Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

[hughJ]

Occulus latest dev kit copied the old Move method with a single camera and magnetometers to fix the orientation. Maybe the next devkit will have a stereo camera, and ditch the magnetometers.

We sure the DK2 has a magnetometer? In the Oculus config util when you try to run the magnetic calibration it pops up telling you that's for DK1 only? hrmm

 

[MrFox]

We sure the DK2 has a magnetometer? In the Oculus config util when you try to run the magnetic calibration it pops up telling you that's for DK1 only? hrmm

http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/
Sensors: Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Magnetometer

Interesting. Maybe it's not used anymore, or used less, or at least it doesn't need calibration anymore because of the camera. The headset led pattern could remove the calibration requirement. The Move couldn't do that since it's just a ball.

 

[onQ]

However, camera of Oculus works at 60fps, which is much slower than magnetometer in Move. We don't know the speed of the camera that PS4 uses for detecting Morpheus/DS4.

The PS4 camera is 240 FPS at it's lowest resolution of 320 x 192.

 

[hughJ]

http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/
Sensors: Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Magnetometer

Interesting. Maybe it's not used anymore, or used less, or at least it doesn't need calibration anymore because of the camera. The headset led pattern could remove the calibration requirement. The Move couldn't do that since it's just a ball.

Could simply be an sdk issue. I see there's reference made the magnetometer in the DK2 sdk updates, so its probably still there. The DK tear downs show an extra chip next to the IMU, so that's probably the magnetometer.

DK1: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/yXWoGOVVfBcKnE6v
DK2: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Sd2wfNyDbouAWsCN

 

[TomRL]

I'm a bit late here, but is the PS4 capable of running vr games with some kind of fidelity? Carmack doesn't think seem to think that it will. Unless it was already running 720p 60fps on last gen hardware.

 

[hughJ]

I'm a bit late here, but is the PS4 capable of running vr games with some kind of fidelity? Carmack doesn't think seem to think that it will. Unless it was already running 720p 60fps on last gen hardware.

Much larger FOV of the frustrum than typical console games, additional transforms of geometry needed due to stereo rendering, inability to render ahead with multiple frames buffered to smooth out frame rates because latency needs to be kept down (this is a biggy with UE4 on PC.) Definitely should expect a fidelity drop.

 

[jlippo]

The PS4 camera is 240 FPS at it's lowest resolution of 320 x 192.

Also both cameras can run with different FPS and settings.
Of course being stereo camera should be advantageous by itself.

 

[Arwin]

I'm a bit late here, but is the PS4 capable of running vr games with some kind of fidelity? Carmack doesn't think seem to think that it will. Unless it was already running 720p 60fps on last gen hardware.

I'm inclined to agree. I think this is why Sony expects they will need dedicated games ... They could and will likely aim for Wii U style graphics like in Mario Kart 8 that still look really good but are easy on the GPU allowing for high framerates.

It is not an easy problem to solve. It won't be a mass PC product either if you need a 600W PC to run it, so for bigger projects, developers will target lower spec hardware anyway. The big benefit for PC is that an increasing number of games will be within rach of running meaningfully in 3D even without VR enhancements.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm a bit late here, but is the PS4 capable of running vr games with some kind of fidelity?

Yep. You just have to tone down the content to fit the quality bracket. It won't be running the latest 2D graphics showcases in VR mode for sure, but it can still present a clean, compelling, immersive VR experience which'll be the main point (eg. MinecraftVR would look top notch). People putting on the headset and hoping to drop into the current top-end visuals would be mistaken. They'd also need a monster PC setup to achieve that at notable cost.

 

[SlimJim]

Uncharted 3 or The Last of Us should be perfectly possible with enough optimisation.
Carmack was claiming only simple graphics were possible; but then again; it is in his best intrest to downplay PS4's capability as he is employed by the main competitor

 

[London Geezer]

Uncharted 3 or The Last of Us should be perfectly possible with enough optimisation.
Carmack was claiming only simple graphics were possible; but then again; it is in his best intrest to downplay PS4's capability as he is employed by the main competitor

If PS3 could run Uncharted 3 in 3D with lower quality graphics (personally I hated the 3D in this game and most on PS3 but that's not the point), PS4 wouldn't have a problem running games with great graphics at decent settings.

 

[Arwin]

Well great graphics will be relative of course. If the PS4 would run the same games as PS3 but then using VR, that may work to some extent (Zen Pinball 2 and Trine 2 are good examples of games that were also no PS3 and Zen Pinball 2 also had 3D on PS3, which looked good, but at a big resolution and lag cost).

By the way, I wonder if techniques like these could be used in a graphics engine somehow:

http://www.bizarbin.com/sidewalk-art/

https://www.google.nl/search?q=3d+s...XF6a60QWZ_IHgDA&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=979

 

[Cjail]

I am sure games already employ perspective.

 

[SlimJim]

Arwin; you mean 'faked' 3d like in the floor painting of your picture, then yes, definitely. It just needs to be far away enough; where there would be minimal/no perspective change, as wel as an inability for the player to look at the floor painting from another direction...
I am not sure if the effect would still be there but it should be possible.

 

[Arwin]

I'm just thinking that with the computer, perhaps you can change the floor painting's anamorphism (am I saying that right?) dynamically, what you couldn't do on a computer screen. And I don't really know of computer games that mix 'correct' perspective with false perspective. Of course, it would mess up lighting and shadows ...

 

[hughJ]

By the way, I wonder if techniques like these could be used in a graphics engine somehow:

That's basically what you get with parallax mapping. A regular flat surface with a texture, where the texture is generated based on data from a height map and the camera POV in order to provide simulated depth that matches the linear perspective of the camera. This works incredibly well in VR because each eye receives a unique perspective texture for that surface, and couple that with the subtle parallax you get from tracking natural head adjustment, you are able to pick up on tiny depth details that are normally not seen on a TV/monitor with wasd/analog movement. Ran a test in UE4 yesterday with different materials that use this - quite impressive.

 

[SlimJim]

That's basically what you get with parallax mapping. A regular flat surface with a texture, where the texture is generated based on data from a height map and the camera POV in order to provide simulated depth that matches the linear perspective of the camera. This works incredibly well in VR because each eye receives a unique perspective texture for that surface, and couple that with the subtle parallax you get from tracking natural head adjustment, you are able to pick up on tiny depth details that are normally not seen on a TV/monitor with wasd/analog movement. Ran a test in UE4 yesterday with different materials that use this - quite impressive.

How was the performance in comparison with doing that with actual geometry?

 

[hughJ]

How was the performance in comparison with doing that with actual geometry?

Would probably be impossible to get anything close to a 1:1 comparison between the two, as the normal and height maps aren't necessarily generated from a pre-existing set of geometry (might be painted by hand.) What I would say though is that given you're getting perceived geometry to the degree of resolution of the height map, you're getting much much more natural looking surface than you're used to from geometry.

One needs to keep in mind that with VR, normal mapping by itself is essentially broken within the scope of depth perception provided by stereoscopy (with morpheus/dk2, any normal maps that are used within ~20m of the camera look unambiguously flat - and this will get worse as display resolutions increase.) Parallax mapping really needs to be a replacement for things that normal maps would traditionally be used for. It can't be used for everything because there are a lot of cases where it starts to break down (sharp angles, mip resolution drop-off, polygon edges/horizons, etc.)

 

[Cyan]

Project Cars will feature VR support for both Project Morpheus and Occulus Rift.

http://segmentnext.com/2014/08/08/project-cars-run-1080p-xbox-one-vr-support-confirmed/

 

[DieH@rd]

That was announced at the end of the March
http://www.wmdportal.com/projectnews/project-cars-meet-project-morpheus/