Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

For the optics.I believe optics will be in the end the most diferenciative piece of hardware in these VR headsets.

 

There's nothing stopping other solutions buying in quality lenses. I'm not even sure Sony produce their own glass (certainly not for all their lenses). Even Canon and Nikon have (according to the internet) outsourced glass production for some lenses.

 

Well,no need to fab their on lenses.The important thing is Minolta has the best engineers in the field.

 

VR eye piece seems to be extremely simple optical design in comparison to whatever Sony would get from their close partnership from Zeiss, or their own Konica-Minolta for high-end camera lenses.

It's probably just molded plastic lenses, so there's no production difficulty. The mystery seems to be who used something "fancy", and I'm still trying to figure it out.... There's a lot of rumors going around. I want something fancy because it becomes fun. Standard design is boring.

What's fascinating is that Oculus said previously that fresnel was crap, and now there's a very strong indication they have switched to a fresnel doublet very recently. So it could be there was some breakthrough in fresnel and/or diffractive optics.

 

Firstly, Minolta having the best engineers in the field is debatable. I don't think their lenses will be inherently superior to alternatives. Secondly, the info I can find suggests Sony closed its DSLR lens factory in 2012. I'm not sure they're making any lenses!

It's going to be a single element for sure. Weight and cost needs to be kept down. Plastic's good enough for spectacles.

One major advantage with the computer images is the option to adjust for image artefacts in the post processing (reverse of lens fault correction in photographs where the lens faults are corrected digitally), so the lens's flaws can be used to correct a deliberately defective output into a perfect image. Maybe that's what all the CA in current games is for...

 

the way the sony vr boss person thingy talks, it seems the current morpheus is basically a final technical spec but the other stuff like for comfortability still can be tweaked. Planned release, next year 1st half.

on the other hand, HTC and Valve already stated Vive will release this year.

is sony simply want more games to be ready and ramping up mass production as the sony vr boss person guy told the interviewer? while valve more like "get this out ASAP so people can develop for it".

 

I can't see any point of Sony launching it without any games to play. Lack of software is likely the holdup. And this is good because they'll get so much more feedback when devs use the unit during development that's it's a chance to work out any last kinks before the consumer unit goes into mass production.

 

I don't think it's the key hold up. Richard M was very clear in that they're ready with the hardware specs and final form, but the hardware team still has to do their 'end-consumer' magic. It's clear that they are trying hard to get this right, and are taking their time to get it right. Because in the end, it's the games that will have to sell it. I get the impression that if they think they can launch in or before Q2 2016, then they will show some games that are further along at this year's E3.

What I am most excited about is the things I've seen that will enhance existing games, even those that I wasn't sold on initially. The way they can use the DualShock 4 in a VR environment is very interesting. I saw a lot of cool and innovate things like slotting in the controller to then take direct control of all sorts of things, but for some reason, the idea of playing a 3D platformer in VR with the camera automatically following the character that you run around with from top-down perhaps got me excited the most. Perhaps not justifiably so, but the idea that older games could be ported to this relatively easily just really appealed to me - play Jak & Daxter in VR for instance could be really cool.

 

Vive controllers are not very pleasing to the eye, but this is not their final form. I'm not sure if the form can change drastically, tbh though, I'm not sure it's very important.
It seems that they are working as intended, and that is what matters most.
Granted, I have not used the move on a PS4, and have no idea if they tackled the issues the PS3 had with them, namely the fact that they were inaccurate after minutes of playing and required constant calibration.

My guess is, that the first applications will be of a sited experience, and valves solution will still be better than the rest, mostly because of lower latency.

 

I have never had this problem with the PlayStation Move. but from what I gathered it was the magnetometer that was causing some drifting so I'm guessing that it was because some people didn't calibrate the controller in the XMB menu or didn't do it correctly. on PS4 it seems that they are no longer using the magnetometer because they have the stereo vision camera now.

When I seen all the VR DS4 stuff all I seen was what devs should be doing with the controls even without VR. I'm hoping that the VR stuff spark some ideas for new gameplay ideas across the board. I hope that Sony make the camera standard this holiday or after Morpheus is released. DS4 & Wiiu pad give console devs a chance to create something different for consoles that's not just better looking.

 

Very nice impressions from Gamespot


Plus their short interview with Yoshida

 

Digital Foundry: Sony and the future of VR

 

Nice article. Now the question I have is who's up to what? There's been alot of quiet on some fronts that now is beginning to make sense. SSM has announced nothing yet, ND's second unit, MM's second unit, Guerilla's second unit has leaked a title but no detail, and then there's their close working with Indies that could really payoff for them and the Indies (who can also publish for Oculus and Valve). If That Game Company is giving us a VR Journey then I'll forgive them for the no PS4 port.

 

current gen seems so refreshing on management level. They casually call out each other competitor brands, tech, and praise each other. Not like on those ps1, ps2 and ps3 era *shudder* when ecerybody attacks everybody.

btw about movement... does "hold X" to move where you are facing feels disorienting in VR? if its okay, then it can be combined with the "180 degree flip" that was mendioned in that interviewe.

 

The IMU in the DS4 (BMI055) can do step counting so maybe something like that could be done using the sensors in the headset. I'm sure they can do enough studies to come up with a good pattern to recognize when someone is doing a walk in place motion.

 

There were so many games with DK1/DK2 in which users use gamepad/hydra to move forward in VR space, and now suddenly, a lot of media is wondering how will users traverse VR worlds? ~_~

They will press a button to walk forward.



Also, devs need to force more 3rd person games. Cymatic Bruce did a nice overview of TPS VR games a while back, and they can work wonderfully with VR.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2yad4l/the_big_3_a_comparison_of_htc_valve_vive_oculus/

 

Can someone explain to me what 1080xrgb means? I understand it adds perceived clarity?

 

It's just to say that each pixel is a complete rgb pixel, with three colors per pixels. To differentiate it from a bayesian (only one color per pixel, like most cameras) or pentile (only two colors per pixel, all have green and alternating red and blue). Oculus seems to be pentile right now, but I'm really hoping they will change it to a true rgb at launch, with their partnership with samsung the chances are high. (no idea what vive is using and at this point I don't really care)

In normal cases, a pentile 1440p looks only a little better than an rgb 1080p, but it needs the game to render twice the number of pixels, it's a big waste of processing power. A true 1440p rgb would be much better.

 

Red,Green,Blue sub pixel rendering.