Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

[Silent_Buddha]

Bro I'm 34 years old. I've been an early adopter since the Sega Saturn , I stood outside all night for a n64 at toys r us , I got my dreamcast launch day and had to hit 3 stores to get all the games I wanted. I could list all of the early adopter stuff I have been though.

This is by far the low point in being an early adopter.

Yes, some early adopter products do come out on time, or are delayed internally but delivered consistent to an external release date.

More recently we've seen LG have significant delays from when product (most notably OLED TVs) is first announced, shipment and pre-order details announced and actual product shipping. Sometimes 6-12 months after pre-orders have started from officially licensed partners. We've seen the same thing with new automobile releases from various companies as well.

You may have been lucky in the past. But part of being an early adopter is that there is a relatively large chance that whatever you want is going to be delayed anywhere from 3-12 months.

Regards,
SB

 

[hughJ]

http://www.gdcvault.com/browse/vrdc-16

A lot of VR dev content from GDC is up. Feel free to sift through it and post links and timestamps to anything you find interesting.

 

[eastmen]

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4evfio/my_rift_just_arrived_by_i_cant_locate_the/

A Japanese Rift owner noted that the wireless dongle did not come with his rift. People claim its more fuel to the fire of it being MS's fault.

Oculus Rep comes in and states that due to laws in japan they can't send the wireless adapter.

So if a whole region isn't getting the adapter it seems less likely that this is the component at fault otherwise Japanese orders would have been going out with no problem

 

[Deleted member 86764]

While Microsoft have made their mistakes, I really don't feel that the Oculus Rift launch can be blamed on them.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[pjbliverpool]

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4evfio/my_rift_just_arrived_by_i_cant_locate_the/

A Japanese Rift owner noted that the wireless dongle did not come with his rift. People claim its more fuel to the fire of it being MS's fault.

Oculus Rep comes in and states that due to laws in japan they can't send the wireless adapter.

So if a whole region isn't getting the adapter it seems less likely that this is the component at fault otherwise Japanese orders would have been going out with no problem

Wow, I really hope Japanese customers were told of that before shelling out for the pre-order because if not, that's ridiculous.

 

[eastmen]

Wow, I really hope Japanese customers were told of that before shelling out for the pre-order because if not, that's ridiculous.

nope doesn't appear to be the case

TheTwistgibberCustomer Support, Oculus VR 54 points55 points56 points an hour ago* (26 children)


We are unable to include the wireless dongle in Japan due to the wireless band that the controller communicates on. This is not Oculus-specific and is why the "Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows" is not sold in Japan. This controller communication is not the same as wireless controllers that work directly with Xbox One systems sold in Japan. Our apologies for any confusion, but the controller must be wired to be compliant with local laws. I'll speak with the team to see how we can make this more clear on the Sales page.

*edited with action item and formal name of wireless dongle

 

[manux]

Apparently the first one is free now(no login needed). Full High quality 3d vr porn video here:

https://virtualrealporn.com/2016/04/15/now-can-feel-complete-vr-porn-experience-free/

 

[hughJ]

Only "porn" I've seen that's remotely interesting is the 3D scanned models done by veiviev/vrgirlz. Photogrammetrically sourced and rendered real time in UE4/Unity with proper lighting and shaders. "Porn" in quotes because it's far more interesting to look at from a tech and perceptual standpoint. Feels like you've freeze framed reality and are able to walk around another person. Add on top of that some very basic rigging and animation (say, rib cage expanding and contracting, and eye motion) and you have an eerily real person standing right in front of you. If not for the fact that it's all naked porn actresses, it's probably one of the more striking VR demos I'd want to demo at my university.

It looks as though they haven't updated to the 1.3 SDK yet though, so I don't know if any of their stuff works through the current Home/runtime.

 

[Ethatron]

That would only help in a situation where your head is locked in place and only allowed to rotate. If you were to, for example, shake your head back and forth that would ruin the illusion as there would be no inherent parallax due to objects being at different distances from the viewer until the GPU updated the scene.

I want to see how you rotate your head without generating severe parallax. Maybe both your eyes are on your neck axis. Rotating your head creates way more camera translation than the tolerance of your neck for forward/backward or left/right translation.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

nope doesn't appear to be the case

That explains why I haven't found non imported adapters anywere.

It does make you wonder why they can sell xbox one consoles but not the adapter as I assume they are operating at the same frequency.

 

[manux]

Interesting and long comparison of vive and rift. Very good read. One quote to wet the appetite

Black levels: Much lower on the Rift. In a scene with pure dark elements and elements of light objects you will feel MUCH more like you're looking into a dark abyss, than on the Vive, where the SDE and pixels become prominent. However, this has the negative that you will be able to see the red tint more, and depending on your specific Rift, this can be a huge negative, and in favor of the Vive, depending on if you like noticeable red tinting or noticeable SDE/pixels more.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4f2t8c/rift_and_vive_optics_and_displays_ab_tested_and/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That explains why I haven't found non imported adapters anywere.

It does make you wonder why they can sell xbox one consoles but not the adapter as I assume they are operating at the same frequency.

Microsoft stated that the Japanese version of the XBO and controllers uses a different wireless band than the controller that ships with the Rift (US version I'd imagine).

This controller communication is not the same as wireless controllers that work directly with Xbox One systems sold in Japan.

If I were to take a guess, I'd imagine they chose the band for the rest of the world based on it being less crowded or less used than other bands. There is a reason after all that they use 2 radio controllers in the XBO, one for networking and one for the controller.

Regards,
SB

 

[hughJ]

Curious as to how many other folks here have tried the 'virtual desktop' VR app?

My two big takeaways from it are:
1) This is going to be super useful after we get HMD comfort nailed down and another couple iterations of resolution, but maybe more interestingly:
2) This is the first VR experience I've had where I'm interacting with a UI and performing a common set of tasks that I do outside of VR (making it perfectly suited for contrasting how real vs virtual differ in experience.) It's an odd sensation of isolation/separation from your environment being able to sit in a pitch black room with an HMD on your head and be floating in the ether with giant windows wrapped around you (although I did have to tinker with a lot of windows desktop and browser visual styles as to not get eye strain from too much white light.)

Was funny resizing the virtual desktop to the same size and relative position as my main monitor and then juggling the HMD off/on to compare how the two appeared. My quick envelope math showed something on the order of ~70x more pixels in my actual monitor than the virtual representation of it. So I guess that'd mean needing roughly 8k x 8k per eye to get close to matching it.

 

[manux]

All is forgiven. I got oculus rift today and it's really amazing. The quality of graphics is sufficient for first gen consumer product. Screen door effect, glare, red stuff when whole display is dark etc. is definitely there. But the good thing is the artifacts are minor enough not to take away from the experience. Clarity and detail of graphics is much better in rift than in dk2. I did get somewhat dizzy when using DK2, so far on rift nothing has made me feel ill.

The setup of hardware is super easy. To get good fitting of rift on head is altogether another topic. It is frustrating and time consuming to optimize and figure out what is the correct way to wear rift. Though once you have it dialed in there is no further need for messing around. The adjustment over the head, side of the head and also the tilt on rift itself required is a bit non obvious. Physical IPD setting is great though some software seem to still also offer software based ipd adjustment too.

The sound coming out of those cheap looking speakers is very reasonable. I think I will not bother using anything but the integrated headset. Sound isolation is also excellent which is nice to have when you want to be fully immersed in vr.

Overall I'm very happy about how rift ended up being. Of course this is still early and once the initial excitement is over perhaps there is more to complain about.

 

[Egmon83]

All is forgiven. I got oculus rift today and it's really amazing. The quality of graphics is sufficient for first gen consumer product. Screen door effect, glare, red stuff when whole display is dark etc. is definitely there. But the good thing is the artifacts are minor enough not to take away from the experience. Clarity and detail of graphics is much better in rift than in dk2. I did get somewhat dizzy when using DK2, so far on rift nothing has made me feel ill.

The setup of hardware is super easy. To get good fitting of rift on head is altogether another topic. It is frustrating and time consuming to optimize and figure out what is the correct way to wear rift. Though once you have it dialed in there is no further need for messing around. The adjustment over the head, side of the head and also the tilt on rift itself required is a bit non obvious. Physical IPD setting is great though some software seem to still also offer software based ipd adjustment too.

The sound coming out of those cheap looking speakers is very reasonable. I think I will not bother using anything but the integrated headset. Sound isolation is also excellent which is nice to have when you want to be fully immersed in vr.

Overall I'm very happy about how rift ended up being. Of course this is still early and once the initial excitement is over perhaps there is more to complain about.

Great write up!
Would you say the loosening of the straps to have the rift not pressing against your face is a valid option, or would it shift around too much?

 

[manux]

Great write up!
Would you say the loosening of the straps to have the rift not pressing against your face is a valid option, or would it shift around too much?

For my head I had to keep side straps slightly too tight to be absolutely comfortable. Otherwise I felt rift was starting to drop down and starting to press on my nose. When I tried to correct this by adjusting the top strap that would lift the mask but other problems cropped up. I ended up in tolerable compromise but I suspect some other solution could be much less tricky and somewhat more comfortable.

 

[manux]

I'm quite surprised that what ended up being my favourite experience so far. it's this:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/411820/

Basically it's a podcast but instead of studio it's recorded as animation in 3d world rendered in vr. You as a listener are inside the 3d scene and can interact with the pre recorded animation. You can also interact with the scene. Little things like 3d audio works perfectly. Quite surprising and yet so fun experience.

I found the first thing that made me feel real bad . Eve valkyrie is rather upsetting experience. I didn't get used to it but based on other peoples reviews I suppose the experience should get better after a while. I'm sure as hell not going to play that again, at least not for a while.

 

[Egmon83]

For my head I had to keep side straps slightly too tight to be absolutely comfortable. Otherwise I felt rift was starting to drop down and starting to press on my nose. When I tried to correct this by adjusting the top strap that would lift the mask but other problems cropped up. I ended up in tolerable compromise but I suspect some other solution could be much less tricky and somewhat more comfortable.

Thanks, it's great to read a honest view by a person who actually has and uses the device!

edit: not to say that people who claim otherwise don't matter; everyone has a right to their opinion

 

[Egmon83]

More recently we've seen LG have significant delays from when product (most notably OLED TVs) is first announced, shipment and pre-order details announced and actual product shipping.

I am curious, could you name 1 product/TV?

 

[manux]

One very interesting thing about rift is that the experience is very console like. I have slightly under the spec system with nvidia 780 gpu. Still all the games and experiences I have tried worked out of the box without me noticing any performance issues. I guess oculus mandates some kind of automatic scaling of settings? It is really nice as I would really not want to fiddle with settings in vr.