Oculus Rift

Loafing Oaf

Zuckerberg possibly maybe set to unveil some fancy Rift feature today:

http://bgr.com/2015/03/25/oculus-rift-teleportation-news-leak/

Apologies for getting you lot all excited if this turns out to be nothing...

Loafing Oaf

Turns out its's an “immersive, 360-degree video experience” that doesn't actually require the Rift. Doesn't sound like a massive innovation to me but I'm sure some of you techie types will have a more informed opinion...

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/facebook-unveils-immersive-360-degree-video-news-feeds/

Thargor

Sounds like a turd that nobody will use and will be quickly forgotten about.

Skerries

something like this I'd imagine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IaYJZ2Usdk

use the controls in the corner

Doge

Interesting way of reducing nausea in a VR environment:

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/this-virtual-nose-is-the-latest-solution-to-virtual-realitys-sickness-problem?utm_source=mbfb

imitation

Anybody find elite dangerous is running a fair bit better now ? Tried for the first time in a few months last night and it seems to stay at a steady 75 fps now. Pity they haven't made the galaxy map more rift friendly.

ScumLord

Doge wrote: »

Interesting way of reducing nausea in a VR environment:

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/this-virtual-nose-is-the-latest-solution-to-virtual-realitys-sickness-problem?utm_source=mbfb

If that works then the whole body experience should solve it altogether. The fact you're effectively a ghost or suitably disconnected from the body you inhabit in game is bound to feel very disconcerting. You're only really half fooling your brain that you're in a virtual space, having no control over your body and mixed signals from the eyes and ears probably affects nausea if the simple act of putting a nose on screen helps.

Taylor365

GTA V out 2 days and its up on the rift!

A lot of work still needed though:

Kiith

That's brilliant, and fair play to them getting it out after 2 days. Early days i know, but I was playing around on a jet ski last night, and was thinking how amazing this could be with Rift support.

imitation

Fair play to them for getting the frigging game working in 2 days i say ! If good rift support can be modded in, I can imagine a new graphics card is going on the shopping list though

Taylor365

imitation wrote: »

Fair play to them for getting the frigging game working in 2 days i say ! If good rift support can be modded in, I can imagine a new graphics card is going on the shopping list though

I've been on the lookout for a 290/290x for awhile, and with the introduction of the 300 series during the summer, i see them coming down in price (and going up in availability!).

Kiith

The 280/290's were being bought out by bitcoin miners for months, which made them really hard to come across for a while. I eventually got the 290, and it's a brilliant card.

Skerries

Kiith wrote: »

The 280/290's were being bought out by bitcoin miners for months, which made them really hard to come across for a while.

still? I thought that it wasn't financially viable any more

Kiith

No, not anymore as far as i know. Was over a year ago when i bought it.

A year? Crap, need an upgrade soon :P

jumbobreakfast

Skerries wrote: »

still? I thought that it wasn't financially viable any more

Bitcoins no but litecoin mining was still viable with GPUs long after bitcoins. Not sure what the story is now

jumbobreakfast

Google just bought an Irish spatial audio engineering company called Thrive Audio: http://www.mee.tcd.ie/thrive/

If you've ever listened to the virtual barber shop with your eyes closed you'll know how powerful audio can be in creating immersion even without visuals. That's fine for a static situation but in VR you need the audio to be processed in real-time to account for your head turning and your player moving through an environment so I'm glad to see investment in this area and its even better news to see an Irish company doing so well out of it.

The Red

Awesome. I really hope all this technology that is being developed for, and by, the oculus team isn't simply copied and sold as competitive products. And yes I know it will but it is such a pity that all their hard work is just stolen and blagged.

Thargor

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

Google just bought an Irish spatial audio engineering company called Thrive Audio: http://www.mee.tcd.ie/thrive/

If you've ever listened to the virtual barber shop with your eyes closed you'll know how powerful audio can be in creating immersion even without visuals. That's fine for a static situation but in VR you need the audio to be processed in real-time to account for your head turning and your player moving through an environment so I'm glad to see investment in this area and its even better news to see an Irish company doing so well out of it.

When I went looking for news on that I see Google have announced a new major push for Google Cardboard aswell:

http://androidcommunity.com/works-with-google-cardboard-program-launched-expect-better-vr-experience-20150417/

jumbobreakfast

The Red wrote: »

Awesome. I really hope all this technology that is being developed for, and by, the oculus team isn't simply copied and sold as competitive products. And yes I know it will but it is such a pity that all their hard work is just stolen and blagged.

Well this team was bought by Google. Oculus bought their own Spatial audio company several months ago. As for copying, according to their website the Thrive audio tech is patented so can't be copied exactly.

I wouldn't worry too much about Oculus being copied either. Valve and Oculus worked closely together in the early days so there is a common goal from the heavy hitters to just make VR work. You could simplify their goals by saying that Facebook want it for social, valve want it for games and sony wants it for games and entertainment. They need to hit a critical mass before it becomes viable and Oculus have said before that they don't want crappy VR clones "poisoning the well" in the early days so I'm sure that Oculus, Valve and Sony are competing but also co-operating in a general sense.

Korvanica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZEnjwUqc4M

Doge

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/video-gta-5-enters-virtual-reality-with-this-oculu/1100-6426669/

C14N

The Red wrote: »

Awesome. I really hope all this technology that is being developed for, and by, the oculus team isn't simply copied and sold as competitive products. And yes I know it will but it is such a pity that all their hard work is just stolen and blagged.

So you'd like a monopoly on the product?

It's going to be copied if it's successful. There's no major invention like that that doesn't become imitated and sold by competition.

ScumLord

The Red wrote: »

Awesome. I really hope all this technology that is being developed for, and by, the oculus team isn't simply copied and sold as competitive products. And yes I know it will but it is such a pity that all their hard work is just stolen and blagged.

The guys behind rift always said their main objective was to promote proper VR. So, by all accounts they've been extremely successful, everyone seems to be jumping on the VR bandwagon and it's got the likes of Sony who've been sitting on their versions of VR for a while I'd say.

jumbobreakfast

2016.

https://www.oculus.com/blog/first-look-at-the-rift-shipping-q1-2016/

Can HTC/Valve deliver before them? I'm not sure tbh

ScumLord

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

2016.

https://www.oculus.com/blog/first-look-at-the-rift-shipping-q1-2016/

Can HTC/Valve deliver before them? I'm not sure tbh

Apparently HTC/Valve will be releasing at the end of this year. I get the feeling valve will be more expensive so they might be trying to get in first to help sales, which could lead to a buggy product at launch.

At least we're finally getting a date for consumer VR. We should be in VR land by this time next year.

Doge

Looks like you won't be getting a HTC Vive developers kit unless you are a chosen one....

http://www.roadtovr.com/htc-vive-developer-edition-will-not-be-sold-before-consumer-launch/


This is disappointing as they there will be far less independent content.

imitation

ScumLord wrote: »

At least we're finally getting a date for consumer VR. We should be in VR land by this time next year.

Hopefully, its the software that will tell ultimately, theres good examples now like elite and hl2, I think it will take more to sell a headset that will probably be at least 300 euro. I hope we don' get into a 3dfx/ direct x/ opengl situation with vr headsets either !

jumbobreakfast

Indies will continue to develop on the Oculus Devkits and should be able to port their finished games on to the HTC Vive since Unity and Unreal engines support both HMDs now.

Doge

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

Indies will continue to develop on the Oculus Devkits and should be able to port their finished games on to the HTC Vive since Unity and Unreal engines support both HMDs now.

Isnt tHere plenty of demos which do not use the unity or unreal engines though?

ScumLord

imitation wrote: »

Hopefully, its the software that will tell ultimately, theres good examples now like elite and hl2, I think it will take more to sell a headset that will probably be at least 300 euro. I hope we don' get into a 3dfx/ direct x/ opengl situation with vr headsets either !

They've got an instant market for anyone that's caught the sim bug. Flight sim and racing sim users will want to switch over to VR if it lives up to expectations.

Normal games would probably need to be adapted for VR but sims or anything where you're in a seated position are ready and waiting for VR.