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I Went To Valve And Saw The Future (VR Hype Thread)

Sounds great and I'd love to be able to try one of these products.

However, you mentioned walking around, and wishing you could manipulate things with your hands, etc. I personally have no desire to do that unless it is holodeck-style where there is no HMD and objects have substance. I would rather restrict motion to head tracking and just use a controller for movement and manipulation in the game world. To be honest, I prefer sitting on my ass while playing video games.
 

ido

Member
Thank you for the write-up. Extremely jelly.

As for the VR naysayers... I'll just post this quote from Palmer which I think it's relevant:

Cellphones sure are cute. And, yes, I do mean that in the most condescending way possible.

Look, I understand just how cool cellphones may seem to my tech nerd brothers and sisters. And I shouldn't judge something before I've tried it. But every time someone tells me how awesome this cutting-edge handheld phone technology is supposed to be, I can't help but see the gigantic, unwieldy phones of the 1980s and 90s flash in front of my eyes.

Cellphones might be a little smaller, cheaper, and easier to use, but the idea of holding a slab of plastic to your head to communicate with people is a quaint idea that I just don't see consumers adopting.
 

E-Cat

Member
Thank you for the write-up. Extremely jelly.

As for the VR naysayers... I'll just post this quote from Palmer which I think it's relevant:
Cellphones sure are cute. And, yes, I do mean that in the most condescending way possible.

Look, I understand just how cool cellphones may seem to my tech nerd brothers and sisters. And I shouldn't judge something before I've tried it. But every time someone tells me how awesome this cutting-edge handheld phone technology is supposed to be, I can't help but see the gigantic, unwieldy phones of the 1980s and 90s flash in front of my eyes.

Cellphones might be a little smaller, cheaper, and easier to use, but the idea of holding a slab of plastic to your head to communicate with people is a quaint idea that I just don't see consumers adopting.
wsippel, is that you?
 

Mondy

Banned
Yeah, they seriously need to make a full TRON video game for this thing and make it look visually like Legacy.
 

Gangxxter

Member
I personally have no desire to do that unless it is holodeck-style where there is no HMD and objects have substance. I would rather restrict motion to head tracking and just use a controller for movement and manipulation in the game world. To be honest, I prefer sitting on my ass while playing video games.
I agree. This is also the reason why I'm not interested at all in omnidirectional treadmills (Virtuix Omni) or full body tracking systems (Sixense STEM system).
 

ghst

thanks for the laugh
What a weird angle that article/headline has..

hey oculus riftards, some guy has been saying that valve's got a new headset and it makes palmer luckey's baby's first solution feel like a fisher price kaleidoscope, how's it feel to already be stuck in the past?

(please click. i haven't eaten in months)
 
Another article thats mistakenly assuming that(or at least unknowingly making it sound like) this is Valve in the stages of making a consumer product.

Which is weird. Didn't they watch the Steam Dev Days talks or pay attention to the devs who tweeted/blogged during that event?
 

graywolf323

Gold Member
I think this is everyone's knee-jerk reaction to the concept, but the truth is, there's nothing you wear on your face that has practical application that people don't use. People wear sunglasses because they prefer not to be accosted by the sun, people go skiing with goggles, they go diving, they go to play paintball, etc.

There really has never been a good reason to wear anything like a VR headset while at home until now, so while I would agree people don't really want to wear a headset, they will be more than happy with it for the experience it derives.

pretty much every single one of your examples is people putting something over their eyes for protection

VR is not protection
 

StuBurns

Banned
pretty much every single one of your examples is people putting something over their eyes for protection

VR is not protection
Protection because the activity they're choosing to take part in requires it, so they're prioritizing entertainment over the inconvenience of wearing face gear. Beyond that, I really don't see what difference it makes, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.
 

IcedTea

Member
Protection because the activity they're choosing to take part in requires it, so they're prioritizing entertainment over the inconvenience of wearing face gear. Beyond that, I really don't see what difference it makes, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

The thing is, when people invent problems in their head, you can't just talk them out of it. Because they think these problems are real. It's like reading things like

"Cars will never take off because you have to go to a specific place, out of your way, to refuel them"

or

"Consumers aren't going to want to walk around with cellphones on the side of their face because they look dumb and can't talk to the person beside them while doing it"

and shit like that. They're not real problems whatsoever. When you actually try the thing, you can look at "problems" like these and laugh at how utterly stupid they are. Those statements are ridiculous to anyone who's actually used a car or cell phone. But if you've never used a car or cell phone, and only vaguely knew what the tech even was, those might seem like legitimate issues. Basically, people will continue to invent problems that aren't real until they can see for themselves that the problems are not real.
 

ido

Member
The tech is amazing, and can be enjoyed by practically everyone. I just can't understand how people are doubting this without having tried it. The average person is actually going to be more impressed than us jaded gamers, because they genuinely do not really know what to expect.

My wife, a complete non-gamer, loves using the Rift. Not for games, but just for the experience. Our children are obsessed with it. Every single person I have let try the Rift has loved it, and I've brought this thing to gaming tournaments, work, etc. The experiences they are having is real, and almost every person asks me where they can buy one after trying it.

This girl came by the other day, and had never done anything VR related in her life. Pretty awesome reactions, imo.

http://youtu.be/NWX_Fk7X3eM
http://youtu.be/zbjhMURvQsw

I'll just never be able to wrap my head around the, "the tech was lame in the 90's... so therefore it must still be shit" argument.
 

Feep

Banned
SMH at VR naysayers. Once you try it you'll understand like everyone else. 3D and waggle aere gimmicks, this is the real deal.

The demos sound great. That cdak thing seems incredible. I want it.

My questions for you:
  • How does the latency feel compared to the EVE VR (Valkryie) demo at E3? (Already felt fantastic and I'm picky and sensitive about this, all other VR testing fails horribly compared to that experience)
  • How does the resolution compare to the 1080p Oculus if you have tried that? (1080p is still not enough imo, or needs to be downsampled / heavily AA'd)
  • Did you notice any applied motion blur for quick head (change of direction) movements?

Thanks!
1) About equal, IMO.
2) I have no idea, because I haven't tried a 1080p Oculus, but as people in the thread have pointed out, it might have actually been 2 1080p screens? I don't know. Resolution was not an issue for me.
3) If there was any, I didn't notice it.
 

StuBurns

Banned
I think it's that they use two 1080p panels, but the optics only capture basically 1k by 1k for each eye, which is essentially 1080p.

They must have been a little disappointed the S5 is still 1080p, or they could have feasibly started working with QHD panels.
 
The tech is amazing, and can be enjoyed by practically everyone. I just can't understand how people are doubting this without having tried it. The average person is actually going to be more impressed than us jaded gamers, because they genuinely do not really know what to expect.

My wife, a complete non-gamer, loves using the Rift. Not for games, but just for the experience. Our children are obsessed with it. Every single person I have let try the Rift has loved it, and I've brought this thing to gaming tournaments, work, etc. The experiences they are having is real, and almost every person asks me where they can buy one after trying it.

This girl came by the other day, and had never done anything VR related in her life. Pretty awesome reactions, imo.

http://youtu.be/NWX_Fk7X3eM
http://youtu.be/zbjhMURvQsw

I'll just never be able to wrap my head around the, "the tech was lame in the 90's... so therefore it must still be shit" argument.

you were trying so hard not to touch her boobs
these reaction videos are really great though

No need for hard numbers, just watch this video: http://youtu.be/J0n5B3fl-bU?t=5m34s
The latency was really, really bad. No comparison to that what the Oculus Rift is capable of.
still looks better than kinect latency wise:p
 

rou021

Member
Posting again ....

I have not been fortunate to get my hands on OCR or any VR so I am hoping someone can answer this:

Do you think any VR solution can be used for mainstream games like COD or other FPS etc where you usually play for hours and not get sick? Or there would be specialized gaming experience in bite size that will be more suited to this VR experience. I know a lot of people get motion sickness even playing current FPS shooters etc (including myself on some of them) and I can imagine this will be much worse if played for long hours.

I really love the idea of VR but don't think a person can just put it on play COD MP for hours and not get sick in the process. Maybe I am wrong?

It's my understanding, based on what I've heard, that it depends on how you move in the game. If you are playing something that involves a lot of strafing or moving backwards, this may lead to some disorientation. Speed may also add to this. I don't have any direct experience with an Oculus Rift, so I can't say how bad it would be. This is one of the reasons why they say games should be designed with VR in mind.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
1) About equal, IMO.
2) I have no idea, because I haven't tried a 1080p Oculus, but as people in the thread have pointed out, it might have actually been 2 1080p screens? I don't know. Resolution was not an issue for me.
3) If there was any, I didn't notice it.
Thanks Feep <3

Future looks good.
 
Sorry I'm LttP. Thanks for the excellent writeup, Feep. <3

Valve’s solution is lightyears ahead of the original Oculus Dev Kit. Resolution, while not at “retina” level perfection, was no longer really a significant issue. The screen door effect was almost completely negligible, thanks to a shiny 1080p display. (Not actually shiny, shiny like in Firefly.)
I was gonna ask if they were using a 1000x1000 section out of each Galaxy display, but it sounds like you're not even sure whether the unit you used was even dual-display. lol Did it not look like the prototype we've seen pics of?

Positional tracking is an absolute must for any VR set, as lack of said tracking is the biggest cause of motion sickness, the one thing that could kill VR in its tracks. Valve’s solution was, as expected, extremely accurate. It involved sticking QR Code-like papers on the walls (so anyone visiting your home, without prior knowledge, would instantly assume you were a crazy person) so that a camera mounted on the headset could get an optical read on its own position. There was a downside (literally), though…because there were no QR codes littering the floor, looking straight down caused the system to lose its positional tracking.
Interesting. Did they say why they went with this system rather than a static camera like Sony and Oculus? Just trying something new? Better freedom of movement? For the AR demo?

- Next were some spheres orbiting each other. Once again I felt the need to dodge the spheres’ movement, which I did, but I thought this demo showed off the pixel clarity of the display: the spheres were extremely anti-aliased, and damn if they didn’t look hyper smooth. Nothing much else.
So assuming the demo you tried followed the reference design of ~1MP per eye, it sounds like that resolution looks quite nice indeed.

- As cool as “big things” are in VR, though, “small things” are equally impressive. Someone had taken the set from the Portal 2 Valentine’s Day advertisement, moving stick figures and all, and placed it down as a miniature model a la Beetlejuice in front of the player. Tiny desks, tiny people, tiny coffee mugs! In a normal game, you could manipulate the camera to get close enough to the tiny coffee mugs so that they appeared to be large, but that simply isn’t possible in VR: you matter how close you got, they were still little tiny coffee mugs, because your perceptions of distance and scale are accurate. It would really be an incredible sensation for any “god game”, towering over and examining your creations from a giant’s throne above. And you know what? The stick figures looked great in 3-D. Really cool.
Thanks for this. I've been thinking that you can play map-based games like Starcraft or Civ or Populous in a virtual environment with the map laid out before you like a little diorama. You can use a pair of Move wands to fly around the environment, directing your troops, even flying in and out of the diorama as needed. ("Zooming.")

- Next was something genuinely horrifying: a mechanical moving toddler’s face, complete with gears, sprockets, pistons, servos, everything. I immediately questioned the mental stability of Valve’s modelers, but I soldiered on, getting up close and personal with absolute nightmare fuel. It’s important to note here that whatever the brain uses to ascribe the “this is a real object” tag to things, it isn’t related to textures: every material in the contraption was entirely untextured, only possessing a color and a soft specular highlight, but it sure looked real to me. I called “next” on this one a little quicker than the others.
Thanks for this as well. People often forget that "awesome graphics" is secondary to the experience itself.

- Next were three “skybox” scenes, created from the types of 360 degree cameras that Google Street View uses. These were, unfortunately, not stereoscopic, so they weren’t quite as convincing as they could have been. Still, the photorealism was pretty impressive, and it’s obvious how incredible VR “tours” could be in the future. There was a beach scene, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican (which I’ve been to, and the sensation was eerily close to deja-vu), and a jungle somewhere.
How do you think the Street View cam would look as you're racing past the scenery in something like DriveClub VR? "Good enough"?


Sony had research with richard marks showing augmented reality using no AR cards, but finding elements in the room to lock onto. Something like that could work?
Oooh!! Link?


With PS4, my fear is that there may not be a large amount of content rolling in regularly due to the fact that even indies need to get approved by Sony, or some content won't be made for VR but will simply work with VR (a big difference).
It would be cool if Sony could set up some kind of "VR Showcase" on the Store, where they could fast-track free demos and stuff.

If you want to run Star Citizen at the highest quality settings in VR at full res with AA and every switch flipped to max, you'll likely need more power than what a console can provide (the game is shooting for 2015 high-end visuals after all and if you've seen their content it looks amazing by any standard).
To be fair, you won't be able to run that game at full settings on Rift either, if they're aiming to max out your card even on a regular monitor. PCs will be making exactly the same sacrifices in graphics that the PS4 will.


You need about 90 degrees, but wider is better, and yes, a larger PoV does mean more geometry, which is an additional performance concern.
What exactly needs to be done with increased field of view? "Geometry," yes, but what are they calculating exactly, and is it something that can be aided significantly by hUMA GPGPU?


The scale thing is really making me excited.

I never got a chance to try VR yet, but for those who did, do you think a Godzilla-like game, or something EDF style would deliver in VR? That's what i fantasize about, atm.
Excellent point. In thinking about transporting themselves in to their games, people seem to be forgetting they needn't still be human when they arrive. I was thinking of a game where you play as a hawk, or maybe an albatross, gliding around looking for thermal updrafts and eating fish or whatever albatrosses eat. Or maybe a game where you're a mouse, trying to find food and avoid detection. How about Mr. Mosquito: VR Edition? Or maybe a game where you're often changing scale, like being a Robotech pilot. One minute you're hanging out in the mess hall on Liberty island, and then next you're 10 m tall and boosting off to fight the Zentradi.
Hmm. Maybe I should get some lunch.


When SotC was mentioned, I was thinking of something very similar to that, except with Move wands. See 2:38 in this video for an example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtY12ziHuII

What were they using there? Hydras?
 

StuBurns

Banned
What exactly needs to be done with increased field of view? "Geometry," yes, but what are they calculating exactly, and is it something that can be aided significantly by hUMA GPGPU?
I was being conservative because I didn't want to get into a big debate about it, but the truth is FoV increase is not notably more demanding in modern systems. You might lose a few frames from 90 to 110, but it's nothing of note, certainly if you're investing in VR, as you already know you're going to be taking a visual hit.

There's a common misconception that consoles have smaller FoV because it's less demanding, that isn't the case at all, they have it because FoV is a calculation based on display size and player position, consoles are generally played on TVs from couches, and the TV takes less of your field of vision, so the game's FoV is designed to accommodate that. PC gaming primarily takes place very close to monitors and takes up a larger amount of the players vision, so a larger FoV is needed. While people tend to abuse FoV controls for things like competitive gaming, the point is to have it match your vision to avoid motion sickness, amongst other things.

There are console games with FoV adjustments and it has negligible impact.
 

fred

Member
Why on earth haven't they done a Half Life 2 demo..?

Unless they want to try (and fail lol) to steer people away from the idea of Half Life 3..?
 
The future is bright, the future is VR

Having played a crap load of stuff on my Oculus Devkit this Valve thing sounds incredible. I can't wait to see what happens with VR in the coming years. I just wish it was all happening a bit faster, I hate waiting :p
 
I was being conservative because I didn't want to get into a big debate about it, but the truth is FoV increase is not notably more demanding in modern systems. You might lose a few frames from 90 to 110, but it's nothing of note, certainly if you're investing in VR, as you already know you're going to be taking a visual hit.

There's a common misconception that consoles have smaller FoV because it's less demanding, that isn't the case at all, they have it because FoV is a calculation based on display size and player position, consoles are generally played on TVs from couches, and the TV takes less of your field of vision, so the game's FoV is designed to accommodate that. PC gaming primarily takes place very close to monitors and takes up a larger amount of the players vision, so a larger FoV is needed. While people tend to abuse FoV controls for things like competitive gaming, the point is to have it match your vision to avoid motion sickness, amongst other things.

There are console games with FoV adjustments and it has negligible impact.
Interesting. I knew FoV was chosen primarily based on apparent screen size, but I didn't know it had so little effect on performance. Thanks.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Sounds great and I'd love to be able to try one of these products.

However, you mentioned walking around, and wishing you could manipulate things with your hands, etc. I personally have no desire to do that unless it is holodeck-style where there is no HMD and objects have substance. I would rather restrict motion to head tracking and just use a controller for movement and manipulation in the game world. To be honest, I prefer sitting on my ass while playing video games.

Although you say that you wouldn't want to do those things, apparently the compulsion to do so in VR, especially where presence is involved, is really strong. I guess it's one of those things many people will only understand when they use it and see how compelling it is.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Although you say that you wouldn't want to do those things, apparently the compulsion to do so in VR, especially where presence is involved, is really strong. I guess it's one of those things many people will only understand when they use it and see how compelling it is.
It's going to be interesting, because that desire to reach out and touch something is also obviously going to lead to a break in immersion.

I could almost imagine two strands of VR emerge, the consumer grade, for seated play, and the premium 'Holodeck' experience, you walk around a large room with motion tracking equipment, you're in a suit with full haptic implementation so if you do push a tree branch aside or whatever, you feel it. You could even have the sound distributed by lots of remote speakers then, no need for headphones.

As absurd as I thought it was in Minority Report, VR sex clubs don't sound so far from believable anymore.
 

Quirah

Member
There is interesting rumor here: http://www.steamfirst.com/rumor-valve-may-acquire-oculus-rift/

According to some reliable anonymous sources, Valve may be in talks to buy, or at least exclusively license, the Oculus Rift virtual-reality technology. The reasons for this, aside from the obvious gains on both sides, is to bypass a certain patent or license that Oculus VR owns. It would seem, but has not been confirmed, that without Valves direct involvement the Oculus Rift may have some trouble going forward.

We all heard Valve is developing their own VR device but they will also fully support Oculus Rift. I know source is not that reliable but absolutely interesting news.
 

HariKari

Member
There is interesting rumor here: http://www.steamfirst.com/rumor-valve-may-acquire-oculus-rift/



We all heard Valve is developing their own VR device but they will also fully support Oculus Rift. I know source is not that reliable but absolutely interesting news.

That statement doesn't make much sense. Why would the Rift have issues coming to market over a patent Oculus owns or licenses? Why would they need Valve's involvement?

The two companies are a good fit, but Valve would likely keep Oculus as it is rather than bring them in house. Then again, Valve does go to great lengths to try and hire the best of the best. Luckey would be the key prize. If Valve really does think VR is the future, they should make some moves to ensure their spot in that future beyond just experimentation or making VR games. Two years from now, acquiring Oculus might not be feasible, even for cash rich Valve.
 
What was the field of view like? could you look down with just your eyes and see game or is it still tunnel vision?
With the current units, you can still see some edges if you look hard enough, but it's not nearly as intrusive as something like Virtuality was back in the day.


It's going to be interesting, because that desire to reach out and touch something is also obviously going to lead to a break in immersion.
That's why I think we may see a little motion renaissance; for a lot of experiences, a pair of Move wands really will be the most natural way to interact with them. Trouble is, unless you expect players to pull themselves about by their fingernails, directing locomotion can be a challenge when you only have a pair of wands for interaction. Sony have patents showing wands with joysticks and trackpads, but the Move teams said they didn't include stuff like that because players had trouble directing avatar movement with their thumbs while also performing complex tasks with their hands like swinging a sword or whatever.

So, I just had a brilliant idea on how the DS4 could be a huge boon here. :p I've been going on for a while about using the lightbar as a virtual laser pointer for aiming your rifle and otherwise indicating items in the environment, but I just thought of a new use for it. So, the camera can track the DS4 just like a Move wand, which is what allows you to aim it just like you'd aim a pistol or a flashlight. But since the system knows exactly where the controller is located in space, you can use it to substitute for your hand just like a wand would.

Imagine you're playing Thief VR. For the most part, you play the game just as you do now, moving around with the dual analog sticks, looking around with the headset, and aiming your daggers with your laser pointer. But now you come across a table full of goodies, so you hold X to enable FreeHand mode. This allows you to release the DS4 with your left hand, and reach out with your Move-claw to grab the candelabra with R2.

Oh, speaking of paired wands though, I thought of a totally fucked up VR demo!! I was thinking more about non-human experiences and Anton's chameleon demo. For those that didn't see it, you used the wands as 1:1 proxies for your chameleon hands, reaching out to grasp branches and pull yourself around inside a virtual bush. While thinking about what it would be like to be a virtual chameleon, I remembered that chameleons can focus their eyes independently in different directions. Imagine a VR where holding the Move buttons on the wands enabled eye-control mode, pointing the eyes/cameras in whichever direction you pointed the wands. I wonder how long someone would need to exist in an environment like that before their brain could begin to make useful sense of the input being presented to it, or if it ever could.


Demo from 2011
Vita demo from 2011
'Magnet' demo from GDC 2012 on vita
Thanks!! <3 Damn, that's some really impressive stuff, especially the table warping, and that's just with a mono camera running on a Vita. I'd considered the possibility of putting cameras on the PSVR, but I wasn't sure the utility would really justify the added cost and weight. After watching those videos, it looks like a pair of 1MP cameras positioned directly behind the displays with the same FoV and refresh rate could allow them to do some pretty amazing things.

That might be a bit much to hope for with this version though. Perhaps with a wireless v2, running on PS5?
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Bear in mind that was a demo for AR, so they need lots of interest points to allow them to plot objects in the world. For basic translation tracking, you could probably get away with a lot fewer points, making it more lightweight to track.

A playstation camera from PS4 mounted on the visor would be ideal. Twin lenses, 120hz update. (Remove the mics and surround, you'd only need the lenses)
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Regarding Kinect latency - I think it's fine for use as a secondary motion control system.

I think even with a 0 latency kinect, camera based motion tracking only is unsuitable for a complex VR control system - as long as we have to make do without full blown limb and hand limiting exoskeleton suit that can give users a full sense of collision.

What you want is to pair it with a Razer hydra or STEM controller style system (i.e. split full traditional gamepad controls).

At least that way, you can do really basic game things like pulling triggers really easily without latency.

Meanwhile kinect can double as the positional tracking backup for heads and hands, while also allowing the system to track body and legs.

Full body immersion is the name of the game here - and when you get that in VR, the nature of computerized social interactions will evolve dramatically (probably need some measure of emotion tracking as well - heart rate? tone of voice? kinect reading the lower half of face as best it can? Eye tracking cameras on the inside to combine the two camera views for full face capture?)
 
Im going to be trying out the oculus rift in about an hour. Im excited. Will report my impressions here in a bit. (Dont know where else would be a good place to post it.)
 

androvsky

Member
Bear in mind that was a demo for AR, so they need lots of interest points to allow them to plot objects in the world. For basic translation tracking, you could probably get away with a lot fewer points, making it more lightweight to track.

A playstation camera from PS4 mounted on the visor would be ideal. Twin lenses, 120hz update. (Remove the mics and surround, you'd only need the lenses)

Fun fact: the PS Camera for the PS4 has gyros.
 
EVeHX5Uh.jpg


My first demo was of Dreadhalls. It basically just has you walking around a maze of corridors finding oils to light your lamp and some zombies that ever so slowly walk after you screaming. I started without the headset on but after having them on it felt WAY more immersive. It really was impressive. I walked around a large gargoyle looking up it and down it and it felt like i was really inspecting this gargoyle in real life, the head tracking was better than i thought it would be and the 3D was amazing, its face really stuck out at me. My first thought was how scary a game like Outlast would be with Oculus.

My next demo was the rollercoaster. It looked cool but I couldn't stay focused too long, I did feel a wee bit dizzy so I ended that one quick.

The next one was this game.
XUWb3V2.png

It basically just had your head tracking move this blue square around the screen to hit the ball bouncing around, kinda like a 3D VR version of Pong. It was pretty neat. The head tracking again was great and while it felt almost seizure inducing it looked great and had my mind thinking of how cool this tech is.

The next demo was short and has your head put inside a guillotine and gives you a glimpse of what its like to be beheaded. It gave me a good laugh.

The last demo was much like the one in the OP and just had me floating around with all kinds of cool futuristic looking shapes and landscapes, you could look around but there was no controll. It was very cool, a look into the future of gaming.

Before I had tried it I was very skeptical and fearfull of VR becoming the "next big thing". After having a good half an hour to play around with it I am a believer. The only thing I have against VR is that my significant other may not approve when i completely shut my self out from reality to enjoy it. Im excited for the future of this technology.
 

Billen

Banned
I tried the Rift today, for the first time. I am absolutely certain that this will bring some awesome gameplay in the future. I am incredibly eager to get my hands on this and a good flight sim, some Elite Dangerous or perhaps even a car game. Why not a tank game. Hell, give me some Arma gameplay our some new Battleground Europe.

Will most definitely look out for this as soon as a good version is available for consumers.
 
I tried the Rift today, for the first time. I am absolutely certain that this will bring some awesome gameplay in the future. I am incredibly eager to get my hands on this and a good flight sim, some Elite Dangerous or perhaps even a car game. Why not a tank game. Hell, give me some Arma gameplay our some new Battleground Europe.

Will most definitely look out for this as soon as a good version is available for consumers.

Its just a whole new level of immersion, forget kinect or PS move, VR is where the future is going. I could see it being incorporated with the kinect to give another dimension of head movement like back and forth for peaking around walls and such.
 

Billen

Banned
Its just a whole new level of immersion, forget kinect or PS move, VR is where the future is going. I could see it being incorporated with the kinect to give another dimension of head movement like back and forth for peaking around walls and such.

In some years this will be portable. Imagine it together with items mapped to real world objects and places, see the above post with YouTube videos for an example. Now imagine Big Ben, that will forever be a dildo, the moon as a piece of cheese, and the Hollywood letters spelling C U N T. Oh, and aliens everywhere. And dragons. And orcs. Glorious.

Until then, we get to settle with insanely captivating experiences. Can't wait, really.
 
In some years this will be portable. Imagine it together with items mapped to real world objects and places, see the above post with YouTube videos for an example. Now imagine Big Ben, that will forever be a dildo, the moon as a piece of cheese, and the Hollywood letters spelling C U N T. Oh, and aliens everywhere. And dragons. And orcs. Glorious.

Until then, we get to settle with insanely captivating experiences. Can't wait, really.
lol sounds like my kinda world. Dildos, dragons and cheese moons. :')
 
Bear in mind that was a demo for AR, so they need lots of interest points to allow them to plot objects in the world. For basic translation tracking, you could probably get away with a lot fewer points, making it more lightweight to track.
Oh, I see what you mean. Just for head tracking purposes? Well, keep in mind that in that one demo, as it was building up its view of the scene, he pointed out how as they were gathering more points, they were getting a better idea of where the Vita was actually located, so they'll need some minimum number of points for reliable tracking.

In any case, I was mostly "against" the idea because a) it seemed like a lot of stuff to be piling on to the initial release, and b) there didn't seem to be a lot of point to it without a wireless interface, which we're not likely to have soon.

A playstation camera from PS4 mounted on the visor would be ideal. Twin lenses, 120hz update. (Remove the mics and surround, you'd only need the lenses)
You'd want something that matched the aspect ratio and FoV of the displays, but yeah, basically.


Fun fact: the PS Camera for the PS4 has gyros.
Really? Are you sure you're not thinking of the DS4, which has gyros and accelerometers?
 

StuBurns

Banned
Sony have to be targeting a seated experience like Oculus, in which case, the PS4 camera will be sufficient for motion tracking if the headset is properly decorated with LEDs or whatever.
 
I was being conservative because I didn't want to get into a big debate about it, but the truth is FoV increase is not notably more demanding in modern systems. You might lose a few frames from 90 to 110, but it's nothing of note, certainly if you're investing in VR, as you already know you're going to be taking a visual hit.

There's a common misconception that consoles have smaller FoV because it's less demanding, that isn't the case at all, they have it because FoV is a calculation based on display size and player position, consoles are generally played on TVs from couches, and the TV takes less of your field of vision, so the game's FoV is designed to accommodate that. PC gaming primarily takes place very close to monitors and takes up a larger amount of the players vision, so a larger FoV is needed. While people tend to abuse FoV controls for things like competitive gaming, the point is to have it match your vision to avoid motion sickness, amongst other things.

There are console games with FoV adjustments and it has negligible impact.

got any benchmarks to actually back that up? i've had the exact opposite experience in games
My last example would be saint's row 4 , where upping the fov to 100 from the default cost me a good 30 percent of my framerate (from 40-50 ish fps down to 30-40)
I was cpu limited in this game btw

There is no way rendering more geometry, more textures etc does not affect performance, obviously it won't be a linear increase since the resolution stays the same but it is there
if it wasn't then there would be no reason for devs to bother with LoD transistions either (which we all know they abuse agressively in console versions of games)
 

StuBurns

Banned
got any benchmarks to actually back that up? i've had the exact opposite experience in games
My last example would be saint's row 4 , where upping the fov to 100 from the default cost me a good 30 percent of my framerate (from 40-50 ish fps down to 30-40)
I was cpu limited in this game btw

There is no way rendering more geometry, more textures etc does not affect performance, obviously it won't be a linear increase since the resolution stays the same but it is there
if it wasn't then there would be no reason for devs to bother with LoD transistions either (which we all know they abuse agressively in console versions of games)
There was a thread with lots of benchmarks just a few months ago actually, I remember it specifically dealing with Crysis 3 amongst other titles.

Personally I've seen very little cost difference, and there is seemingly none at all with BioShock on PS3 or Warframe on PS4.
 
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