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Gamespot: HTC Vive vs Oculus Rift (CES 2016)
- Thread starter Man
- Start date
You're right about all this, it's just old habits die hard lol.Sleeping Lesson
Member
Herr Starr
Member
No, but that's not what I said in my post either. Did I say that "Oculus" is the correct name for the Oculus Rift? No. So why are you pretending as if I did? You said the correct name is "Rift". I clarified that "Oculus Rift" is equally correct.
What exactly did you clarify that had anything to do with what I posted? Luckey pointed out in that response that it's wrong to call the device "Oculus", which I didn't.
But it's not a big deal, just worth clarifying.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
My initial post was in reference to people calling the Rift "the Oculus" (upon re-reading this was not clear), I assumed your reply was defending calling it that. Miscommunication.
Alx
Member
People did call a gaming console "a Nintendo" or "a Sega" back then, it's actually a good sign for the brand.
(Also Oculus is a better name for the product than Rift, but whatever... I think that if they're successful the name of the product will naturally change, there will be no "Rift 2")
Well summarized.
Dreamwriter
Member
How many are needed?
Skulduggery
Banned
Something I found interesting: Budget Cuts developer's comments about room scale tracking, and porting their game to Oculus & PSVR. It's a lengthy post, so I'll give you their wrap up.
There was also one comment in particular that stood out to me.
Well shit. My worst fears have come to fruition. I thought that Oculus's reluctance to support room scale will cause some developers to limit their games to front facing games. So glad they made their game for Vive first. I hope more devs follow suit in making accordances for forward-facing players, but designing their games with full room scale in mind.
There was also one comment in particular that stood out to me.
Well shit. My worst fears have come to fruition. I thought that Oculus's reluctance to support room scale will cause some developers to limit their games to front facing games. So glad they made their game for Vive first. I hope more devs follow suit in making accordances for forward-facing players, but designing their games with full room scale in mind.
artsi
Member
That's a bummer, even if I'm getting the Vive.
I don't think Oculus and PSVR lacking in room scale is really to Vive's advantage. I'm afraid not many titles will be now created with room scale in mind (as in essential gameplay feature) if it has to be practically Vive exclusive, the market is just so small at this point and probably most developers will go for games / experiences that can be sold to all HMD owners.
I don't think Oculus and PSVR lacking in room scale is really to Vive's advantage. I'm afraid not many titles will be now created with room scale in mind (as in essential gameplay feature) if it has to be practically Vive exclusive, the market is just so small at this point and probably most developers will go for games / experiences that can be sold to all HMD owners.
I just don't like the name Rift, so I call it Oculus.
Liabe Brave
Member
I think room-scale VR is pretty much a non-starter for home applications. There are too many design constraints involved with the software, and the workarounds compromise the unique character of room-scale approaches. The relative lack of occlusion issues with 360° rotation is a real advantage, but the other benefits of room-scale seem scattered amd limited in scope.
The Valve tracking solution will be great for art installations, museums, and other public spaces, though.
Ol No Bones
Banned
Sounds like VR has an uphill battle. It just seems like high end VR will be extremely niche for quite a while. The whole package just doesn't seem very practical. Interested to see how consumers behave regarding VR. I will likely jump on board in the next few years.
Dreamwriter
Member
That sucks that the developer decided to limit the Rift version's 360-degree tracking for no reason, assuming that people have to buy the second camera separately, even though Oculus has said that the Touch would come with the second camera. Hopefully they change their minds and add the full game as an option.
Skulduggery
Banned
Idk how many different ways I can explain this to you, but in its current iteration, Touch is not going to function in room scale with just two cameras. Oculus is telling developers: don't make Touch games 360. That is their official position.
Yeah, i'll aim for Vive now.
Even if it ends up being a crazy high price, i think i'll just wait for it, instead of paying a still high price, but with compromises.
This is strange. We understand that oculus touch tracking won't be 'as good' as Vive, but it should be capable of decent room tracking with two cameras - were the devs aware the touch comes with an extra camera?
Combine that with not all Vive users magically having large rooms to play with, so even the Vive setup will need to scale down, and it seems to memthat their comments seem a little negative towards oculus.
I also hope that this isn't going to fragment things too much. I'd actually like the headsets to be decoupled from the controllers, which would also allow third party controllers to release too. Eg maybe racer would being out some motion controllers that work with the lighthouses, so I might want to use thos with the OR.
Dreamwriter
Member
Well, you have yet to show me a single bit of evidence that a Rift with Touch is not capable of room scale with just two cameras, yet I've shown you links where Oculus has been showing it off and Palmer Luckey talking about doing it. The best you've done is show a video where a developer said that if you only had two cameras in front, that wouldn't work perfectly, but since Oculus fully supports cameras in other layouts, including in opposite corners of a room like Palmer Luckey tweeted that he did, that bit didn't really prove anything.
Oh, their official position? Do you have a link to the document that states this, or maybe a direct quote from Palmer Luckey or Brenden Iribe?Skulduggery said:
artsi
Member
Yeah, exactly. I mean there's no problem for me investing in the most advanced HMD, but is it going to have enough software to use those features if OR / PSVR doesn't have them? Can 3rd parties afford to develop Vive only AA / AAA software without Valve or HTC funding them?
I feel that room scale is a niche of a niche this gen. I'd expect room scale games to be popular only when it's a standard feature with all HMD's. That's why Rift feels like the better choice for me at the moment, and go with that for next years until 2nd gen.
Betta Lines
Member
The key points are:
1. They haven't dismissed the possibility.
2. They haven't tested it yet.
Their impressions are likely to change (for better or worse) once they receive their devkit.
StarVR has a 210 degree fov, though I'm skeptical Starbreeze (yes that Starbreeze that did Riddick Butcher Bay) has the resources to do something on par with the other players in terms of build and component quality, and for that matter sdk and content availability. Still super curious what an fov like that feels like in terms of immersion.
My boss tried StarVR. He told me it was a horrible experience. Sure, the FOV is nice, but the massive tradeoff is the drop in image quality along with the fact that you can see the division between the two screens.
That's not even counting the massive latency issues they have as well.
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
Yikes that's terrible. I also read it has major problems with light bleed, not necessarily from outside the hmd but the way the panels operate. Well unless they substantially up their game this is gonna be DOA.
The have ruled out using the same freedom of mechanics that they can get via 360 degree tracking that they can get with something like Vive but can't get in a practical way for the users with Touch / PSVR. What they say they will do though is test both out and alter the mechanics to suit the headsets capabilities, which makes perfect sense.
GuitarAtomik
Member
The specific quote from Oculus recommending they not target full 360 tracking is so they can target all three headsets since PSVR with it's single camera is going to have major issues with that. It sounds like the only real issue they'll have with Rift version is losing tracking when reaching towards the ground (which they apparently use a lot in the game) due to the lower FOV of the cameras.
shamo42
Member
The issue with the Rift is afaik that their tracking system needs one camera for each device it wants to track. That's why the touch controllers will ship with a second camera.
Now if you want room scale or 360° tracking, you'll need 2 more cameras. One for the headset and one for the touch controllers. That's 4 cams that all have to be connected to your PC using a total or around 7 or 8 USB ports.
It doesn't even need to be room scale tracking. If you want to track 2 HMDs with 4 touch controllers, you'll have the same problem. The rift was clearly designed for a seated experience.
This is why lighthouse is IMO a much better and future proof solution. As long as there's no occlusion, you can track as many devices as you want. 2 players with controllers? Should be no problem.
It's not that you need a camera per device, it's that you need cameras at different angles so your body doesn't block something that is trying to get tracked (occlusion). Based on the leaks they had a while back, Oculus' long-term solution seems to be having a camera built into the headset down the road, that way whatever is in front of your face will always be tracked properly.
Herr Starr
Member
Let's be careful making too clear-cut statements about the capabilities of Oculus Touch. We know that they just delayed the thing because of improvements they wanted to make to it in both software and hardware. These improvements could very well change how room scale tracking works.
They've ruled it out even without having a devkit and getting one comment from oculus that may have been related to the standard OR. Let's wait and see how they get on when they get a touch devkit.
Turin Turambar
Member
Lol 4 cameras.
The camera doesn't make the tracking of the devices. The software does, in the cpu. So no, you don't need to add a camera for each device. In that case you would need 3 cameras for 1 hmd and 2 touch controllers.
If you want to track more objects, you can do it with one camera (if it's in front of it), it's the cpu usage the thing that will be increased.
As people already answered, the second camera is there to help with occlusion.
shamo42
Member
I shouldn't have said one camera for each device. But one camera for a certain amount of tracking points. I guess if one camera has to track both controllers and the headset, the calculations would get exponentially more complex which would result in much higher CPU usage. So it's easier to have one camera track one device (or 2 more simple devices like the touch controllers).
I don't think so. Do you have any sources for this?
Occulus have never showed any kind of room-scale tracking. Except a very limited one where the touch controllers lose tracking as soon as you turn around. Why are they not able to show proper room tracking this with 2 or even 3 cams? I think because they don't want the press to see them using 3 or 4 cams for something the biggest competitor does without any cams.
Talking about CPU usage, from what I've read the Lighthouse tracking uses much simpler math. CPU usage is low compared to the relatively complex system occulus is using. Additionally no matter how many lighthouse boxes you use, CPU usage will remain the same.
Dreamwriter
Member
Where did you read that the touch controllers lost tracking as soon as you turn around? Which hands-on said that this happened to them? The video by Owlchemy Labs said that even when both cameras are placed in front, only one controller could be obscured. Also,
https://twitter.com/palmerluckey/status/676220090572931074
Fundamentally there is not much different between using two webcams vs Vive using two lighthouses (assume for a second similar field of view on both). Certainly nothing so dramatic as to render Vive magically capable and OR entirely useless
Oculus simoly haven't been spending a lot of time demoing room scale tracking, whereas valve/HTC have been focusing massively on it - the the point where it is skewing discussion IMO.
Oculus simoly haven't been spending a lot of time demoing room scale tracking, whereas valve/HTC have been focusing massively on it - the the point where it is skewing discussion IMO.
StickSoldier
Member
Ugh as much as I want a VR headmount, I gotta wait. I just don't feel like the price is there with the tech yet. Now that it's kick started, I'll give it till 2018 to buy one probably. By then it should be good. to go
Even If you remove one fundamental difference (the FoV), there's still the difference in required tracking points (photosensors / IR LEDs) for an accurate fix.
Ultimately, when your controllers and HMD are the receivers that simply is a more scalable and occlusion resistant setup than when they are the senders.
Well it isn't like they can change the design of Oculus Touch / Move controllers and their cameras. By their nature they can not support occlusion free 360 degree tracking in any "practical way" ie without 4 sets of cameras. This has been mentioned several times yet seemingly gets skipped over whenever it is discussed. That doesn't mean the game won't work at all, just that the developers will need to alter the mechanics to complement those systems and the range at which practically occlusion free tracking of the controllers will work.
Dreamwriter
Member
But, how many tracking points are needed for Oculus? I mean, Nintendo did it with just two points with the Wii Remote (the Wii Remote was the camera, the sensor bar used two IR LEDs).
When was it mentioned by Oculus or Owlchemy Labs or anyone else with VR development experience? What did I miss? Heck, Owlchemy Labs' video said you could do it with two cameras placed in opposing corners.
Herr Starr
Member
I'm getting the impression that some posters in this thread are so desperate for the Rift cameras to be flawed that they'll grasp onto any straw and hold on for dear life, no matter the cost and no matter how insignificant the straw is. It's getting kind of ridiculous.
ChronotriggerJM
Member
I certainly don't want the Rift camera's to be flawed, but it's just the nature of how these machines were designed. If the Vive excels at one thing, it's definitely the tracking. I think of it this way (maybe it's flawed I dunno), with the Vive, the headset positions itself based on triangulation from the light source. With the Occulus, you can run multiple cameras, but the headset is creating light, and the cameras need to feed that data to the computer. So you can run multiple cameras, but they're all required to be connected to the computer.
With the Vive, you can set up lighthouses wherever and however, and tracking won't be an issue (provided they're in locations placed to help with mitigate occlusion). Imagine a laptop with a cable running out of it shoved into a backpack connected to the Vive. Then line a hallway with 8+ lighthouses. The Lighthouses talk to each other, not to the PC.
Scalability is a huge part of the Vive's engineering.
Skulduggery
Banned
I'm beginning to feel the opposite...
Some people are incapable of admitting any flaws about it.
No, this supposition is patently ridiculous.
I'm an Oculus enthusiast of the first hour, backer #58 of the original Rift Kickstarter. I don't want anything to be flawed, but I know that everything will be flawed in some way.
What I don't understand is why some are adamant that the Rift tracking configuration will be able to do everything just as well as Lighthouse will. It won't. The latter is fundamentally superior. With a few posters in particular I really don't get why they even care, they make it clear on the one hand that they think room scale isn't important, but are really set on "proving" that the 2 camera Rift/Touch setup can do it on the other.
It's in no way fundamentally superior. In fact, Oculus is betting it's the opposite. The correct question, is will it provide a better experience on games that don't require fine detail movement until Oculus camera tech catches up.
From this article: http://www.gizmag.com/oculus-rift-vs-htc-vive-ces-2016/41361/
Now will they get there before CV2? I don't know. No one knows. It may very well be that Lighthouse keeps out in front for this generation. Oculus is obviously working on getting there faster as a response to Lighthouse. It remains to be seen what they come up with on the software side or if they have another trick up their sleeve. But it's clear optical tech is the future.
Dreamwriter
Member
Of course it's superior in terms of tracking, but that doesn't mean that in a 12x12 foot room two lighthouses can do anything that two cameras can't. In a room with a walkable area that size, a camera would have to be able to recognize individual dots 12 to 14 feet away, see the size of the dots change as they get nearer and farther. Which basically any decent camera can, even the cheap Wii Remote camera could.
Well IMO oculus are wrong - the lighthouse solution is potentially less susceptible to occlusion and has a good FoV. Primary advantages are scalability and practicality.
- scalability because there isn't any appreciable increase in power required to track more than two lighthouses. Whereas with oculus touch you'll need to add cameras to improve tracking, and each camera will need its image processed by the host computer which isn't trivial (especially compared to Vive). If you need 3-4 cameras that would start to be a real problem.
- practicality because you need the oculus cameras wired to your computer. If you had to install them in opposite corners of a rectangle then that can be a lot of cable to route and keep tidy. And way less easy to reconfigure. The Vive lighthouses on the other hand are wireless (just need to be near a power supply) so relatively trivial to move about.
But of course they've made their bet and aren't going to admit it is less optimal. And in a way it isn't important. Let's see what they come up with when they eventually release oculus touch. If they can manage decent 360 degree tracking (less than Vive but still good enough), with only two cameras, then the increased performance needed for the camera processing will be manageable, and people will just have to figure out how to install and deal with long cable runs.
Well yes, it is. It's fundamentally more scalable, less resource intensive, and less prone to occlusion.
If you have a room of that size, to match lighthouse the first thing a camera would need to do (which it very likely won't) is offer a horizontal and vertical FoV of 90°+.
I don't know the exact numbers, but simply from looking at its extents in the test application the view frustum of the DK2 camera is ~50°.