I am very excited about this. Sure, the developer version won't be that great from a gamer point of view (obviously it's not targeted to consumers) but I'm pretty sure that if there will be enough software support, the consumer version will be. If not the first generation then the next one.
Thanks to huge advancements in small screens, made possible by the mobile industry, the resolution of the screens will be high enough in a year or two. Slightly larger panels would also make higher FOV possible. They also need a way to reliably and accurately track the position of the head: now the device tracks the orientation but not the position, which will reduce immersion and can cause nausea. When they solve these problems, make the devices wireless (I hope it's possible with high resolution panels) and get enough software support, I believe this will be the coolest gaming peripheral ever made. I really can't wait to get to try it.
However, I'm not sure if it's ideal for multiplayer shooters like NS2. For single player games and probably for games like L4D, this kind of display, possibly together with some kind of gun controller and even Kinect-like motion tracking, this could be amazing.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Pledge $5,000 or more 8 Backers Limited <!--coloro:#FFA500--><span style="color:#FFA500"><!--/coloro-->(2 of 10 left)<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
STUDIO PACK - 10x EARLY RIFT DEVELOPER KITS + PREMIUM SUPPORT EVALUATION + DOOM 3 BFG: Want your team to have access to the cutting edge of gaming? You'll receive 10 developer kits (early prototype of the Rift headset), enough for your whole team to get started developing with the Rift. You’ll also receive an evaluation of our premium support, with direct access to Oculus engineers. This also includes 10 copies of Doom 3 BFG and full access to our Developer Center for our SDK, docs, samples, and engine integrations! (Please add $150 for international shipping)
VISIT OCULUS FOR THE DAY + ALL OF THE ABOVE: We'll fly you out to the Oculus lab where you'll spend a day hanging out with the team and checking out all of our latest work (and maybe playing a few games too). You'll also receive a developer kit, a copy of Doom 3 BFG, Developer Center access, the t-shirt, and the poster, all signed by the entire Oculus team, in person. (US-residents only, sorry!) Est. delivery: Dec 2012<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
only 2 left on the 5000$ developer kits it appears this got quite some developer backing , they could have bought the cheaper 3000$ devkit version, which is the same thing, minus the trip to the oculus labs, but it appears several companies really want to get in touch with oculus.
<!--quoteo(post=1958094:date=Aug 6 2012, 10:31 PM:name=ale')--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ale' @ Aug 6 2012, 10:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1958094"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thanks to huge advancements in small screens, made possible by the mobile industry, the resolution of the screens will be high enough<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
problem is, the mobile industry isnt giving their precious panels away, and mostly have the patents and very strict contracts with the oem component manufacturers to prevent any 3rd party using their technology.
but i strongly believe that this huge ammount of interrest in oculus rift will get something to roll, like some major backing by some panel manufacturer. i was reading in the kickstarter comments that they have realy good chances to get higher res panels for the consumer release models from an unnamed provider.
douchebagatronCustom member titleJoin Date: 2003-12-20Member: 24581Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1957915:date=Aug 5 2012, 06:47 PM:name=sheena_yanai)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sheena_yanai @ Aug 5 2012, 06:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1957915"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->you are broken indeed or rather your common sense is.
you forgot the lenses between your eyes and the tft panel compensating for the distance, making your eyes focusing not any different than looking at a regular computer screen at a regular viewing distance. think about a old camcorder viewfinder, its lcd screen is just a centimeter away from your eye<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, they had this out at QuakeCon and I got to try one of the prototypes.
I've tried other headsets once or twice, but this was the best headset I have ever used. I'm going to do a full writeup on another site (I can link when I am done).
When I put it on, I moved my head in any direction I could think of and it followed. I couldn't notice any video delay. When I moved around, it was very disorientating at first. My eyes were saying I was walking forward and my body replied saying "you be crazy." I did get over it. The two screens display slightly different angles, just like your eye sees. After talking with a friend, we had to ask if they were 3D or not. It was so good, it wasn't noticeable like other headmounts. This also is aided by the closeness to the lenses. The lenses are crazy close to the eyes. No glasses can be worn. For me, with weird elongated eyes or whatever, my eyes actually hit the lenses (lame). After getting over the hurdles, I got to play some of Doom3:BFG Edition with it. I was like a kid in a candy store.
Do want, plz.
As I said, I can link my writeup/video on the things once I finish it.
I wonder what that means for farsighted people. I'm nearsighted, so anything up close is no issue, but I have no idea if farsighted people can look through microscopes without their glasses or whatever. Contact lenses should work though.
<!--quoteo(post=1958420:date=Aug 7 2012, 12:45 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Aug 7 2012, 12:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1958420"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I wonder what that means for farsighted people. I'm nearsighted, so anything up close is no issue, but I have no idea if farsighted people can look through microscopes without their glasses or whatever. Contact lenses should work though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The goggles I have have a pair of sliders for each eye. One adjusts the interpupilary distance, the other adjusts diopter. In theory it should be possible to focus the image onto anyone's eye, irrespective of corrective prescription.
If these fancy-shmancy goggles don't have these adjustments, you might be able to buy lens kits for various diopter values.
As a backer, I started wondering could we integrate this into NS2 with the current modding tools. The SDK's aren't out yet, but as far I understood, this is how it would be integrated:
1) First we need a simple head skeleton for moving the two cameras (one for each eyes) in such a way that it moves the same as your eyes when you turn your neck. Carmack explained this in the E3 video. 2) Then we would need to hook the head tracking data to move this skeleton, so that it moves the cameras correctly. 3) The rendering pipeline would need to be edited in a way that it renders both cameras for each frame into textures. Then a postprocessing pass would read both textures (cameras), transform them into the left and right side of the final image and apply the required vertex shaders which distorts the image in a way that it matches the lenses in the oculus rift.
Now I haven't ever looked inside the NS2 sources yet, but there's at least the following problems there might be on the lua side: - Can we access the player position, camera matrixes etc in a way that we can rewrite a skeleton model in the middle? - Can the engine support two cameras which are both rendered for every frame? - Can the lua acces the accelerometer data from the SDK. This will probably be a showstopper and we would need Max to write some C++ to lua support code. - Can we add the required postprocessing step into the rendering pipeline? This is probably just one simple postprocessing shader, assuming that we get the both camera images as textures into the postprocessing step.
Are there any other kickstarter backers who know knows their way around the ns2 code base? Has Flayra or Max looked into the Oculus project? I doubt that the ns2 team has the time to fully implement all the required features to a good Oculus Rift support, but maybe they would have the time to do the minimum required api coding, so that the Oculus SDK is exposed to the lua side, and let the modding community do the rest.
<!--quoteo(post=1957900:date=Aug 5 2012, 11:41 PM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 5 2012, 11:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1957900"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also <b>Gemmy</b>; the 110-degree FOV is nice, but if you read the white-paper...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Thanks to huge advancements in small screens, made possible by the mobile industry, the resolution of the screens will be high enough in a year or two. Slightly larger panels would also make higher FOV possible. They also need a way to reliably and accurately track the position of the head: now the device tracks the orientation but not the position, which will reduce immersion and can cause nausea. When they solve these problems, make the devices wireless (I hope it's possible with high resolution panels) and get enough software support, I believe this will be the coolest gaming peripheral ever made. I really can't wait to get to try it.
However, I'm not sure if it's ideal for multiplayer shooters like NS2. For single player games and probably for games like L4D, this kind of display, possibly together with some kind of gun controller and even Kinect-like motion tracking, this could be amazing.
8 Backers
Limited <!--coloro:#FFA500--><span style="color:#FFA500"><!--/coloro-->(2 of 10 left)<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
STUDIO PACK - 10x EARLY RIFT DEVELOPER KITS + PREMIUM SUPPORT EVALUATION + DOOM 3 BFG: Want your team to have access to the cutting edge of gaming? You'll receive 10 developer kits (early prototype of the Rift headset), enough for your whole team to get started developing with the Rift. You’ll also receive an evaluation of our premium support, with direct access to Oculus engineers. This also includes 10 copies of Doom 3 BFG and full access to our Developer Center for our SDK, docs, samples, and engine integrations! (Please add $150 for international shipping)
VISIT OCULUS FOR THE DAY + ALL OF THE ABOVE: We'll fly you out to the Oculus lab where you'll spend a day hanging out with the team and checking out all of our latest work (and maybe playing a few games too). You'll also receive a developer kit, a copy of Doom 3 BFG, Developer Center access, the t-shirt, and the poster, all signed by the entire Oculus team, in person. (US-residents only, sorry!)
Est. delivery: Dec 2012<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
only 2 left on the 5000$ developer kits
it appears this got quite some developer backing
, they could have bought the cheaper 3000$ devkit version, which is the same thing, minus the trip to the oculus labs, but it appears several companies really want to get in touch with oculus.
im having a good feeling about this
problem is, the mobile industry isnt giving their precious panels away, and mostly have the patents and very strict contracts with the oem component manufacturers to prevent any 3rd party using their technology.
but i strongly believe that this huge ammount of interrest in oculus rift will get something to roll, like some major backing by some panel manufacturer. i was reading in the kickstarter comments that they have realy good chances to get higher res panels for the consumer release models from an unnamed provider.
or rather your common sense is.
you forgot the lenses between your eyes and the tft panel compensating for the distance, making your eyes focusing not any different than looking at a regular computer screen at a regular viewing distance. think about a old camcorder viewfinder, its lcd screen is just a centimeter away from your eye<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Touche!
I've tried other headsets once or twice, but this was the best headset I have ever used. I'm going to do a full writeup on another site (I can link when I am done).
When I put it on, I moved my head in any direction I could think of and it followed. I couldn't notice any video delay. When I moved around, it was very disorientating at first. My eyes were saying I was walking forward and my body replied saying "you be crazy." I did get over it. The two screens display slightly different angles, just like your eye sees. After talking with a friend, we had to ask if they were 3D or not. It was so good, it wasn't noticeable like other headmounts. This also is aided by the closeness to the lenses. The lenses are crazy close to the eyes. No glasses can be worn. For me, with weird elongated eyes or whatever, my eyes actually hit the lenses (lame). After getting over the hurdles, I got to play some of Doom3:BFG Edition with it. I was like a kid in a candy store.
Do want, plz.
As I said, I can link my writeup/video on the things once I finish it.
The goggles I have have a pair of sliders for each eye. One adjusts the interpupilary distance, the other adjusts diopter. In theory it should be possible to focus the image onto anyone's eye, irrespective of corrective prescription.
If these fancy-shmancy goggles don't have these adjustments, you might be able to buy lens kits for various diopter values.
--Scythe--
1) First we need a simple head skeleton for moving the two cameras (one for each eyes) in such a way that it moves the same as your eyes when you turn your neck. Carmack explained this in the E3 video.
2) Then we would need to hook the head tracking data to move this skeleton, so that it moves the cameras correctly.
3) The rendering pipeline would need to be edited in a way that it renders both cameras for each frame into textures. Then a postprocessing pass would read both textures (cameras), transform them into the left and right side of the final image and apply the required vertex shaders which distorts the image in a way that it matches the lenses in the oculus rift.
Now I haven't ever looked inside the NS2 sources yet, but there's at least the following problems there might be on the lua side:
- Can we access the player position, camera matrixes etc in a way that we can rewrite a skeleton model in the middle?
- Can the engine support two cameras which are both rendered for every frame?
- Can the lua acces the accelerometer data from the SDK. This will probably be a showstopper and we would need Max to write some C++ to lua support code.
- Can we add the required postprocessing step into the rendering pipeline? This is probably just one simple postprocessing shader, assuming that we get the both camera images as textures into the postprocessing step.
Are there any other kickstarter backers who know knows their way around the ns2 code base? Has Flayra or Max looked into the Oculus project? I doubt that the ns2 team has the time to fully implement all the required features to a good Oculus Rift support, but maybe they would have the time to do the minimum required api coding, so that the Oculus SDK is exposed to the lua side, and let the modding community do the rest.
- Garo
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pRHVJVgFF38"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pRHVJVgFF38" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
Hopefully we can also be part of that experiment :)
<!--quoteo(post=1957900:date=Aug 5 2012, 11:41 PM:name=Talesin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 5 2012, 11:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1957900"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also <b>Gemmy</b>; the 110-degree FOV is nice, but if you read the white-paper...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
:o <( ? )