice of humble pie here. To those people who I argued with: you were right!
Though in my defense, I always maintained that the beauty of the Rift was not that it was going to floor us all with its first commercially released version. The beauty is that it has singlehandedly created a viable foot-in-the-door for the VR market. I always said that we weren't going to see truly satisfying VR until future updated versions of the Oculus Rift were made, or even until other companies start competing with it. My mind hasn't changed in this regard.
DO YOU HAVE HOPE FOR THE RIFT AND/OR VR BECOMING COMMERCIALLY VIABLE ON A LARGE SCALE?
I think it's definitely possible, though there are many hurdles they need to overcome. Once the hype is over, I can't see the average consumer accepting the Rift if it's anything like the current devkit. I don't care if they sell it for $5 - it just isn't compelling in its current state for any kind of serious gaming.
The screen needs vast improvement, but that's the least of my worries, since that easily can and will improve, as screens always do. The physical comfort of the device needs a lot of improvement too, though again I'm not worried there.
The headtracking is more of a worry, as it's currently little more than an impotent gimmick. I'm honestly surprised that they can even get away with calling this devkit a VR device, since the headtracking is so crippled. The team is testing a wireless version, though that will likely add to their already significant latency problems.
I guess it all depends on how much the Rift improves before release. If it improves A LOT, then it may create a sustainable niche in the market for VR. From there, technological advancements will inevitably catch up until one day it, or something like it, becomes actually fun, easy, and beautiful to use.
----part 3
IS THE CURRENT DEVKIT EASY TO SET UP? ARE THERE MANY GAMES FOR IT?
To physically set up? Easy. To run the [kinda crappy] inbuilt demo? Easy. To get it working properly on a game? That part is not so easy.
There are few games that properly support it. Even those that most famously support it (Doom BFG, Team Fortress, Half Life 2) require a lot of stuffing around in consoles and ini files etc. to get it to work.
The Rift is all but unusable in 2D mode, so trying to navigate your desktop while wearing it is difficult.
WILL YOU BUY THE COMMERCIAL VERSION?
As you can see by my sig, I am not shy about spending money on my computer. I'm also serious about good gaming peripherals. I own a Razer gamepad, a Razer mechanical gaming keypad, a 14-button Corsair mouse, a Logitech racing wheel, and a wacom tablet. Whatever disposable income I have, I spend on my PC. And then some. Yet will I buy the Rift in 2014 or 2015? Quite possibly not.
I've done my part to support the 'VR revolution' by buying the devkit, and I don't know if I'll be willing to drop another $300 next year on what will probably still feel more like a gimmick than a powerful experience.
I think VR will only be good when it allows you to feel like you're really moving through the space. This will require low-latency headtracking, and a physical treadmill/station/motion-tracking package of some sort such as the Omni.
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR DEVKIT NOW?
Not much. If you've read this far, are a regular member of this forum, and I feel I kind of know who you are, then you can borrow it for a month or two (sorry, if I haven't seen you around these forums much and I don't feel I know who you are, I will have to refuse - please don't take offence).
If you happen to live in Melbourne Australia, you can pick it up in person. Otherwise, you'll have to pay me the postage via paypal (it will cost an arm and a leg unfortunately, and you'll have to pay to post it back to me....this will still be cheaper than buying a devkit, but barely!). You can use [url="http://auspost.com.au/apps/postage-calculator.html"]this site [/url] to estimate postage costs. PM me if you're interested.
EDIT: I found a taker. But if you're interested, make a comment on this thread, and we can organise that person to send it on to you once he's finished with it.
FINAL THOUGHTS?
Well, I think that the sort of VR we've all dreamed about will be profoundly enjoyable and beautiful. And because of the Oculus Rift, such a future may now be feasible. But this future won't likely come soon.
I'm pretty sure that by the time a genuinely fluid, beautiful and enjoyable VR experience comes along, I'll be able to discover it together with my daughter, who will be old enough to play games on it with me. She's currently 6 months old.
IS THE CURRENT DEVKIT EASY TO SET UP? ARE THERE MANY GAMES FOR IT?
To physically set up? Easy. To run the [kinda crappy] inbuilt demo? Easy. To get it working properly on a game? That part is not so easy.
There are few games that properly support it. Even those that most famously support it (Doom BFG, Team Fortress, Half Life 2) require a lot of stuffing around in consoles and ini files etc. to get it to work.
The Rift is all but unusable in 2D mode, so trying to navigate your desktop while wearing it is difficult.
WILL YOU BUY THE COMMERCIAL VERSION?
As you can see by my sig, I am not shy about spending money on my computer. I'm also serious about good gaming peripherals. I own a Razer gamepad, a Razer mechanical gaming keypad, a 14-button Corsair mouse, a Logitech racing wheel, and a wacom tablet. Whatever disposable income I have, I spend on my PC. And then some. Yet will I buy the Rift in 2014 or 2015? Quite possibly not.
I've done my part to support the 'VR revolution' by buying the devkit, and I don't know if I'll be willing to drop another $300 next year on what will probably still feel more like a gimmick than a powerful experience.
I think VR will only be good when it allows you to feel like you're really moving through the space. This will require low-latency headtracking, and a physical treadmill/station/motion-tracking package of some sort such as the Omni.
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR DEVKIT NOW?
Not much. If you've read this far, are a regular member of this forum, and I feel I kind of know who you are, then you can borrow it for a month or two (sorry, if I haven't seen you around these forums much and I don't feel I know who you are, I will have to refuse - please don't take offence).
If you happen to live in Melbourne Australia, you can pick it up in person. Otherwise, you'll have to pay me the postage via paypal (it will cost an arm and a leg unfortunately, and you'll have to pay to post it back to me....this will still be cheaper than buying a devkit, but barely!). You can use this site to estimate postage costs. PM me if you're interested.
EDIT: I found a taker. But if you're interested, make a comment on this thread, and we can organise that person to send it on to you once he's finished with it.
FINAL THOUGHTS?
Well, I think that the sort of VR we've all dreamed about will be profoundly enjoyable and beautiful. And because of the Oculus Rift, such a future may now be feasible. But this future won't likely come soon.
I'm pretty sure that by the time a genuinely fluid, beautiful and enjoyable VR experience comes along, I'll be able to discover it together with my daughter, who will be old enough to play games on it with me. She's currently 6 months old.
Wha? Nobody will discuss that the OR has terrible resolution / screen door effect, but I think you will hardly find anyone that agrees with you that headtracking is laggy. Maybe your unit is defective, I don't know.
I suggest that you go for the basics and try other native VR demos, but if Tuscany is laggy for you, there must be something terribly wrong with your OR. Museum of the Microstar is awfully laggy for me too, but it's a problem of the demo itself. I've read that it improves if you don't use multiple displays, but I'm yet to try it again.
No glasses, what? I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily. You know you can adjust the distance of the lenses right? On each side of the OR there's a coin shaped indent that will add space between your eyes and the lenses, please try it.
About the resolution, every demo you try should be set for 1080p or higher, no matter that the OR is only 1280x800, it will help immensely with the jaggies, and mostly will only leave the screen door as an issue.
I couldn't agree less with you. I love the OR, to the point that I've stopped playing any first person games even on 3d vision, so that I can play them with the commercial OR when it releases. For me immersion improves tenfold with OR vs anything else, including 3DVision, but well it may not be everyone's opinion of course.
Wha? Nobody will discuss that the OR has terrible resolution / screen door effect, but I think you will hardly find anyone that agrees with you that headtracking is laggy. Maybe your unit is defective, I don't know.
I suggest that you go for the basics and try other native VR demos, but if Tuscany is laggy for you, there must be something terribly wrong with your OR. Museum of the Microstar is awfully laggy for me too, but it's a problem of the demo itself. I've read that it improves if you don't use multiple displays, but I'm yet to try it again.
No glasses, what? I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily. You know you can adjust the distance of the lenses right? On each side of the OR there's a coin shaped indent that will add space between your eyes and the lenses, please try it.
About the resolution, every demo you try should be set for 1080p or higher, no matter that the OR is only 1280x800, it will help immensely with the jaggies, and mostly will only leave the screen door as an issue.
I couldn't agree less with you. I love the OR, to the point that I've stopped playing any first person games even on 3d vision, so that I can play them with the commercial OR when it releases. For me immersion improves tenfold with OR vs anything else, including 3DVision, but well it may not be everyone's opinion of course.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
I don't think there's anything wrong with my unit. Some games/demos were definitely less laggy than others. Though none came close to the fluid and near-instant feeling of regular gaming. If your experience really is ultra-fluid then I'd be surprised. Though bo3b praised the headtracking in general in the first post on this thread, he too mentioned the lagginess. Though he referred to it as a "smeared" image.
But anyway, the lagginess wasn't nearly as much of a problem as the general pointlessness of moving my head since I was fettered to the desk and still had to use the mouse/gamepad to turn around. Though as I said a wireless version would solve this, albeit at the cost of more lag.
I can get away with wearing glasses with my unit, though I don't need to. But the official documentation discourages it, saying they may get scratched. So I thought that was worth mentioning.
Running at a higher-than-native resolution is news to me. That's weird. Still, I could tolerate the crappy picture quality if the rest felt compelling to me.
Well, I'm glad that there are people like you who will be early eager adopters. I wish the tech all the best, as the future of VR seems to depend on it. But I don't think I'll get on board until it's matured more.
I don't think there's anything wrong with my unit. Some games/demos were definitely less laggy than others. Though none came close to the fluid and near-instant feeling of regular gaming. If your experience really is ultra-fluid then I'd be surprised. Though bo3b praised the headtracking in general in the first post on this thread, he too mentioned the lagginess. Though he referred to it as a "smeared" image.
But anyway, the lagginess wasn't nearly as much of a problem as the general pointlessness of moving my head since I was fettered to the desk and still had to use the mouse/gamepad to turn around. Though as I said a wireless version would solve this, albeit at the cost of more lag.
I can get away with wearing glasses with my unit, though I don't need to. But the official documentation discourages it, saying they may get scratched. So I thought that was worth mentioning.
Running at a higher-than-native resolution is news to me. That's weird. Still, I could tolerate the crappy picture quality if the rest felt compelling to me.
Well, I'm glad that there are people like you who will be early eager adopters. I wish the tech all the best, as the future of VR seems to depend on it. But I don't think I'll get on board until it's matured more.
You're mixing things, blur has nothing to do with laggyness, basically something on the panel blurs the image when you move and it's a well known issue, that's the smearing bo3d was talking about. But in terms of headtracking, he said:
"The head-tracking is easily the most impressive part. It's spot on. You move your head, you look around. It really adds to the game."
It really doesn't sound like it's laggy to him at all either.
And yeah, try the demos at higher res, it really helps.
You're mixing things, blur has nothing to do with laggyness, basically something on the panel blurs the image when you move and it's a well known issue, that's the smearing bo3d was talking about. But in terms of headtracking, he said:
"The head-tracking is easily the most impressive part. It's spot on. You move your head, you look around. It really adds to the game."
It really doesn't sound like it's laggy to him at all either.
And yeah, try the demos at higher res, it really helps.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
The blurriness may be because of this, as PGB pointed out...
[quote="Pirateguybrush"]The blurriness can be explained by this article. Long, but in-depth.
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-to-your-brain/[/quote]
edit:
Is that what you were refering to birthright?
My only trepidation was with the head tracking controlling mouse look and you didn't seem to make that aspect sound positive Volnaiskra. Games like Hawking get me excited with the rift, where you are in the cockpit!
You are seriously that unimpressed that are happy to loan it out!
edit:
Is that what you were refering to birthright?
My only trepidation was with the head tracking controlling mouse look and you didn't seem to make that aspect sound positive Volnaiskra. Games like Hawking get me excited with the rift, where you are in the cockpit!
You are seriously that unimpressed that are happy to loan it out!
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
-------------------
Vitals: Windows 7 64bit, i5 2500 @ 4.4ghz, SLI GTX670, 8GB, Viewsonic VX2268WM
[quote="birthright"]I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily.[/quote]I'm really curious what you're playing on it on an almost daily basis. I want one but I imagine only for certain types of games ... like slower paced FPP horror, puzzle/adventure games. It'd be sick if I could finally play Penumbra/Amnesia with it ... somehow. :)
birthright said:I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily.
I'm really curious what you're playing on it on an almost daily basis. I want one but I imagine only for certain types of games ... like slower paced FPP horror, puzzle/adventure games. It'd be sick if I could finally play Penumbra/Amnesia with it ... somehow. :)
birthright, you're right to separate the blur from the lagginess, as they're evidently separate issues. But for me, the blur contributes to the laggy feeling.
I guess everyone's eyes are different, and something like this really amplifies that. For example, I got zero motion sickness, while others had it violently.
But I'm probably extra sensitive to smoothness (or lack of smoothness). When a game goes from 60fps to 57fps, I immediately notice, and I've always hated irregular framerates in games. To me, the Rift kind of felt like it was going at 25fps or so, even though I was actually getting 60fps. It just didn't feel anywhere near as responsive as a mouse to me. But someone less sensitive to that might find it fine.
@andysonofbob: Actually, I'd say that in its current form, the only games that the Rift would be really well suited to would be games like Hawking or racing games.
I found using the Rift in a 360 degree world annoying, because the current wired physical setup just isn't conducive to it. Having to use a combination of mouse and head movement to get the job done just felt like an overcomplication of something that should feel natural.
But a cockpit car or plane game would be perfect, since you would actually want that separation of your gamepad/joystick movement and your head movement. And it would also feel natural that your body is always facing the same direction (so even when you look behind you, you know and expect that you'll need to swivel your head back towards the front after a moment).
birthright, you're right to separate the blur from the lagginess, as they're evidently separate issues. But for me, the blur contributes to the laggy feeling.
I guess everyone's eyes are different, and something like this really amplifies that. For example, I got zero motion sickness, while others had it violently.
But I'm probably extra sensitive to smoothness (or lack of smoothness). When a game goes from 60fps to 57fps, I immediately notice, and I've always hated irregular framerates in games. To me, the Rift kind of felt like it was going at 25fps or so, even though I was actually getting 60fps. It just didn't feel anywhere near as responsive as a mouse to me. But someone less sensitive to that might find it fine.
@andysonofbob: Actually, I'd say that in its current form, the only games that the Rift would be really well suited to would be games like Hawking or racing games.
I found using the Rift in a 360 degree world annoying, because the current wired physical setup just isn't conducive to it. Having to use a combination of mouse and head movement to get the job done just felt like an overcomplication of something that should feel natural.
But a cockpit car or plane game would be perfect, since you would actually want that separation of your gamepad/joystick movement and your head movement. And it would also feel natural that your body is always facing the same direction (so even when you look behind you, you know and expect that you'll need to swivel your head back towards the front after a moment).
It seems hard to play Hawken on Rift. Everyone else has a a hud from what I understand.
I also can't fit my glasses inside the rift. Like it "could" but its at the threshold of breaking them and I don't get a seal with the rift which causes breathing to fog the lenses.
Most people can't/shouldn't use glasses, which is reason they offer the magnified lenses. Though they aren't a great alternative.
It seems hard to play Hawken on Rift. Everyone else has a a hud from what I understand.
I also can't fit my glasses inside the rift. Like it "could" but its at the threshold of breaking them and I don't get a seal with the rift which causes breathing to fog the lenses.
Most people can't/shouldn't use glasses, which is reason they offer the magnified lenses. Though they aren't a great alternative.
Co-founder of helixmod.blog.com
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[quote="TsaebehT"][quote="birthright"]I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily.[/quote]I'm really curious what you're playing on it on an almost daily basis. I want one but I imagine only for certain types of games ... like slower paced FPP horror, puzzle/adventure games. It'd be sick if I could finally play Penumbra/Amnesia with it ... somehow. :)[/quote]
Right now I'm playing Doom 3 with the OR patch. There are lots of demos coming almost weekly, several games have official support like Retrovirus, Kairo, Lunar Flight, Slender, War Thunder, Half Life 2, TF2. Obviously no AAA stuff, but enough games to keep me busy. Also there are lots of patches for old games like Quake 1 and 2, doom, duke nukem, minecraft, and so on, and with the recent vorpx release and the incoming vireio, there's a lot of stuff to try.
Volnaiskra, if you're really that sensitive to frame drops then that could be the problem. I use to play in 3d at 30 fps just fine, I finished Tomb Raider at 24fps with the hmz-t1 in 1080p (upscaled or whatever). Of course I would like to play at 60 fps but my good old single 460gtx doesn't have much more juice left, but it has to last a few more months yet lol
I use rather small glasses so that may be an advantage with the OR, fancy glasses could be a problem indeed.
birthright said:I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily.
I'm really curious what you're playing on it on an almost daily basis. I want one but I imagine only for certain types of games ... like slower paced FPP horror, puzzle/adventure games. It'd be sick if I could finally play Penumbra/Amnesia with it ... somehow. :)
Right now I'm playing Doom 3 with the OR patch. There are lots of demos coming almost weekly, several games have official support like Retrovirus, Kairo, Lunar Flight, Slender, War Thunder, Half Life 2, TF2. Obviously no AAA stuff, but enough games to keep me busy. Also there are lots of patches for old games like Quake 1 and 2, doom, duke nukem, minecraft, and so on, and with the recent vorpx release and the incoming vireio, there's a lot of stuff to try.
Volnaiskra, if you're really that sensitive to frame drops then that could be the problem. I use to play in 3d at 30 fps just fine, I finished Tomb Raider at 24fps with the hmz-t1 in 1080p (upscaled or whatever). Of course I would like to play at 60 fps but my good old single 460gtx doesn't have much more juice left, but it has to last a few more months yet lol
I use rather small glasses so that may be an advantage with the OR, fancy glasses could be a problem indeed.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
Yeah, 24fps or 30fps is virtually unplayable to me. Anything lower than 45fps and I immediately start dialing graphics settings back.
To some, I probably sound like some sort of elitist 60fps snob, but it's probably a physical sensitivity issue. I also find 24fps movies at the cinema to be unpleasantly jerky, especially during camera pans.
I'm actually a huge fan of motion blur in games like Crysis or Witcher 2, as I find it makes the movement feel less jerky and more natural. So theoretically, the blur in the Rift should have been a good thing for me. But I guess it must work a bit differently.
Yeah, 24fps or 30fps is virtually unplayable to me. Anything lower than 45fps and I immediately start dialing graphics settings back.
To some, I probably sound like some sort of elitist 60fps snob, but it's probably a physical sensitivity issue. I also find 24fps movies at the cinema to be unpleasantly jerky, especially during camera pans.
I'm actually a huge fan of motion blur in games like Crysis or Witcher 2, as I find it makes the movement feel less jerky and more natural. So theoretically, the blur in the Rift should have been a good thing for me. But I guess it must work a bit differently.
@Volnaiskra: Thanks for that terrific write up. It's always interesting to hear other people's reactions.
I'm also pretty sure that the bad effect that you are seeing is the smearing, not the actual latency. Your description as 1/4 second delay to move, then 1/4 second to stabilize is far above the actual latency, but pretty close to what I also see for smearing. It definitely makes it really difficult to play when things are moving.
I watched a player using Oculus in a driving game, and it was unfortunately bad there as well, because of the smearing. As he was looking through turns, everything smeared out to where he'd miss the apex more often than not, and it showed in his scores.
Not exactly sure where the smearing comes from, I'd read earlier that a couple of clever fellows believe it comes from the dewarping shader doing anti-aliasing while things are moving. If you disable the dewarp shader in Tuscany, you no longer have smearing. Might be worth a try as an experiment.
Anybody try VorpX yet?
@Volnaiskra: Thanks for that terrific write up. It's always interesting to hear other people's reactions.
I'm also pretty sure that the bad effect that you are seeing is the smearing, not the actual latency. Your description as 1/4 second delay to move, then 1/4 second to stabilize is far above the actual latency, but pretty close to what I also see for smearing. It definitely makes it really difficult to play when things are moving.
I watched a player using Oculus in a driving game, and it was unfortunately bad there as well, because of the smearing. As he was looking through turns, everything smeared out to where he'd miss the apex more often than not, and it showed in his scores.
Not exactly sure where the smearing comes from, I'd read earlier that a couple of clever fellows believe it comes from the dewarping shader doing anti-aliasing while things are moving. If you disable the dewarp shader in Tuscany, you no longer have smearing. Might be worth a try as an experiment.
Anybody try VorpX yet?
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I realised that in my cutting and pasting I accidentally omitted one of my points. It was probably the most important one, actually.
HOW DOES HEADTRACKING WORK - DO YOU NEED TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE REAL WORLD TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD?
Technically: Yes.
Realistically: Yes and no.
If you want to look 180 degrees behind you, you will need to turn 180 degrees around. So it feels like a realistic space in this sense.
However, the current devkit has your headset permanently connected with a short cord to the desk unit. So, you're basically parked in your chair, more or less facing the same direction the entire time. Therefore, you need to continue to use the mouse or gamepad to make most major movements, while the headtracking plays a supplementary role. This makes the whole headtracking thing feel kind of redundant. Basically, you'll currently use your headtracking for two things:
1. 'Fine tuning' your movements after using the mouse or gamepad to make your main movements.
2. Temporarily looking around. I say "temporarily", because remember that you're always facing the same direction since you're rooted to the spot with a cable. So, it's all fine and good to look left and admire the scenery there, but unless you want to spend a prolonged time with your neck craned left, you're gonna have to swivel your head back to the normal front-facing position.
I frequently found myself in the following annoying situation:
- I look left, I see something cool,
- I say "ooh - I want to go over there"
-.....then I have to turn my head back to the right, so that I can turn my mouse to the left, and be facing my new direction with my head in a comfortable neutral position.
This type of movement is not natural, intuitive, or efficient. Add to this that there's significant movement lag, and the whole operation becomes really awkward. I guess you'd get used to it just like anything else, but it hardly feels like a positive evolution for gaming.
So, at the moment, the whole headtracking thing feels like a semi-useless gimmick: something that has an initial wow factor, but that you won't actually use once the novelty wears off. It's kind of crazy to even refer to the Rift as "Virtual Reality". It doesn't even come close.
What it amounts to at the moment is having a screen strapped to your face while you play a game in much the same way as before: sitting down, motionless, facing forward, using a gamepad or mouse/keyboard to look and move around.
.....this then was meant to lead onto the question "is there hope for the Rift to become a true VR device?", which is in part 2 of my earlier post
I realised that in my cutting and pasting I accidentally omitted one of my points. It was probably the most important one, actually.
HOW DOES HEADTRACKING WORK - DO YOU NEED TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE REAL WORLD TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD?
Technically: Yes.
Realistically: Yes and no.
If you want to look 180 degrees behind you, you will need to turn 180 degrees around. So it feels like a realistic space in this sense.
However, the current devkit has your headset permanently connected with a short cord to the desk unit. So, you're basically parked in your chair, more or less facing the same direction the entire time. Therefore, you need to continue to use the mouse or gamepad to make most major movements, while the headtracking plays a supplementary role. This makes the whole headtracking thing feel kind of redundant. Basically, you'll currently use your headtracking for two things:
1. 'Fine tuning' your movements after using the mouse or gamepad to make your main movements.
2. Temporarily looking around. I say "temporarily", because remember that you're always facing the same direction since you're rooted to the spot with a cable. So, it's all fine and good to look left and admire the scenery there, but unless you want to spend a prolonged time with your neck craned left, you're gonna have to swivel your head back to the normal front-facing position.
I frequently found myself in the following annoying situation:
- I look left, I see something cool,
- I say "ooh - I want to go over there"
-.....then I have to turn my head back to the right, so that I can turn my mouse to the left, and be facing my new direction with my head in a comfortable neutral position.
This type of movement is not natural, intuitive, or efficient. Add to this that there's significant movement lag, and the whole operation becomes really awkward. I guess you'd get used to it just like anything else, but it hardly feels like a positive evolution for gaming.
So, at the moment, the whole headtracking thing feels like a semi-useless gimmick: something that has an initial wow factor, but that you won't actually use once the novelty wears off. It's kind of crazy to even refer to the Rift as "Virtual Reality". It doesn't even come close.
What it amounts to at the moment is having a screen strapped to your face while you play a game in much the same way as before: sitting down, motionless, facing forward, using a gamepad or mouse/keyboard to look and move around.
.....this then was meant to lead onto the question "is there hope for the Rift to become a true VR device?", which is in part 2 of my earlier post
Some recent Oculus news:
[url]http://allthingsd.com/20131017/oculus-rift-will-be-a-no-motion-sickness-experience-with-4k-display-ceo-says/[/url]
CEO says that he no longer gets VR sickness with latest prototype, and previously always got it.
I too had a chance to play around with the devkit, and will also share my thoughts. I'll try to address some questions that I previously had but that I haven't seen answered before. Please note that I only spent a few hours with the Rift all up. I tried the built-in demo, Museum of the Microstar, Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
I'll be frank. In its current state, it's bloody awful. It's blurry, low-res, and the screen-door effect is strong. The headtracking feels like a poorly implemented gimmick at the moment. Frankly, the Rift in its current form doesn't even deserve to be called Virtual Reality, since the headtracking is so limited and laggy that you wouldn't dream of using it as anything other than a supplement to your gamepad/mouse.
WHAT'S IT LIKE HAVING A SCREEN SO CLOSE TO YOUR EYES?
Not great. I don't know if it's because of the closeness of the screen, or because of the limitations of the OR prototype itself, or both, but the image is fuzzy and poor. Did you ever stick your face right up against an analogue TV when you were a kid, to the point where the image becomes kind of fuzzy and vague? Well, that's kind of what this feels like. Another example that comes to mind is the Sega Game Gear from the early 90s and how I remember that looking.
The image is nice and big and warm - the size is the best thing about it. Despite the low resolution, it feels bigger than a nice 27" monitor, using a projector, or even being at the cinema. But the quantity of the image is certainly not matched by the quality. The pixels are so far apart from each other that sometimes your mind struggles to organise them into a coherent whole. It tends to be hard to make out detail or read text unless it's quite close to you. And due to the lag and blur, forget about trying to make out detail unless you stop moving.
IS IT COMPATIBLE WITH REGULAR GLASSES?
Not really, as the lenses risk scratching your glasses. However it comes with 3 sets of lenses that are said to suit most people, even if they are long sighted or short sighted.
HOW DOES THE HEADTRACKING FEEL?
At the moment, awful. It's very laggy, and I found it very blurry. Yes, it is genuinely nice to look up at the sky with your head and see the sky in the virtual world. But the lag to get there is unpleasant. It feels like this: You swivel your head, a quarter-second later the screen starts moving to catch up to your head's new position, the screen start blurring and shaking, then another quarter-second later, it finally settles on your new location. It's like bad vsync input-lag, but several times worse, and with camera-shake thrown into the mix.
HOW DOES THE MOVEMENT FROM HEADTRACKING WORK IN CONJUNCTION WITH MOVEMENT FROM KEYBOARD/GAMEPAD/MOUSE?
In everything I played, the headtracking was essentially mapped to the mouse. In other words, you can't move with your head, but you can steer with it. And just like in conventional gaming, your WASD (or left stick) is dependent on your mouse (or in this case head orientation). So, when you press W (or up on the stick), you will walk in whichever direction you happen to be looking.
Note, however, that the mouse and right analogue stick still work. In fact, they are very necessary (see below). So, it's kind of like having two 'mice'. When you move your mouse left, the camera swivels left; when you swivel your head left, the camera also swivels left; if you move your head and mouse left at the same time, the camera will swivel left but twice as fast.
IS THERE HOPE FOR THE RIFT TO BECOME A TRUE VR DEVICE?
I think so. At the very least, it will require a wireless version of the headset, and a wireless controller. Ideally, it will use something like the Omni - a 'cage' with a treadmill that lets you freely walk around without fear of bumping into your furniture. Even more ideally, it will utilise some sort of mocap technology or motion controller, so that you can move your arms around in the virtual space.
However, it will probably work quite well simply sitting down in a swivel chair. With a wireless Rift and gamepad, you'd be able to happily swivel around 360 degrees, and the headtracking will start to mean something, rather than just being a means of temporarily looking around while the traditional controls do all the heavy lifting.
WAIT - WEREN'T YOU ONE OF THE FORUM MEMBERS WHO WAS VOCALLY SINGING THE PRAISES OF THE RIFT?
Yes. And I have to eat a slice of humble pie here. To those people who I argued with: you were right!
Though in my defense, I always maintained that the beauty of the Rift was not that it was going to floor us all with its first commercially released version. The beauty is that it has singlehandedly created a viable foot-in-the-door for the VR market. I always said that we weren't going to see truly satisfying VR until future updated versions of the Oculus Rift were made, or even until other companies start competing with it. My mind hasn't changed in this regard.
DO YOU HAVE HOPE FOR THE RIFT AND/OR VR BECOMING COMMERCIALLY VIABLE ON A LARGE SCALE?
I think it's definitely possible, though there are many hurdles they need to overcome. Once the hype is over, I can't see the average consumer accepting the Rift if it's anything like the current devkit. I don't care if they sell it for $5 - it just isn't compelling in its current state for any kind of serious gaming.
The screen needs vast improvement, but that's the least of my worries, since that easily can and will improve, as screens always do. The physical comfort of the device needs a lot of improvement too, though again I'm not worried there.
The headtracking is more of a worry, as it's currently little more than an impotent gimmick. I'm honestly surprised that they can even get away with calling this devkit a VR device, since the headtracking is so crippled. The team is testing a wireless version, though that will likely add to their already significant latency problems.
I guess it all depends on how much the Rift improves before release. If it improves A LOT, then it may create a sustainable niche in the market for VR. From there, technological advancements will inevitably catch up until one day it, or something like it, becomes actually fun, easy, and beautiful to use.
IS THE CURRENT DEVKIT EASY TO SET UP? ARE THERE MANY GAMES FOR IT?
To physically set up? Easy. To run the [kinda crappy] inbuilt demo? Easy. To get it working properly on a game? That part is not so easy.
There are few games that properly support it. Even those that most famously support it (Doom BFG, Team Fortress, Half Life 2) require a lot of stuffing around in consoles and ini files etc. to get it to work.
The Rift is all but unusable in 2D mode, so trying to navigate your desktop while wearing it is difficult.
WILL YOU BUY THE COMMERCIAL VERSION?
As you can see by my sig, I am not shy about spending money on my computer. I'm also serious about good gaming peripherals. I own a Razer gamepad, a Razer mechanical gaming keypad, a 14-button Corsair mouse, a Logitech racing wheel, and a wacom tablet. Whatever disposable income I have, I spend on my PC. And then some. Yet will I buy the Rift in 2014 or 2015? Quite possibly not.
I've done my part to support the 'VR revolution' by buying the devkit, and I don't know if I'll be willing to drop another $300 next year on what will probably still feel more like a gimmick than a powerful experience.
I think VR will only be good when it allows you to feel like you're really moving through the space. This will require low-latency headtracking, and a physical treadmill/station/motion-tracking package of some sort such as the Omni.
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR DEVKIT NOW?
Not much. If you've read this far, are a regular member of this forum, and I feel I kind of know who you are, then you can borrow it for a month or two (sorry, if I haven't seen you around these forums much and I don't feel I know who you are, I will have to refuse - please don't take offence).
If you happen to live in Melbourne Australia, you can pick it up in person. Otherwise, you'll have to pay me the postage via paypal (it will cost an arm and a leg unfortunately, and you'll have to pay to post it back to me....this will still be cheaper than buying a devkit, but barely!). You can use this site to estimate postage costs. PM me if you're interested.
EDIT: I found a taker. But if you're interested, make a comment on this thread, and we can organise that person to send it on to you once he's finished with it.
FINAL THOUGHTS?
Well, I think that the sort of VR we've all dreamed about will be profoundly enjoyable and beautiful. And because of the Oculus Rift, such a future may now be feasible. But this future won't likely come soon.
I'm pretty sure that by the time a genuinely fluid, beautiful and enjoyable VR experience comes along, I'll be able to discover it together with my daughter, who will be old enough to play games on it with me. She's currently 6 months old.
I suggest that you go for the basics and try other native VR demos, but if Tuscany is laggy for you, there must be something terribly wrong with your OR. Museum of the Microstar is awfully laggy for me too, but it's a problem of the demo itself. I've read that it improves if you don't use multiple displays, but I'm yet to try it again.
No glasses, what? I have glasses and use them with my OR almost daily. You know you can adjust the distance of the lenses right? On each side of the OR there's a coin shaped indent that will add space between your eyes and the lenses, please try it.
About the resolution, every demo you try should be set for 1080p or higher, no matter that the OR is only 1280x800, it will help immensely with the jaggies, and mostly will only leave the screen door as an issue.
I couldn't agree less with you. I love the OR, to the point that I've stopped playing any first person games even on 3d vision, so that I can play them with the commercial OR when it releases. For me immersion improves tenfold with OR vs anything else, including 3DVision, but well it may not be everyone's opinion of course.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
But anyway, the lagginess wasn't nearly as much of a problem as the general pointlessness of moving my head since I was fettered to the desk and still had to use the mouse/gamepad to turn around. Though as I said a wireless version would solve this, albeit at the cost of more lag.
I can get away with wearing glasses with my unit, though I don't need to. But the official documentation discourages it, saying they may get scratched. So I thought that was worth mentioning.
Running at a higher-than-native resolution is news to me. That's weird. Still, I could tolerate the crappy picture quality if the rest felt compelling to me.
Well, I'm glad that there are people like you who will be early eager adopters. I wish the tech all the best, as the future of VR seems to depend on it. But I don't think I'll get on board until it's matured more.
"The head-tracking is easily the most impressive part. It's spot on. You move your head, you look around. It really adds to the game."
It really doesn't sound like it's laggy to him at all either.
And yeah, try the demos at higher res, it really helps.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
edit:
Is that what you were refering to birthright?
My only trepidation was with the head tracking controlling mouse look and you didn't seem to make that aspect sound positive Volnaiskra. Games like Hawking get me excited with the rift, where you are in the cockpit!
You are seriously that unimpressed that are happy to loan it out!
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I guess everyone's eyes are different, and something like this really amplifies that. For example, I got zero motion sickness, while others had it violently.
But I'm probably extra sensitive to smoothness (or lack of smoothness). When a game goes from 60fps to 57fps, I immediately notice, and I've always hated irregular framerates in games. To me, the Rift kind of felt like it was going at 25fps or so, even though I was actually getting 60fps. It just didn't feel anywhere near as responsive as a mouse to me. But someone less sensitive to that might find it fine.
@andysonofbob: Actually, I'd say that in its current form, the only games that the Rift would be really well suited to would be games like Hawking or racing games.
I found using the Rift in a 360 degree world annoying, because the current wired physical setup just isn't conducive to it. Having to use a combination of mouse and head movement to get the job done just felt like an overcomplication of something that should feel natural.
But a cockpit car or plane game would be perfect, since you would actually want that separation of your gamepad/joystick movement and your head movement. And it would also feel natural that your body is always facing the same direction (so even when you look behind you, you know and expect that you'll need to swivel your head back towards the front after a moment).
I also can't fit my glasses inside the rift. Like it "could" but its at the threshold of breaking them and I don't get a seal with the rift which causes breathing to fog the lenses.
Most people can't/shouldn't use glasses, which is reason they offer the magnified lenses. Though they aren't a great alternative.
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Right now I'm playing Doom 3 with the OR patch. There are lots of demos coming almost weekly, several games have official support like Retrovirus, Kairo, Lunar Flight, Slender, War Thunder, Half Life 2, TF2. Obviously no AAA stuff, but enough games to keep me busy. Also there are lots of patches for old games like Quake 1 and 2, doom, duke nukem, minecraft, and so on, and with the recent vorpx release and the incoming vireio, there's a lot of stuff to try.
Volnaiskra, if you're really that sensitive to frame drops then that could be the problem. I use to play in 3d at 30 fps just fine, I finished Tomb Raider at 24fps with the hmz-t1 in 1080p (upscaled or whatever). Of course I would like to play at 60 fps but my good old single 460gtx doesn't have much more juice left, but it has to last a few more months yet lol
I use rather small glasses so that may be an advantage with the OR, fancy glasses could be a problem indeed.
All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com
To some, I probably sound like some sort of elitist 60fps snob, but it's probably a physical sensitivity issue. I also find 24fps movies at the cinema to be unpleasantly jerky, especially during camera pans.
I'm actually a huge fan of motion blur in games like Crysis or Witcher 2, as I find it makes the movement feel less jerky and more natural. So theoretically, the blur in the Rift should have been a good thing for me. But I guess it must work a bit differently.
I'm also pretty sure that the bad effect that you are seeing is the smearing, not the actual latency. Your description as 1/4 second delay to move, then 1/4 second to stabilize is far above the actual latency, but pretty close to what I also see for smearing. It definitely makes it really difficult to play when things are moving.
I watched a player using Oculus in a driving game, and it was unfortunately bad there as well, because of the smearing. As he was looking through turns, everything smeared out to where he'd miss the apex more often than not, and it showed in his scores.
Not exactly sure where the smearing comes from, I'd read earlier that a couple of clever fellows believe it comes from the dewarping shader doing anti-aliasing while things are moving. If you disable the dewarp shader in Tuscany, you no longer have smearing. Might be worth a try as an experiment.
Anybody try VorpX yet?
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HOW DOES HEADTRACKING WORK - DO YOU NEED TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE REAL WORLD TO SPIN 180 DEGREES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD?
Technically: Yes.
Realistically: Yes and no.
If you want to look 180 degrees behind you, you will need to turn 180 degrees around. So it feels like a realistic space in this sense.
However, the current devkit has your headset permanently connected with a short cord to the desk unit. So, you're basically parked in your chair, more or less facing the same direction the entire time. Therefore, you need to continue to use the mouse or gamepad to make most major movements, while the headtracking plays a supplementary role. This makes the whole headtracking thing feel kind of redundant. Basically, you'll currently use your headtracking for two things:
1. 'Fine tuning' your movements after using the mouse or gamepad to make your main movements.
2. Temporarily looking around. I say "temporarily", because remember that you're always facing the same direction since you're rooted to the spot with a cable. So, it's all fine and good to look left and admire the scenery there, but unless you want to spend a prolonged time with your neck craned left, you're gonna have to swivel your head back to the normal front-facing position.
I frequently found myself in the following annoying situation:
- I look left, I see something cool,
- I say "ooh - I want to go over there"
-.....then I have to turn my head back to the right, so that I can turn my mouse to the left, and be facing my new direction with my head in a comfortable neutral position.
This type of movement is not natural, intuitive, or efficient. Add to this that there's significant movement lag, and the whole operation becomes really awkward. I guess you'd get used to it just like anything else, but it hardly feels like a positive evolution for gaming.
So, at the moment, the whole headtracking thing feels like a semi-useless gimmick: something that has an initial wow factor, but that you won't actually use once the novelty wears off. It's kind of crazy to even refer to the Rift as "Virtual Reality". It doesn't even come close.
What it amounts to at the moment is having a screen strapped to your face while you play a game in much the same way as before: sitting down, motionless, facing forward, using a gamepad or mouse/keyboard to look and move around.
.....this then was meant to lead onto the question "is there hope for the Rift to become a true VR device?", which is in part 2 of my earlier post
http://allthingsd.com/20131017/oculus-rift-will-be-a-no-motion-sickness-experience-with-4k-display-ceo-says/
CEO says that he no longer gets VR sickness with latest prototype, and previously always got it.
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Latest 3Dmigoto Release
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