Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

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LeeN
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by LeeN »

You guys have good points but I really like Louis CKs version:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk[/youtube]
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by TheRealistWord »

@Endothermic: I think one of the major problems is that most people compare one device to the next based purely on particular specs, like resolution, or physical attributes like weight or design. Of course those are important in any device, but as soon as they notice it's not 1080p, they automatically assume the whole entire device must be crap. I'd honestly take a low resolution, high FOV HMD over a high resolution, low FOV HMD any day. Increasing the resolution will make it look prettier, but increasing the FOV is what will really offer the user a completely new experience.

So in regards to the Rift having a low resolution... of course I'd absolutely love 1080p screens, but I can hold out on that for awhile. The other features of the Rift are what's going to make it a very immersive experience.

I feel that a revolution of sorts is on the horizon, especially since this has piqued the interest of "large game developers" and "big names in the industry". Anyone else anticipating that the Rift could be that one key component that really sets the ball rolling for consumer priced HMD's for gaming and media? With other large companies catching wind and pumping out their own high FOV HMD's? Spark the market, start something new, and within three years, the consumer HMD market could be saturated with an impressive array of devices that sport high FOV's, precise head tracking, no discernible latency, and a completely immersive experience. This could be the very beginning of a paramount shift.

(Or maybe it's all this excitement and a sugar rush talking ;) )
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by druidsbane »

TheRealistWord wrote:I'd honestly take a low resolution, high FOV HMD over a high resolution, low FOV HMD any day. Increasing the resolution will make it look prettier, but increasing the FOV is what will really offer the user a completely new experience.
...
I feel that a revolution of sorts is on the horizon, especially since this has piqued the interest of "large game developers" and "big names in the industry".
I agree with that last point. It's been a chicken and egg problem till now. It remains to be seen how successful Rift is in pushing the industry forward as larger companies seem to like to remain static, why create a retina display until they need to, hence us having PDA's and phones with the same stale interface and physical specs till the iPhone came around.

In terms of revolution, I hope it isn't just about games. The technology that is used in games has gotten so good recently that creating immersive worlds will be the easy part, but using it for education, entertainment, even work will make it far more useful than what we imagine right now and will for the stepping stone for whatever the next generation of technology is that can only be developed once we have widespread use of these devices and can learn their potential and their limitations.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by jimbo2go »

Krisper wrote:
Nick3DvB wrote:Thanks for the update Palmer, sounds really exciting. 8-)

No probs on the delay, good things come to those who wait...

PS - found a little bit on the FOV2GO and RIFT here:

http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3d-news-2/the- ... ality/8736
I love this bit
"Carmack has agreed to ship a fresh copy of the new Doom 3: BFG Edition along with every RIFT that Palmer gets fundraising for."

So we all get Doom 3 BFG Edition, whoot!! Or is that just over zealous journalism? Or is Palmer going to limit the number he gets funding for .. Noooo! take my money now. :P
Okay, here’s my first post after lurking for eons. I’m the guy who did the 3D Focus article, and I hope I got all my facts right! I’ve been working with Palmer off and on for the past year on projects at USC and the Institute for Creative Technologies, and designed a project last year with his PR3 HMD (the scuba one). The project was called Shayd (http://www.discovershayd.com/), and we used the PhaseSpace mocap system for both position AND orientation tracking.

Of course the 14 mocap cameras + software from PhaseSpace costs upwards of $80,000 (about $5000 per camera and $10,000 for software), so it sure as hell isn’t going anywhere in the consumer market. However, the tracking was just so god damn tasty that I don’t know if I can go back to anything else and still feel the same!

In my spare time between other VR projects I would like to integrate the RIFT with PhaseSpace, and get a prototype going with a laptop strapped to the player’s back. Given an amusement park sized budget, we could fill an entire warehouse full of PhaseSpace cameras that are daisy chained via trusses on the ceiling. The RIFT would have four or five “active marker” red LEDs on it for tracking, and if we wanted to implement full blown avatar embodiment we can also have the players in mocap suits with LEDs at each joint (between 20-24). PhaseSpace uses active markers (as opposed to passive markers like Vicon) so they can blink at different frequencies and keep each player’s point data separated if they happen to occlude each other.

This is the ideal “VR laser tag” or “VR deathmatch” or "VR holodeck" that everyone has been longing for all these years – we can do this right now, given a fat budget. I’ve been talking to Disney Imagineering about it for the past few weeks, and in reality this VR setup is about 10x less expensive than a roller coaster. At the same time, it would also take about 10x as long to push the same amount of patrons through the experience in a given hour. So theoretically if we were to make ten of these VR laser tag arenas, all different themes (Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Black Mesa, what have you - depending on IPs), then you would be making the same profit as a roller coaster at the same rate. Theoretically, that is :P

Anyway, just wanted to hop into the conversation, this is all super exciting with the RIFT and I wholeheartedly believe Palmer is going to revolutionize the game industry in due time. There's so much happening right now, I can barely keep my head from imploding, haha.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

@jimbo2go: Good info. I would love to try that PhaseSpace system as well.

A large building + optical tracking system + high FOV HMD + portable rendering computer is the right mix of ingredients to implement the VR environment that everyone is anticipating.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by DragonM »

TheRealistWord wrote:@Endothermic: I think one of the major problems is that most people compare one device to the next based purely on particular specs, like resolution, or physical attributes like weight or design. Of course those are important in any device, but as soon as they notice it's not 1080p, they automatically assume the whole entire device must be crap.
Which just goes to show they really are children. I consider 1080p inadequate. :P That's why I use two CRTs running at 1800x1440. I hate the whole "HD" thing. It was a major setback for the display industry. Computer monitors were HIGHER resolution than HD, but HD marketing turned into an unstoppable juggernaut, so computer monitors actually got worse while riding the coattails of that marketing. For 5 years, display tech has stagnated, with only one display significantly better than HD (the Apple Cinema Display and its clones) and it's been outrageously expensive. So the "HD HD HD" chant is worse than stupid, to me.

Of course there's a reason the Cinema display is expensive: it's not easy to make them without dead pixels. But that could have been solved, if it wasn't for the market going backwards. Manufacturers weren't about to spend money improving the process for making actual high resolution displays when they were getting rich making crappy low resolution HD displays.

Even when I can afford a Rift, I expect to continue using my monitors for quite some time to come. The high FOV of the Rift will be great for virtual worlds and the resolution will simply be tolerated. For some things, such as displaying text (and lots of it), resolution is indispensable. It's going to be a while before there's a VR code development environment.
TheRealistWord wrote:This could be the very beginning of a paramount shift.

(Or maybe it's all this excitement and a sugar rush talking ;) )
Probably, because the word you were looking for was 'paradigm'. And don't say it. It makes you sound like a dweeb. (No offense.)

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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by android78 »

DragonM wrote:
TheRealistWord wrote:@Endothermic: I think one of the major problems is that most people compare one device to the next based purely on particular specs, like resolution, or physical attributes like weight or design. Of course those are important in any device, but as soon as they notice it's not 1080p, they automatically assume the whole entire device must be crap.
Which just goes to show they really are children. I consider 1080p inadequate. :P That's why I use two CRTs running at 1800x1440. I hate the whole "HD" thing. It was a major setback for the display industry. Computer monitors were HIGHER resolution than HD, but HD marketing turned into an unstoppable juggernaut, so computer monitors actually got worse while riding the coattails of that marketing. For 5 years, display tech has stagnated, with only one display significantly better than HD (the Apple Cinema Display and its clones) and it's been outrageously expensive. So the "HD HD HD" chant is worse than stupid, to me.

Of course there's a reason the Cinema display is expensive: it's not easy to make them without dead pixels. But that could have been solved, if it wasn't for the market going backwards. Manufacturers weren't about to spend money improving the process for making actual high resolution displays when they were getting rich making crappy low resolution HD displays.

Even when I can afford a Rift, I expect to continue using my monitors for quite some time to come. The high FOV of the Rift will be great for virtual worlds and the resolution will simply be tolerated. For some things, such as displaying text (and lots of it), resolution is indispensable. It's going to be a while before there's a VR code development environment.
TheRealistWord wrote:This could be the very beginning of a paramount shift.

(Or maybe it's all this excitement and a sugar rush talking ;) )
Probably, because the word you were looking for was 'paradigm'. And don't say it. It makes you sound like a dweeb. (No offense.)

DM
I totally disagree. While the resolution may not have increased at the rate you would like, the quality of the experience has improved markedly. To quote you, you say 'Which just goes to show they really are children.', then continue on as if resolution is the be all and end all of the quality of displays. I would much rather a nice, lower resolution but easier on the eye display with more natural colors and much more space on my desk then higher resolution.
The other advantage of the HD (meaning 1080p/i resolution) is STANDARDIZATION! Having a standard resolution makes the display a lot more supportable without having to worry that fonts, formatting, etc will be messed up due to different resolutions. This is one thing that most on this forum seem to neglect, for a consumer, they want something that just works without having to play with settings and adjust a bunch of different parameters. I like to call it the black box idea. You don't want to know what happens inside. This is why consoles have overtaken PCs for gaming in the past 10 years or so, even though you can get a better system/experience for less money with PC, there is the problem that you have to look at the back of every game box to determine if your system with its configuration of graphics card, processor, operating system is supported. With a games console, you see the console name on the game box, put it in your system and it works!
While I appreciate projects like the rift and am tempted to create one myself, these will never be adopted by the public en mass since it is not just plug and play. If it could incorporate HDMI 1.3 with 3D signal, that's when it could be taken up by the masses, since it is a true standard for the signal. This doesn't mean that it's not a good product or that the resolution isn't good enough, just it's not user friendly.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by WiredEarp »

I used to use a CRT, it supported something ridiculous like 2048x1900. 23".
My 26" LCD kicks its ass however, colors are brighter etc. I dont really see the need for more than 1920x1200 in a 26" monitor. If you go 30", you can get that extra resolution, but I dont really have a need for it, and I suspect most people dont really need/want more resolution either. Those using their PCs for graphics work would be an exception of course.

@ the resolution you are running at, you'd lose very few pixels going to a 26" / 16:10 monitor...
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Christopher »

This certainly has a lot of potential! Oh and the grass is green too:)

Does anybody know if there a concerns regarding eye damage using a HMD? I'm not talking eye fatigue but vision blurring leading to eye glasses.

Doom 3 BFG should rock!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by DragonM »

android78 wrote:I totally disagree. While the resolution may not have increased at the rate you would like, the quality of the experience has improved markedly. To quote you, you say 'Which just goes to show they really are children.', then continue on as if resolution is the be all and end all of the quality of displays. I would much rather a nice, lower resolution but easier on the eye display with more natural colors and much more space on my desk then higher resolution.
I can't argue with the improvements flat panels have made in freeing up space on your desk, but the "natural colors" thing is bogus. When LCD panels first went mainstream, their compliance with CIE 1931 (and later standard color gamuts) was quite poor. It's only been in the last couple years that LCD panels met CRT standards, and very recently that they started to exceed CRT standards.

In any case, if you'd read some of my other posts, you'd know that I don't think resolution is the be all and end all of display quality. At least, not for all displays. Context matters. For my flat, static, sitting-on-my-desk display, resolution is extremely important, and that's what led to my complaints about HD. High resolution isn't just for graphics guys, as WiredEarp seem to think. Refer to the end of my previous post. I have a need to display large quantities of text simultaneously. LARGE quantities. For that, resolution is indispensable. For HMDs, field of view is more important. This is why I haven't criticized the Rift's initial resolution, and have, in fact, defended it.
android78 wrote:The other advantage of the HD (meaning 1080p/i resolution) is STANDARDIZATION!
Oh yeah. As if what we needed was another standard. Because the other 39 standard resolutions were getting lonely.
android78 wrote:This is one thing that most on this forum seem to neglect, for a consumer, they want something that just works without having to play with settings and adjust a bunch of different parameters. I like to call it the black box idea. You don't want to know what happens inside. ... This doesn't mean that it's not a good product or that the resolution isn't good enough, just it's not user friendly.
Well yeah, but that's because this isn't a consumer forum, by any stretch of the imagination. It's a hobbyist forum. Everybody here (except apparently you) is here because they don't have a problem with needing to know what happens inside. Some of us even enjoy knowing. VR and its enabling technologies are in their infancy. (A very extended infancy, to be sure, but still their infancy.) Anybody who claims they have a polished, mature, ready-to-meet-Apple-gadget-consumer-expectations product is blowing smoke. We aren't there yet. If you're here and reading this forums, that should be blindingly obvious. If you knew anything about product development, you'd know these things don't just spring full-blown from the forehead of Zeus, either. It takes time and an amazing amount of effort to mature a concept into a consumer product. An amazing amount of effort has already been expended in this space, after all, and we're still a long ways away from any such thing.

The Rift is a good step along the road.

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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by android78 »

Thanks for setting me straight, DragonM... and sorry to everyone for taking this thread off track.
My frustration is with the fact that we don't seem to have advanced much in the HMD field since about 10 years back, and that we still have to go to extreme lengths like hacking together a HMD like Rift to get a half decent experience. Then, after we have gone to all lengths to create this, it will have the same old problem with having to use specialized display and input drivers (sourced from different providers) just to get it to work and likely to be hit-and-miss for the games you will be able to use it.
I'm not criticizing this product or the effort for this, and I agree with your statement 'It takes time and an amazing amount of effort to mature a concept into a consumer product. An amazing amount of effort has already been expended in this space, after all, and we're still a long ways away from any such thing.' But my point is that we still seem to be within the first km or a marathon 10 years after the race began.
BTW, regarding lots of text; I also have to deal with a lot of text in my work and find that 3 LCD monitors work well for this. It personal preference, but I much prefer the 'quieter' feel of even a poor LCD to a CRT. Even top of the line CRTs set to the max refresh rate gave me a headache and I find this isn't the case with LCD. Also, my ears are super-sensitive to the ringing of a CRT screen that most people seem unable to hear.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by cybereality »

To be honest, those "kids" on the mainstream sites aren't totally off. Up until just recently, consumer HMDs pretty much sucked. They were low res, blurry, tunnel vision, had glitchy trackers, expensive, sad software support, etc. We are just starting to get some decent HMDs that don't cost $20,000 and up. Trackers are getting much better and much cheaper. We now have more standardized 3D formats and 3rd party 3D software. Lots of things coming together now. We are on the cusp of something big. But its not ready for the general public just yet.

While much cheaper, VR is still pretty expensive once you factor everything in. For a full consumer-level setup you could easily spend $2,000 or more, while you can get a console system *and* an HDTV for $500 these days. You still need to be a techie to get the software to work correct, and it some cases need to develop your own hardware/software to accomplish this. And even after all this money and trouble, its still nowhere close to what you see in the movies. Well at least until the Rift comes out. That will surely make some waves, but I feel its just the beginning.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

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@ DragonM:
High resolution isn't just for graphics guys, as WiredEarp seem to think. Refer to the end of my previous post. I have a need to display large quantities of text simultaneously. LARGE quantities. For that, resolution is indispensable.
Yes, but the thing is, you don't really HAVE much higher resolution, at least with the setup you quoted.

1800x1440 = 2592000 pixels
1920x1200 = 2304000 pixels

so, you are gaining only 288,000 pixels, which is nice, but you are using a 4:3 monitor, which means that for displaying text, you are probably going to be able to see LESS than if you had a 1920x1200 monitor in portrait mode. Of course, that will depend if the text is wider or deeper.

I just dont see how your setup is significantly better in terms of resolution for text OR graphics, compared to a 2x 1920x1200 setup in portrait mode... not to mention the extra desk space requirements. Also, unless you have a very large CRT (larger than 23") everything will be easier to read on the bigger screen.

@ jimbo2go, that sounds like a cool system, and I agree, the tech is almost there now for VR lasertag... its just the tracking implementations holding stuff back. If price is no object, this can be solved now as you say.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by DragonM »

WiredEarp wrote:Yes, but the thing is, you don't really HAVE much higher resolution, at least with the setup you quoted.

1800x1440 = 2592000 pixels
1920x1200 = 2304000 pixels

so, you are gaining only 288,000 pixels, which is nice, but you are using a 4:3 monitor, which means that for displaying text, you are probably going to be able to see LESS than if you had a 1920x1200 monitor in portrait mode. Of course, that will depend if the text is wider or deeper.

I just dont see how your setup is significantly better in terms of resolution for text OR graphics, compared to a 2x 1920x1200 setup in portrait mode... not to mention the extra desk space requirements. Also, unless you have a very large CRT (larger than 23") everything will be easier to read on the bigger screen.
True enough, and it's to my lasting regret that I don't have a 30" 2560x1600 LCD panel flanked by two 27" 2560x1440 LCD panels (which weren't available until very recently). Alas, the money isn't there. I've been in austerity mode for 4 years now, first anticipating being unemployed (and saving as much of my salary as I could), and then actually being unemployed. Back when I had disposable income, widescreen LCD panels were far from ideal in portrait mode. LCD panels have long been optimized for viewing in landscape mode, right down to the arrangement of the subpixels, so a panel in portrait mode looks very strange. I found it hard to read, at the time. I gather that's less of a problem these days.

I didn't mean to imply I currently have the ideal setup. Far from it. Both of these monitors have at least one blown capacitor, so there are times when the picture goes all wibbly on me. Nothing I can do about it right now. But as you acknowledged, I do have substantially more pixels than an HD widescreen, and for the price (i.e. already paid for), it can't be beat.

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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by WiredEarp »

Yep, a 30" sounds like it would be perfect for you. Especially with flanking monitors!

I bought my CRT solely for 3D back when 3D LCD's didn't exist, and its still sweet for everything (i have it on my spare spare PC). Definitely back when LCD's were newer, CRTs had many advantages (were way better with scaling game resolutions to full screen, faster response, higher resolution, etc).

I know what you mean about disposable income... too many toys to buy, too little money. Ive had to hold off on the ST1080 as I've decided I cant afford TWO new HMD's just yet, and I want the Rift :)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by petersmc »

jimbo2go wrote:
Krisper wrote:
Nick3DvB wrote:Thanks for the update Palmer, sounds really exciting. 8-)

No probs on the delay, good things come to those who wait...

PS - found a little bit on the FOV2GO and RIFT here:

http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3d-news-2/the- ... ality/8736
I love this bit
"Carmack has agreed to ship a fresh copy of the new Doom 3: BFG Edition along with every RIFT that Palmer gets fundraising for."

So we all get Doom 3 BFG Edition, whoot!! Or is that just over zealous journalism? Or is Palmer going to limit the number he gets funding for .. Noooo! take my money now. :P
Okay, here’s my first post after lurking for eons. I’m the guy who did the 3D Focus article, and I hope I got all my facts right! I’ve been working with Palmer off and on for the past year on projects at USC and the Institute for Creative Technologies, and designed a project last year with his PR3 HMD (the scuba one). The project was called Shayd (http://www.discovershayd.com/), and we used the PhaseSpace mocap system for both position AND orientation tracking.

Of course the 14 mocap cameras + software from PhaseSpace costs upwards of $80,000 (about $5000 per camera and $10,000 for software), so it sure as hell isn’t going anywhere in the consumer market. However, the tracking was just so god damn tasty that I don’t know if I can go back to anything else and still feel the same!

In my spare time between other VR projects I would like to integrate the RIFT with PhaseSpace, and get a prototype going with a laptop strapped to the player’s back. Given an amusement park sized budget, we could fill an entire warehouse full of PhaseSpace cameras that are daisy chained via trusses on the ceiling. The RIFT would have four or five “active marker” red LEDs on it for tracking, and if we wanted to implement full blown avatar embodiment we can also have the players in mocap suits with LEDs at each joint (between 20-24). PhaseSpace uses active markers (as opposed to passive markers like Vicon) so they can blink at different frequencies and keep each player’s point data separated if they happen to occlude each other.

This is the ideal “VR laser tag” or “VR deathmatch” or "VR holodeck" that everyone has been longing for all these years – we can do this right now, given a fat budget. I’ve been talking to Disney Imagineering about it for the past few weeks, and in reality this VR setup is about 10x less expensive than a roller coaster. At the same time, it would also take about 10x as long to push the same amount of patrons through the experience in a given hour. So theoretically if we were to make ten of these VR laser tag arenas, all different themes (Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Black Mesa, what have you - depending on IPs), then you would be making the same profit as a roller coaster at the same rate. Theoretically, that is :P

Anyway, just wanted to hop into the conversation, this is all super exciting with the RIFT and I wholeheartedly believe Palmer is going to revolutionize the game industry in due time. There's so much happening right now, I can barely keep my head from imploding, haha.
What is the general opinion on suspended full body haptic harnesses in conjunction with HMDs? I see ideas about large rooms, or omnidirectional walkways, etc. While these would be interesting in terms of doing rolls, or something, I think the big limitation is getting haptic feedback from structures in the virtual environment: I mean, not being able to move your arm through a wall, or climbing stairs, etc.
To my mind, a motorised exoskeleton that is suspended, perhaps in a 3 axis swivel, would be as close as we can get without jacking directly to the nervous system. Even a "basic" model covering legs and arms would be interesting.
I know that Palmer considers this approach to be overly expensive given that the user can "learn" limitations in the VR environment and get a similar experience. Its all a bit moot for me given I have not experienced RIFT, or many HMDs in general, but to my mind it would be cool to be able to climb stairs and feel the resistance in the powering leg, or to have an arm and wast rotation give resistance when you are trying to put an arm through a wall, etc. This also opens the door to VR avatars that are "superhuman" but still give some feedback. With a 3 axis rotation, you then get to make people feel really ill when falling, etc :roll:
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by bobv5 »

This place really got busy! Any plans for a second batch of rifts?
The resolution is suddenly a much smaller problem than it was two months ago, as it sounds like quite a few programs are going to be specially modified to work at HMD res. Even if only Doom 3 ends up actually happening, that is a lot of content if fan made mods will work with the new engine.

petersmc, have a look at the Novint Xio. Should allow a pretty cool lightsabre game if nothing else. Or at this thread for something that will work with most software.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=13980

Taking longer than I hoped, and not as good as what you were talking about, but certainly a step closer.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by petersmc »

bobv5 wrote:This place really got busy! Any plans for a second batch of rifts?
The resolution is suddenly a much smaller problem than it was two months ago, as it sounds like quite a few programs are going to be specially modified to work at HMD res. Even if only Doom 3 ends up actually happening, that is a lot of content if fan made mods will work with the new engine.

petersmc, have a look at the Novint Xio. Should allow a pretty cool lightsabre game if nothing else. Or at this thread for something that will work with most software.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=13980

Taking longer than I hoped, and not as good as what you were talking about, but certainly a step closer.
Yeah, I saw the Xio pop up on google, and the teasers about "full body" under development. Seems like an interesting start, but as you mention, I am thinking something more hardcore. What got me thinking was themepark level funding, as I doubt a full-body suspeneded rig could be priced at the consumer level. Having said that, people do buy cars, so you never know.
I need to do some research on the DOFs verses diminishing returns on immersion level, as this starts becoming a basline on potential costs, not to mention the control loop compexity.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

Just checked out the Xio on YouTube, holy screw that poop is SWEET. I especially liked the accelerometer based running and jumping support! I hope the Xio gets released at a decent price. Now all I have to sort out is a decent backtop solution....
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by AntonieB »

Palmer, please start talking about the Rift again :) this thread is not on topic anymore and really in need for some solid information about the project :) for example some photo's from the latest build or other kickstarter related information :) anything to get this thing ontopic
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by profvr »

Okay, here’s my first post after lurking for eons. I’m the guy who did the 3D Focus article, and I hope I got all my facts right! I’ve been working with Palmer off and on for the past year on projects at USC and the Institute for Creative Technologies, and designed a project last year with his PR3 HMD (the scuba one). The project was called Shayd (http://www.discovershayd.com/), and we used the PhaseSpace mocap system for both position AND orientation tracking.

Of course the 14 mocap cameras + software from PhaseSpace costs upwards of $80,000 (about $5000 per camera and $10,000 for software), so it sure as hell isn’t going anywhere in the consumer market. However, the tracking was just so god damn tasty that I don’t know if I can go back to anything else and still feel the same!

In my spare time between other VR projects I would like to integrate the RIFT with PhaseSpace, and get a prototype going with a laptop strapped to the player’s back. Given an amusement park sized budget, we could fill an entire warehouse full of PhaseSpace cameras that are daisy chained via trusses on the ceiling. The RIFT would have four or five “active marker” red LEDs on it for tracking, and if we wanted to implement full blown avatar embodiment we can also have the players in mocap suits with LEDs at each joint (between 20-24). PhaseSpace uses active markers (as opposed to passive markers like Vicon) so they can blink at different frequencies and keep each player’s point data separated if they happen to occlude each other.

This is the ideal “VR laser tag” or “VR deathmatch” or "VR holodeck" that everyone has been longing for all these years – we can do this right now, given a fat budget. I’ve been talking to Disney Imagineering about it for the past few weeks, and in reality this VR setup is about 10x less expensive than a roller coaster. At the same time, it would also take about 10x as long to push the same amount of patrons through the experience in a given hour. So theoretically if we were to make ten of these VR laser tag arenas, all different themes (Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Black Mesa, what have you - depending on IPs), then you would be making the same profit as a roller coaster at the same rate. Theoretically, that is :P

Anyway, just wanted to hop into the conversation, this is all super exciting with the RIFT and I wholeheartedly believe Palmer is going to revolutionize the game industry in due time. There's so much happening right now, I can barely keep my head from imploding, haha.
Interesting project. How do you find the stability of the optical motion capture for tracking the HMD? I would worry about high frequency jitter.

If only these guys had wide FOV and better "games" to play: VIRTSIM. VIRTSIM is a tactical squad trainer for the US Army, 13 motion optically motion-capture soldiers in a basketball court!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

I wonder if CLANG may support the Rift at some point. From there, you're just a 2^16km diameter black sphere from a functional Metaverse.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by LeeN »

What does the resolution and optical effect of the Rift compare to in a real display?

With a real display the VAR is technically the opposite, the pixels further from you are visually closer together then the pixels closest to you due to the angle. Does Rift neutralize this effect or does it flip this in the opposite direction?

It would be interesting to get an idea of what would be the equvalent of a retina display with the Rift's optics and to get an idea how far away we are from that kind of resolution.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by DragonM »

LeeN wrote:It would be interesting to get an idea of what would be the equvalent of a retina display with the Rift's optics and to get an idea how far away we are from that kind of resolution.
There are two things standing between the Rift and a Retina display: driver electronics and production capacity.

Palmer has mentioned more than once that most screens designed for mobile phones use custom driver circuitry, presumably because it's less power hungry than standard LVDS. So the Rift would need some sort of driver board designed and built before it could use a Retina display. That's probably months of an electrical engineer's time, and quite a bit of money for manufacturing.

Which leads directly to the other problem. Apple has a tendency to sign contracts with its manufacturers that push their production capacity right to the limit. Even if their contract with Apple doesn't grant Apple exclusive rights to the parts, the size of the order has historically meant that Apple does effectively get exclusive rights because the manufacturer simply can't make parts any faster. This is likely to be true of Retina displays for some time to come, especially given the fact that other cell phone manufacturers will be wanting to play catch-up with Apple, so when manufacturing capacity finally is available, it will be absorbed by orders from another major cell phone maker.

Given the circumstances, it seems unlikely that the Rift will get Retina panels any time this year. I'd be surprised if it were possible within the next 12 months. A special miracle for every month less. (If you have a fairy godmother, the preferred miracle would be Toshiba going into volume production on their 498 ppi panel, and giving Palmer first crack at the parts.)

DM
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

LeeN wrote:It would be interesting to get an idea of what would be the equvalent of a retina display with the Rift's optics and to get an idea how far away we are from that kind of resolution.
It's tricky enough to define a 'retina display' with a fixed PPI at a fixed distance. Depending on how you measure visual acuity, the 'retina display' of the iPhone, for example, is not. As the Rift should ideally be at a fixed distance from the eye in a fixed location relative to the head, it might be better to talk about resolution in terms of the angular diameter of a pixel, probably in arc-minutes (1/60 a degree) to start with.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by bobv5 »

I'm pretty sure I saw the answer to that question somewhere, maybe on the leep vr website. Don't have time to search right now, but here is the address if anyone wants to look.

http://www.leepvr.com/

As a rough guess, I would say a 4k display would give a similar angular res as a 1080 monitor.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by LeeN »

I started doing my own calculation and the lowest pixels per degree you get from a retina display is 33.958 pixels per degree. That's holding the iphone at 12 inches. If you stretch that to the 90 degrees of Rift that is 6144.955 pixels!!! That is 9.6 times bigger than Rift. But this doesn't take into acount the effect of VAR because there isn't enough information.
Last edited by LeeN on Wed Jun 27, 2012 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by bobv5 »

.........

I thought the 4k meant vertical, like it is with 480 or 720 or 1080. No. It means horizontal. I assumed it would be around 8k horizontal. I was wrong. Either, I am foolish, or the people who name this stuff are. I'll let you guys choose.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Endothermic »

Wow didn't know about the Novint Xio, I particularly like this part from the FAQ "It is designed to be a consumer product. We expect it will be comparable to the Falcon in price." that Falcon is only $250, $280 with the pistol grip! RIFT + Xio = Fully immersive visual, motion and feeling experience under $1000US :shock:

Now we'll just need that $AU to get back up to $1.08US :roll:
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

DragonM It is true that the Toshiba 480 ppi would beat all contenders but as far as we know it may just be vaporware. LG's offering on the other hand is going to provide a 440 ppi handset that is actually being released around Q4 of this year.

I wonder if it would be possible to manufacture a 'mod chip' for driver boards of mobile phones...
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by LeeN »

When I was talking about retina display earlier, I meant the equivalent for Rift and not the actual display. That is a display the average person could not make out the pixels.

That said, the equivalent for a 6 inch display (stretched by the optics to 90°) would be 2390 ppi! As far as I know that's currently not possible.

But then again my calculations do not take into account VAR.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by sambeckett »

since you guys were talking about the iPhone screen, check this out

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/28/sanw ... be-viewer/
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by PatimPatam »

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend QuakeCon but I would love to see Carmack and Palmer showing off a demo of Doom 4 running on a modified 120Hz display Oculus Rift.

Only wishful thinking.. but that would make some news!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Mel »

sambeckett wrote:since you guys were talking about the iPhone screen, check this out

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/28/sanw ... be-viewer/
I was unable to find any more info about this device. I'd like to know its optical specs. Anyone?
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

I bet the FOV2GO has a much better FOV than this thing for a fraction of the price. Palmer might know.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by nicolasbol »

For anybody worried about the custom 250Hz for the FSRK-USB-2:

I got in touch with Hillcrest Labs via email and their sales engineer seem to be extremely willing to cooperate. I asked them to make it available to us or sent it to me so I can host it...I will see what they come back with.

But maybe Palmer already has a plan to have it preloaded ?
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by cybereality »

My understanding is that Palmer would be buying the tracker in bulk directly from the company, so I am assuming he's able to request the custom firmware. If not pre-loaded, then surely he could make it available for download. But I'm not sure anyone ever confirmed that, its just what I was assuming based on what was said.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

FYI: My Hillcrest tracker is in transit and should arrive next Monday, and I will adding FreePIE support for it shortly there-after. So all you Rift followers should have generic head-tracking support by the time the Rift ships. (I'll have to check on the firmware as well)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by andrewe1 »

So it's been two weeks already right?

Should we expect the kickstarter soon? :D
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Okta »

brantlew wrote:FYI: My Hillcrest tracker is in transit and should arrive next Monday, and I will adding FreePIE support for it shortly there-after. So all you Rift followers should have generic head-tracking support by the time the Rift ships. (I'll have to check on the firmware as well)
Hey Brant what type of tracking will the Hillcrest support in use with the Rift with freepie?
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