Were you a kickstarter supporter? Maybe preorder people don't get the option, only kickstarter...but I did get the Doom 3 email, so I guess I'll email support. Thanks.
Ahhh okay, I didn't realize Doom 3 BFG was actually shipping with the game. I thought it was just talking about Doom 3 being supported, and this was their way of apologizing for the lack of support.
Or if the rumours were right and carmack was buying copies using his own money, maybe there is a licensing issue? Like he can't then redistribute the games bundled with another product?
Or bundled with THIS product. I really think it's a liability play by the publisher, and sadly smart at that in light of the science.
Or bundled with THIS product. I really think it's a liability play by the publisher, and sadly smart at that in light of the science.
What science? There are plenty of very large corporations (Sony, Epson, etc) with HMD's, and VR goggles have been around for decades (mostly in use by the military and other specialized fields).
People said the same thing about the Nintendo 3DS and the thing sells like hotcakes.
What science? There are plenty of very large corporations (Sony, Epson, etc) with HMD's, and VR goggles have been around for decades (mostly in use by the military and other specialized fields).
People said the same thing about the Nintendo 3DS and the thing sells like hotcakes.
SEGA did extensive studies before abruptly dropping theirs in the 1990s over issues with physical effects on users and deciding the liability is too high. Nintendo Virtua Boy was not for use by kids because of potential permanent eye damage from using fake 3D before the were physical mature. There was a study published within the last 2 (3?) years confirming these issues and concluding they are inherent to the technology because of the way it forces your brain to operate to achieve the effect.
Military and specialized fields are not open to KIDS where the detrimental effects on under 10 year old eyes can be permanent according to research. A mass market product can't be controlled to keep it AWAY from kids, and parents are often too dumb or uninvolved to be trusted not to buy it for their kids without understanding the issues.
Will the Rift even fit on a 10 year olds head? How much time could Sega have possibly done to do extensive studies? They would need many years to do studies demonstrating that there was lasting damage. Stopping so soon suggests to me that they stopped because some people would get headaches which are what you get with normal 3D. Is there data to suggest that is damaging to your eyes too?
Will the Rift fit on anyone under 10? How much time could Sega have possibly done to do extensive studies? They would need many years to do studies demonstrating that there was lasting damage. Stopping so soon suggests to me that they stopped because some people would get headaches which are what you get with normal 3D. Is there data to suggest that is damaging to your eyes too?
90's LCD tech caused headaches no matter what you did.
The point is, if the 3DS can come to market and be successful without massive lawsuits, the Rift can do the same. No publisher would fear having their game on it, just like no publisher fears having their game on the 3DS now.
Dunno, dunno, but the SEGA VR headset Studies were done by Stanford, which is not some fly-by-night community college. Also there was an unclassified australian military document that referred to "unintended psycho-physiological side effects" from virtual 3D.
The science is still conflicting, but there have been heavy hitters weighing in on the side of "bad for kids" over the years, and even recently, so back to the original point (I'm not debating this, just pointing out possible publisher thinking because the lag argument is retarded), I can see where a publisher would come down on the side of caution and not bundle their software with a VR headset.
3DS is not a virtual 3D environment created with screens on your eyes. You're comparing apples to oranges.
Anyone know what font Oculus uses for stuff like this?
The screen on a Rift is focused at a far off distance, so it's not as if the eye is being strained to focus on a close plane. In theory, it shouldn't be very different from the way we see in general; each eye receives a view of the world that is slightly offset from the other eye, and the brain converges those into a single 3D image.
A simple warning message (like every PS3 game seems to have now) about the potential dangers would suffice to lower liability to the point that it wouldn't be an issue.
Unlikely. Again, apples to oranges. The rift is similar in design to most industrial HMDs.
Just a couple points in the (long, somewhat boring 58 page) Australian military report (square bracketed stuff mine to explain references to earlier in the section):
"Studies of side effects of a VE [Virtual Environment] generated by an HMD [Head Mounted Display] also reported a high incidence of these symptoms [eyestrain, headache, blurred vison, and difficulty focusing]. Indications that there could be physiological correlates of these symptoms first came from a report of some helicopter pilots failing a stereoscopic depth perception test following prolonged used of night vison goggles (NVGs) similar in design to HMDs. "
"...Following a 10 minute exposure to stereoscopic VR display subjects, participants also showed transient deficits of binocular vision. This finding has since been confirmed by a number of more recent studies [see Howarth 1999]."
This is not 3DS or XBOX/PS3 style potential liability. HMDs are a different class. And, it may or may not pan out as damages/lawsuits, but that's what risk management is all about, and I guarantee the lawyers for the publisher have read at least summaries of these studies.
And I'm not bitching to be bitching. I want one of these, too. I'm, again, just offering a real-world alternative theory to the retarded "Carmack hates Oculus lag, so pulling support" theory.
And for those that aren't bored to death with this by now, a breakdown from the study of why HMDs, ANY HMDs, require visual system compromise, and why this requirement is inherent to the way HMDs work:
"Clear single vision of an object requires both accommodation and vergence to operate. The process of accommodation, in which the eyes focus on near objects and relax focus for distant objects, is driven by image blur. The primary goal of accommodation is to minimise the blur. The vergence system operates to produce a single perceived image from the two retinal images, by bringing the images close to the fovea of each eye so that they can be fused into a percept of a single object at a given depth. During this process the eyes converge upon near objects and diverge to fixate upon far objects. The accommodation and vergence systems interact via neural cross-links, so that a response in one system drives a corresponding response in the other. While it is known that the cross-links are open to adaptive change the process and limits of adaptation are not fully tmderstood [Rushton & Riddell 1999; Wann & Mon-Williams 1997].
Problems of stress on the visual system have been most obvious in HMDs. While poor engineering design or incorrect calibration for the user can be a source of visual stress, a problem less easy to avoid is the challenge to the accommodation-vergence crosslinks. Current stereoscopic VR displays provide an illusion of depth by providing each eye with a separate 2D image on a fixed focal plane. The mechanisms of binocular vision fuse the images to give the 3D illusion. Because there is no image blur, the eyes must make a constant accommodative effort. But at the same time the images stimulate a changing vergence angle with changes in apparent depth, so that the normal crosslinked relationship between the systems is disrupted [Mon-Williams & Wann 1998], The problem is not limited to HMDs as any stereoscopic display, from a stereoscopic desktop to immersive systems such as the CAVE, uses the same display method [Wann & Mon-Williams 1997]. Within certain limits the visual system can adapt, as shown by results of orthoptic exercises and of adaptation to different prisms placed in front of each eye. However, whether the changes are long term or whether there can be dual adaptation to both the real and virtual environments has not been established [Rushton &RiddeU1999]."
I guess we'll see if studies done on 90's LCD and tracker tech apply to current generation tech.
Edit: Okay.
I guess we'll see if studies done on 90's LCD and tracker tech apply to current generation tech.
It says there that it applies to all stereoscopic 3D displays. Seeing as I have zero issues with 3D monitors, I can breathe a sigh of relief.
90s LCD monitors. *shudders* The smearing of a 2D desktop LCD monitor would have been enough to give me headaches. That would have been some real crap in an HMD.
There was a study from 2010ish that I can't remember where it came from, so it's not like all studies stopped in 1999. Besides, the prior studies are working from the biological mechanisms of the visual system's depth and focus, not the specific technology of the time. HMDs now break the accommodation and vergence sytems of sight in the same way, so similar results are to be quite likely.
Eyestrain, headache, blurred vison, and difficulty focusing? Sounds what you can experience short term on a normal 3D tv/projector. That doesnt stop nearly every television/projector sold today supporting it. The Rift and its optics is actually less damaging to the eyes in all these aspects.
I think you have to come up with a different explanation for why Doom 3 BFG doesnt support the Rift, your getting a bit "dramatic"
Meh. It's at least as credible and believable as the crazy, sudden Carmack change of heart theory.
Also, documented, lasting depth perception issues in the real world from extended HMD use isn't a trivial side effect.
Also, documented, lasting depth perception issues in the real world from extended HMD use isn't a trivial side effect.
Meh. It's at least as credible and believable as the crazy, sudden Carmack change of heart theory.
Also, documented, lasting depth perception issues in the real world from extended HMD use isn't a trivial side effect.
Supposedly the Rift is about to have Team Fortress 2 support announced: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...irtual-reality-mode-for-oculus-rift-this-week
Take it with a grain of salt, but if it's true....this is an enormous upgrade over Doom 3.
I'd much rather have Portal or Half-Life than TF2 but it should be fun anyway.
I'm looking forward to getting all the bits together and trying out the HL2 w/ motion control gun experience.
The problem I have with TF2 support is that you're going to be a lot less competitive using the Rift against people not using it.
Now, if they had Rift-only servers, then that would be a different story.
Even better, Rift-only servers that were further broken down to Rift+Controller and Rift+KBM.
Souls have a rift-only server. Nobody would shoot anyone, they'd all be just walking around looking at the crates
Hold out hope, fellow developers; theres good news on the horizon.
-- Palmer and the Oculus team