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ZeniMax: Palmer Luckey knowingly lied about creating VR, used stolen code & resources

S

sirap

Member
c1BSLkP.jpg
 
I

ido

Member
Graphics Horse said:
He's absolutely the wide fov HMD guy, but were any of these HMDS actually VR specific? Cus I remember reading those forums where they were talking about leaving space for plugging in an orientation sensor and such.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was easier to just use your own tracker back then by taping it to your HMD.

I think the big takeaway is his use of the single screen to provide a large FOV for cheap, which provided VR a really great window of innovation during a time when smaller screens were too expensive. Eventually the Rift opted for dual screens, but I suspect that's in large part due to the cost of small displays coming down in price as a result of the smartphone.
 
K

Kieli

Member
ZeniMax just salty as fuck Oculus VR poached Carmack. So they're going scorched earth and trying to take down Oculus with the flimsiest of excuses regarding the code.

Like, what the fuck does ZeniMax even have in VR pre-Oculus worth stealing.
 
R

Riptwo

Member
AwesomeMeat said:
Here is a decent write up about it. They were openly sharing information because Valve was supporting them before the Facebook buyout. I'm not implying Oculus did anything wrong, just saying Palmer has had software and hardware support from Valve and Zenimax if they are to be believed.

http://www.roadtovr.com/alan-yates-rift-is-direct-copy-of-valves-vr-research/
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I've read that article in the past, but I'm still not sure what the implication is as to the allegations outlined in this topic. Yes, Yates is right that collaboratively developed tech made it into a product from a company that hired much of the former Valve staff involved with the initial prototypes. That still doesn't have much to do with Zenimax's claims that they are the inventors of modern VR, and that Luckey's early hardware prototypes (as detailed on mtbs3d.com) had nothing to due with the current state of the tech.
 
SinSilla

SinSilla

Member
Graphics Horse said:
He's absolutely the wide fov HMD guy, but were any of these HMDS actually VR specific? Cus I remember reading those forums pre kickstarter where they were talking about leaving space for plugging in an orientation sensor and such.
Click to expand...

Well, they were all VR specific as in...well that's the goal after all.

To achieve that you need (just one Bullet point obviously) a wide FoV. Due to Lack of proper Displays back then we had to choose between monoscopic wide FoV vs relatively narrow fov stereoscopic hmd.

It was palmers idea to split the output to a single Display into two images to circumvent the lack of two fitting Displays. That was the turning point if you ask me.(and Ido, Hey Buddy!)
 
A

AwesomeMeat

PossumMeat
Riptwo said:
I've read that article in the past, but I'm still not sure what the implication is as to the allegations outlined in this topic. Yes, Yates is right that collaboratively developed tech made it into a product from a company that hired much of the former Valve staff involved with the initial prototypes. That still doesn't have much to do with Zenimax's claims that they are the inventors of modern VR, and that Luckey's early hardware prototypes (as detailed on mtbs3d.com) had nothing to due with the current state of the tech.
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Ah, gotcha. The point being is that Luckey allegedly got by with a lot of help from a lot of people. It may substatiate some of their claims about Palmer falsely representing himself...
 
C

CrunchyFrog

Member
This is bluster, and frankly too little too late if Zenimax really wanted to make a cash grab. Oculus has FB money behind it, they'll lose this pretty dearly.
 
D

DorkyMohr

Banned
I think it's believable only in the fact that Carmack is the kind of guy who just works on projects like this because he thinks their interesting and his work on traditional videogames was largely stagnant being an employee at Zenimax.

Personally I think the concept that things you work on while at a particular company belongs to that company has always been reliant on a very fuzzy definition that typically favors the company. I have a hard time buying nabbing files is an act of company subterfuge and more like 'welp this is my work so I'm going to take it with me.'
 
L

LewieP

Member
I think in part this is just notoriously litigious Bethesda living up to their reputation, and most of the claims are a stretch, I think it's perfectly likely that Carmack did take Bethesda assets with him to Oculus. Probably assets that he developed whilst working at id, but they would still be Bethesda property. I can see how, him being an engineer more than anything else, wouldn't want hard work to go to waste, and perhaps might no fully consider (or particularly care about) the legal ramifications.

I think Oculus have done some pretty questionable things and I'd I'm intrigued to see how this plays out.
 
J

Jotaka

Member
ido said:
Yeah, posted in the other Zenimax thread.

I paid Palmer to make me an high-res HMD back in 2009/2010, and it ended up being his first prototype. This was a long time before Carmack joined the forum. After he built the PR1(Prototype 1), he made quite a few more named prototypes before Carmack joined the forums and asked to borrow one. Each one increasingly more Rift-like.

He really was doing this stuff before any Zenimax/Carmack intervention.
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HMD is nothing new. What make it 3D ready is the lens/sensors and software.
 
M

Metal B

Member
LewieP said:
I think in part this is just notoriously litigious Bethesda living up to their reputation, and most of the claims are a stretch, I think it's perfectly likely that Carmack did take Bethesda assets with him to Oculus. Probably assets that he developed whilst working at id, but they would still be Bethesda property. I can see how, him being an engineer more than anything else, wouldn't want hard work to go to waste, and perhaps might no fully consider (or particularly care about) the legal ramifications.

I think Oculus have done some pretty questionable things and I'd I'm intrigued to see how this plays out.
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Nobody opinion matters, if Carmack broke his contract with ZeniMax and took those files. Unless he is a whistleblower and uncovered that they were forcing monkies to create Bethesda's engines, there is no legal ground for his actions.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Riptwo said:
If I recall, Valve at the time weren't planning on releasing any sort of headset, and because of that, most of their VR team jumped ship to Oculus anyway to work on CV1. Was Valve actively experimenting with VR prior to DK1?
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But this isn't true according to Alan Yates. Some people left, but the team responsible for that tech "Steam Sense" and the "room demo" still remain in Valve's VR team, and it is his belief that Zuckerberg mandated Oculus with trying to poach them, but failed. Valve's idea behind being open about the research freely was an attempt to get the PC platform moving with it (or so they say in their talks). The suggestion from a GDC talk with Gabe Newell & Geoff Keighley, if reading between the lines, implies that the Facebook acquisition of Oculus / refusal of contact after that was what spurred a change of direction for Valve to work on a headset.
 
C

chromatic9

Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg

You only have to watch the videos of JC to know what he's done in VR previous to Oculus, by hacking Sony like HMD for years, solving issues adding sensors and software programming and he got Palmers HMD working, all while being employed by Zenimax.

Not to mention the sheer fact of the Carmack effect in giving this serious traction. He adds substantial weight just with him demoing it.

Pretty sure there was another video in Carmack's place of work, can't seem to find it now.

Edit, JC actually says what he added to Palmers HMD in the vid above.
 
R

Riptwo

Member
Nzyme32 said:
But this isn't true according to Alan Yates. Some people left, but the team responsible for that tech "Steam Sense" and the "room demo" still remain in Valve's VR team, and it is his belief that Zuckerberg mandated Oculus with trying to poach them, but failed. Valve's idea behind being open about the research freely was an attempt to get the PC platform moving with it (or so they say in their talks). The suggestion from a GDC talk with Gabe Newell & Geoff Keighley, if reading between the lines, implies that the Facebook acquisition of Oculus / refusal of contact after that was what spurred a change of direction for Valve to work on a headset.
Click to expand...
Yates' assertions about whether the tech that they offered up for collaboration ended up in CV1 still doesn't seem to have anything to do with the development of DK1, unless I'm missing something major. They worked collaboratively with the Oculus team to design consumer HMDs, and many of their employees even jumped ship to continue their work (i.e. Abrash, as evidenced by his musings online). It doesn't seem like that's a smoking gun for Zenimax to use in their assertions that Luckey's documented HMD work doesn't count towards the current state of VR.
 
SinSilla

SinSilla

Member
chromatic9 said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg

You only have to watch the videos of JC to know what he's done in VR previous to Oculus, by hacking Sony like HMD for years, solving issues adding sensors and software programming and he got Palmers HMD working, all while being employed by Zenimax.

Not to mention the sheer fact of the Carmack effect in giving this serious traction. He adds substantial weight just with him demoing it.

Pretty sure there was another video in Carmack's place of work, can't seem to find it now.
Click to expand...

"Got it working" is stretching it. It was in a good working state including high performance head tracking sensor (which wasnt Palmers work, but from another Community member and later Oculus staff).

Giving something traction and substantial weight is not illegal.

Beside that, having John involved was key to the Rifts success and some of its enhancements. But the stable foundation has been there already.
 
meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
Even if this has some truth to it (and it may not), it doesn't mean Luckey isn't important.

It's the same argument as those idiotically saying Steve Jobs doesn't matter cuz Wozniak made everything early on.

Granted VR may not take off like Apple did, but Luckey still lays claim to the overall vision, and that's really important. I see some Silicon Valley references in here, that show's fourth episode was great for laying out how important vision is to these young tech companies.

As for Carmack, I frankly don't give a shit if he took stuff, assuming he made it. In my opinion IP law needs to be reworked, creators should have some right to their creations too going forward.
 
G

Glass Shark

Banned
This allegation doesn't make sense based on my understanding of the timeline of Carmack's involvement in Oculus. Unless he secretly got involved much earlier than was made public, Zenimax is really grasping here. And if a random person on the internet can see through their case, how do they actually expect this to hold up in court?
 
Y

Yankee Ruin X

Member
Just seems like the usual lawyer rubbish basically trying to claim that Zenimax created the Rift by way of the fact Carmack was under employment by them so by default all his work belongs to them so any involvement of work he did on the Rift is their property and without it the Rift would not exist.

Zenimax will have to prove that something Carmack did while under contract with Zenimax has been used in the Rift as is today and that will probably be extremely difficult as I'm sure anything that was worked on will have been tweaked or changed since then so I really don't think they have anything to worry about. Just a cash grab attempt by Zenimax nothing more.
 
J

Jotaka

Member
meanspartan said:
As for Carmack, I frankly don't give a shit if he took stuff, assuming he made it. In my opinion IP law needs to be reworked, creators should have some right to their creations too going forward.
Click to expand...

This is complicated because we don't know if 100% code in the files had being wrote by Carmack.
 
A

androvsky

Member
Yankee Ruin X said:
Just seems like the usual lawyer rubbish basically trying to claim that Zenimax created the Rift by way of the fact Carmack was under employment by them so by default all his work belongs to them so any involvement of work he did on the Rift is their property and without it the Rift would not exist.

Zenimax will have to prove that something Carmack did while under contract with Zenimax has been used in the Rift as is today and that will probably be extremely difficult as I'm sure anything that was worked on will have been tweaked or changed since then so I really don't think they have anything to worry about. Just a cash grab attempt by Zenimax nothing more.
Click to expand...

That, and Carmack's contract with Zenimax would have to be pretty standard. I'd imagine if anyone's got a custom contract that lets them retain IP made off the clock or not specifically requested by Zenimax, it'd be Carmack. I doubt Zenimax was particularly interested in owning IP made for Armadillo Aerospace, for example, which was still a thing at the time of purchase iirc.
 
meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
jrh2 said:
This allegation doesn't make sense based on my understanding of the timeline of Carmack's involvement in Oculus. Unless he secretly got involved much earlier than was made public, Zenimax is really grasping here. And if a random person on the internet can see through their case, how do they actually expect this to hold up in court?
Click to expand...

Well if you've read the (awesome) "Masters of Doom" book that talked about Carmack and Romero's founding of Id Software and their early years, you'd know that this kinda shit isn't really out of character for Carmack, though I did think having gotten older and making a ton of money would remove this recklessness.

They made I think it was Commander Keen by taking computers out of their workplace at night to take to their apartments, working through the night, then bringing them back before the morning.
 
E

eyeball_kid

Member
Regardless of the extent of the merits, it sounds like John Carmack was sloppy with what he developed on company time and at home. And when you're dealing with a company basically run by a pack of lawyers, the last thing you want to be is sloppy.
 
W

Wollan

Member
Palmer kickstarted it with his hardware and deserves credit for that.

I can see how Carmack's work could possibly violate software regulations/ownership (bullshit laws that needs to go but it's still the current law).
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Riptwo said:
Yates' assertions about whether the tech that they offered up for collaboration ended up in CV1 still doesn't seem to have anything to do with the development of DK1, unless I'm missing something major. They worked collaboratively with the Oculus team to design consumer HMDs, and many of their employees even jumped ship to continue their work (i.e. Abrash, as evidenced by his musings online). It doesn't seem like that's a smoking gun for Zenimax to use in their assertions that Luckey's documented HMD work doesn't count towards the current state of VR.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah for sure, it doesn't have anything to do with DK1, though we do know Valve and Oculus were collaborating with research at that point. Prior to that though, that is what this is all about
 
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