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

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

Post by druidsbane »

LordJuanlo wrote:If they have finally included diopter adjustment in the developer kits, I'm not angry with the delay anymore :D
Seems unlikely b/c the lens area looks pretty solidly formed of a single piece of plastic, unless it is just for small adjustments to the lenses on either side, I don't really know how much movement is needed to calibrate for each eye. Are there a knobs on both sides of the headset? That would be sweet!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by BOLL »

petersmc wrote:Since it is a 7 inch housing, anyone know if this would be suitable given the optics? http://www.technocular.com/tech-news/ja ... r-tablets/
You know I was first excited about the larger screen as it might mean higher FoV, then bummed because of the increased weight, but now kind of excited again because if the developer version has a 7-inch display everything that gets designed for the Rift will match any future higher resolution 7-incher, as you linked. With the mini-tablet-size pretty much being set to 7" it feels like a very good decision, Nexus 7, iPad mini etc whatnot.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by MSat »

:woot

I'm excited! The new prototypes look really cool! Can't tell if that's a camera or blue led on the front (guessing led if anything).

The two USB-sized rectangles on the sides look like clips for easy removal and installation of the cover, which is great for hacking! All signs were pointing towards a 7" and I'm happy this is the case, because if the driver box proves to be somewhat flexible, we might be able to install our own panels without too much trouble :D

I am curious about the knobs on each side. We can see them in the pic, so why not tell us what they're for? Pretty please? ;)

So finally, a realistic (but still impressive!) timetable.What we're looking at is an impressive step from the crude prototypes we've seen up to this point. I hope some of the comments floating around here aren't discouraging to the Oculus team, or push some of them away. I appreciate the time Palmer and Dycus give us here, and I hope it stays that way.


BTW, is it true nrp is part of the Oculus team? I must have missed that post.

Lastly, what's that top strap for?
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

Okta wrote:What i said stands. Legacy support like DDD and SBS 3d video will have even more problems than just a munted aspect ratio now.
Neither of those were ever going to work well at all (wrong aspect ratio, wrong FoV, no warping, probably no head tracking, incorrect head-neck model for regular stereo drivers, etc), now they'll just work slightly less well than that.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by crespo80 »

What I can't really understand from their timeline, is the "56 days" to manufacture the injection molds!
How many molds have they to manufacture in order to produce 500 units/day?
I thought it'd take a day at max to produce one single mold, and they could start using it to produce the first injected units!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by wavefunction »

MSat wrote:
Lastly, what's that top strap for?
For comfort. I know the Sony HMZ-Tx series HMDs didn't feature the top strap so a lot of users started adding them because the HMDs were awkward and uncomfortable for extended periods of time without them. I'd also guess that without the top strap, the unit would start to sag on your face after extended wear.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by DolAtoR »

gray wrote:Best not to get hopes up, it could be a locking mechanism to allow them to seperate the ski mask casing from the screen casing.
Possibly, but there seems to be some kind of grid pattern as well, if you look closely, which seems to be indicating some kind of adjustment scale:

Image

Also note that the wheel is not only on the right side of the device (see upper image) but on the left side as well:

Image

So my guess is dioptre adjustment – because for IPD, it wouldn't make much sense that each eye can be adjusted separately.

edit: Looking a little closer at the second picture makes me even more confident that the front now includes a camera. It is hard to tell from the low-res images, but you see some kind of writing on the edge of the blue ring - akin to the specs that are written on the front of camera lenses.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by MikeFesta »

Thanks for the update guys. Delays are never fun, but this is a good thing in the long run. If you had only gotten a few hundred backers, as initially expected, we would probably have prototypes in our hands now. That would have been fun for a few days, but soon the reality would have set in that Doom 3 would be the only thing we could play. Sure, we would be able to do our own development, but who would buy/use the games/hardware/services that we built? It would have been much harder to pitch a consumer product when only a few hundred developers, including a lot of hobbyists (such as myself) were making applications. A consumer model may have eventually arrived, but it would have taken a lot longer.

In contrast, we now have a nice looking alpha unit for over 7,000 developers, integration with several big game engines, a super fast tracker, and room to swap in a high-res screen. Although development won't be able to start until March, the development tools are going to be much better (I'm really looking forward to the SDK). This version looks much closer to a consumer product and because of that big companies will devote resources into developing for this new platform, since they will be able to see an emerging market. This represents a real opportunity for virtual reality to become mainstream, which I think is something that most of us here have dreamed of for years, if not decades.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Modab »

Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

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

Post by druidsbane »

Modab wrote:Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

For shame.
I think they've been as open and honest as they could each step of the way. I don't know how useful it would have been to announce a delay before they knew how long it would be. Now they have a complete manufacturing schedule openly published where we can see everything obliging the estimate that 6000 sets should be ready even though 7500 preordered and so we know that first come first served will get headsets in match and the rest in April or later. Fair enough in my book plus we are getting more features which is pretty neat for developers. Except for testing live, almost everything can be done in software except the final integration step. I'm pretty excited :)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by mahler »

As for the eye. It seems likely this was created for a small CMOS camera
These types of camera's are small & cheap:

Image

And it's consistent with the Oculus Career openings:
Senior Software Engineer – Pose Tracking
Senior Software Engineer – Kinematics
Senior Software Engineer – 3D Optical Flow

However, since the last update clearly states that "Due to time constraints for the developer kit, we had to push several exciting features to the consumer version." it's more likely that the dev kit will just contain a LED or non-supported placeholder for now.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

mahler wrote:As for the eye. It seems likely this was created for a small CMOS camera
These types of camera's are small & cheap:
Interesting that it seems to be designed for monoscopic camera only. Many of the optical flow techniques work better and/or faster with stereoscopic imagery. And of course, pass-thru stereoscopic video would be out of the question as well.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by wavefunction »

Modab wrote:Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

For shame.
First of all, unless you have a lot of money invested in this they don't owe you anything.

Secondly, if the silence is an indication that they're working really hard, then it is a good thing. In the Oculus team's case, silence is always an indication of them working their asses off and they've shared enough with the community for us to know that. Having followed hundreds of software and hardware developments over the past decade and a half, I know that there are plenty of teams out there that care too much about keeping the community up to date on every little piece of progress and it can ultimately cause more harm (and more anger) than good.

Lastly, Oculus isn't Microsoft. They aren't Apple. They're a small team of guys and no one in history has gone through this process before. They're developing a technology that frankly doesn't exist yet. They aren't making a game, they aren't making a joystick or some other peripheral... they're pioneering something totally new. You should have known this when you donated (if you did) and anyone with a decent head on their shoulders was expecting delays, possibly even utter failure in the very beginning. And we donated anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the device is coming into shape faster and stronger than I imagined with lots of exciting "surprises" in tow for the consumer version.

Also think about all that's happened that we aren't exactly privy to. They've amassed a professional(!) and experienced(!) team, received tonnes of support from the top tier of the gaming industry, made a small fortune from the community, travelled around the world letting people try their product, set up a new office, liaised internationally with other interested companies, and fulfilled the conditions of having this product mass produced indefinitely. That's just off the top of my head too.

They are doing extraordinarily well. Quit your bellyaching! :woot
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Unclebob »

druidsbane wrote:
Modab wrote:Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

For shame.
I think they've been as open and honest as they could each step of the way. I don't know how useful it would have been to announce a delay before they knew how long it would be. Now they have a complete manufacturing schedule openly published where we can see everything obliging the estimate that 6000 sets should be ready even though 7500 preordered and so we know that first come first served will get headsets in match and the rest in April or later. Fair enough in my book plus we are getting more features which is pretty neat for developers. Except for testing live, almost everything can be done in software except the final integration step. I'm pretty excited :)
For SHAME indeed.

Do you seriously believe that they had no idea that it would take up to 90 days to tool up for production? or that in any commercial agreement for production the contracted manufacturer would not have told them how long things would take when the contracts to begin were signed?

Do you seriously believe that commercially, money changes hands for these things based on no contract, no delivery dates or commercial milestones?

That is not how the real world works.

In business nothing gets signed or paid for unless those things are in place which means that the Oculus management team must have known what the state of play was late October/Early November.

The Oculus management team dropped the ball on this one and they should be apologizing to the community, the people whose money is paying their salaries not patting themselves on the back.

Even yesterday PRE ORDERS on the web site stated ship January.

This is simply wrong on every level.

Their response here by leaving things to the last minute and not apologizing for allowing the community to think one thing whilst they patently knew different is a marker about how the community is regarded as whole.

Yep

FOR SHAME sums it up well.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by fireslayer26 »

Modab wrote:Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

For shame.


For Shame???? Are you kidding me?! I'll tell you what's for shame.... It's that this was your FIRST post here! Your first post and your gonna bitch like that? Maybe if you would have been a member of the forum since the very beginning of this project or even way earlier you would understand Palmer's devotion to his work and the countless hours that he and his team have put into this. They have done great in giving us updates and info. The production delay is not his fault, why don't you go over to China and bitch to them about their traditions and holiday's! You want to speak about lack of respect?? It's YOUR lack of respect in trying to flame Palmer and the Oculus team with your first post and not even give the slightest acknowledgement of their hard work and all that they have already accomplished in such a short time! But thank you for letting the forum members know right up front your true nature....

*EDIT* Unclebob, your another clueless idiot. Why don't you and Modab go crawl back into whichever grandmother's basement you crawled out of. Manufacturing delay's happen all the time, even for major corporations. The Oculus team are creating a groundbreaking new product from scratch, which you obviously don't have the slightest clue of what's involved. I'm getting sick of people like you and Modab that only have a handful of posts and are already bitching and moaning! If you look at the members that have been around a long time and know Palmer, they (we) support him 110%!! Why don't you get your head out of your a$$ and do the same!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

Unclebob wrote:The Oculus management team dropped the ball on this one and they should be apologizing to the community, the people whose money is paying their salaries not patting themselves on the back.
The 'Oculus management team' was the same as the Oculus development team, the Oculus marketing team, and the Oculus production team, with all those teams being Palmer. Prior to the kickstarter, the idea was to produce maybe 200-300 rifts by hand, with off-the-shelf parts and a tape-together case. That's that the lead time was estimated on. This is not feasible for mass production of several thousand units, hence the delays.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Unclebob »

wavefunction wrote:
Modab wrote:Wow, is anyone else disappointed by the unprofessionalism here? The choice to be so silent about everything, it reeks. I'm sorry, if you can't be honest and upfront with your biggest supporters right now, then what attitude can we expect down the line? What part of these delays were under an NDA? Really, you were not allowed to talk about the fact that the monitor had to be switched out? Until 2 days before the first batch was supposed to be in dev hands? This is not about the product. I'm still excited about the Oculus. This is strictly about poor communication and a lack of respect, which has, in turn, lowered my own respect for the Oculus team.

For shame.
First of all, unless you have a lot of money invested in this they don't owe you anything.

Anyone who has backed them has INVESTED

Secondly, if the silence is an indication that they're working really hard, then it is a good thing. In the Oculus team's case, silence is always an indication of them working their asses off and they've shared enough with the community for us to know that. Having followed hundreds of software and hardware developments over the past decade and a half, I know that there are plenty of teams out there that care too much about keeping the community up to date on every little piece of progress and it can ultimately cause more harm (and more anger) than good.

The silence in this case is the problem. One thing that they information on, that people have been relying on, is the one thing they did not bother speaking about.

Lastly, Oculus isn't Microsoft. They aren't Apple. They're a small team of guys and no one in history has gone through this process before. They're developing a technology that frankly doesn't exist yet. They aren't making a game, they aren't making a joystick or some other peripheral... they're pioneering something totally new. You should have known this when you donated (if you did) and anyone with a decent head on their shoulders was expecting delays, possibly even utter failure in the very beginning. And we donated anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the device is coming into shape faster and stronger than I imagined with lots of exciting "surprises" in tow for the consumer version.

They are not the first people to bring a product to market. The technology is not extraordinary as Palmer himself says its more about the availability of hardware than pure innovation. We are not talking about the first microprocessor here, its a ski mask with a 7inch panel some lenses and a motion tracing sensor. The mix is special though.

Also think about all that's happened that we aren't exactly privy to. They've amassed a professional(!) and experienced(!) team, received tonnes of support from the top tier of the gaming industry, made a small fortune from the community, travelled around the world letting people try their product, set up a new office, liaised internationally with other interested companies, and fulfilled the conditions of having this product mass produced indefinitely. That's just off the top of my head too.

But they forgot to tell the people that provided the money to allow them to do all the things you mentioned about what matters to them. That is the changes to a DELIVERY date that they said they would honor.

They are doing extraordinarily well. Quit your bellyaching! :woot
Agreed. No bellyaching. Just disappointed that the Oculus team could have been much more honorable than they have been. As it is a commercial impossibility that in October they were unaware that delivery in December was impossible. Thats when they should have said. Instead they have adopted the Apple Microsoft model which is a great shame. This is not a community projects folks. Its a COMMERCIAL one. All they owe us for our money is the truth. Thats the least I expect from anyone.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Dycus »

Okta wrote:
Zhin wrote:Is it just me or does the tracking appear to be kinda laggy in the Unreal Demo Video
http://vimeo.com/54429925
I think tracking ratio is turned down so far as to be almost not working. Very poor demo.
The tracking is actually 1:1. It's a strange combination of the camera angles, the warping, and the fact that you're not actually in it that makes it look like it's turned down. I've played the demo, and it's great.
Besides, it's even possible to turn it up if you wanted to, so smaller head movements mean greater camera rotation.
Okta wrote:
EdZ wrote:
Okta wrote:7inch display. Those stereo centres are way wider than our eye centres.
You're assuming the lenses have been moved to have a wider IPD. If they stay in the same place, then the expanded display simply has more FoV at the upper, lower and outer sides, and each eye-image is no longer symmetrical.
No longer symmetrical is a whole other can of worms. Can they correct for that in the warping shader? If so that further limits the Rifts use to supported products only and kills 3rd party legacy support like DDD.
That kind of stuff will be handled by the SDK. It won't be difficult, no worries. Yes, we can correct for it.
And less third-party stuff? Naw, the SDK is free. Anybody can use it.
crespo80 wrote:Dycus, please don't push the hype anymore for the upcoming updates, because the "surprise feature" Palmer was alking about is indeed the delay :?
We already knew of the 7" LCD, so there's basically the Delay as our only biggest news!
And maybe dioptric correction, because it seems the lenses can move in/out and there's a regolation wheel on one side of the rift :)
DolAtoR wrote:Seconding crespo80's request: Please try to keep the hype a little lower in your future communications, dycus. It could backfire someday :)
I wasn't hyping, I only said expect an update! :( Everybody else did that job...
DolAtoR wrote:Agreed, it is a bit strange to withhold any such information at this moment. But the wheel is definitely there and they haven't hinted at its function at all. So maybe they are keeping that info for a future update.
We could be. :)
MSat wrote:I am curious about the knobs on each side. We can see them in the pic, so why not tell us what they're for? Pretty please? ;)

Lastly, what's that top strap for?
I'm not saying anything this time! It'll probably be covered in a future update.
The top strap is optional, but included with the kit. :)
Unclebob wrote:For SHAME indeed.

Do you seriously believe that they had no idea that it would take up to 90 days to tool up for production? or that in any commercial agreement for production the contracted manufacturer would not have told them how long things would take when the contracts to begin were signed?

Do you seriously believe that commercially, money changes hands for these things based on no contract, no delivery dates or commercial milestones?

That is not how the real world works.

In business nothing gets signed or paid for unless those things are in place which means that the Oculus management team must have known what the state of play was late October/Early November.

The Oculus management team dropped the ball on this one and they should be apologizing to the community, the people whose money is paying their salaries not patting themselves on the back.

Even yesterday PRE ORDERS on the web site stated ship January.

This is simply wrong on every level.

Their response here by leaving things to the last minute and not apologizing for allowing the community to think one thing whilst they patently knew different is a marker about how the community is regarded as whole.

Yep

FOR SHAME sums it up well.
Mightn't you suppose we were waiting to announce delays until we were absolutely sure we had to have them? I agree we shouldn't have been silent for so long, but we've been working our butts off trying to ship it on time, until we realized it just wasn't possible.
Goodness, we're trying to make a mass-produced product in under, what, six months? I've never even heard of anybody working with that kind of timeframe before.


I'm sorry, guys, that the update was mostly a bummer, and sorry if I made you think it'd be something spectacular.
Of course I'm sorry about the delays. None of us are happy with that, either. :( But we're still doing the best we can. Until you start working with factories, it's hard to understand how tooling is made, how long it takes, how a factory might not want to change something while we do, etc, etc. Tons of tiny nuances that just added up.
Even shipping that late, aren't we still gonna be the first Kickstarter in the top ten or something to ship, anyway? :P
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by fireslayer26 »

Dycus wrote: Even shipping that late, aren't we still gonna be the first Kickstarter in the top ten or something to ship, anyway? :P
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by bobv5 »

So the surprise was.. a delay!!!! Wooo! I love delays.

56 days for the molds sees like a long time, they are big complicated, expensive chunks of metal, and do take a long time to make, but I didn't think that long. Not worked with that stuff for a long time, but I would guess around $100,000. One mold set should easily make 500 units per day. Given the cost of the molds, it would make sense to reuse it, perhaps with modifications, for the consumer version.

The picture that shows the lenses appear to have a gap around them, the simplest way to make them adjustable would be to just move them by hand.

If it is a camera, why not put it at eye position, and why not mention anything about it? If it is a led, the way it is mounted looks wastefully complex.

Very disapointing that the delay wasn't announced untill almost shipping time. It MUST have been known about for much longer.

Oh well. Looks like Dycus will need a bigger bag of drugs. Maybe someone to whip him as well?
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by crespo80 »

I have to agree with some of the disappointed guys above:
We KNOW they're working hard BUT:
If they have this precise timeline now, it means that 1 month ago they roughly knew that the expected delay was not to be calculated in weeks but in months, so they should have honestly put out even a brief "our apologies, the manufacturing process will take extra long time, we cannot ship this year,we'll be more precise in the upcoming weeks".
I don't think they didn't have 30 seconds of time to write a brief note like that!
They didn't want to.
And I honestly don't know why!
WHY?

By the way, I can live with a 3 months delay, but that's about respect ;)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by petro »

Hi Everyone,

I would like to ask a favour from someone who is a backer on KS because I can't comment to the KS updates page or blog entry.
I've seen a few people asking about refund because of the delay.

Could someone please post that I'm ( szerintedmi at gmail dot com ) more than happy to pay any KS backer who would like a refund?

I've already preordered one but we could use an additional unit from an earlier KS backer delivery to start testing our development sooner...

Thanks,

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

Post by sergehag »

It would be nice if Oculus had more updates and transparency since the kickstarter ended. I guess they are worried about competitors copying their ideas.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Bishop51 »

DolAtoR wrote:Agreed, it is a bit strange to withhold any such information at this moment. But the wheel is definitely there and they haven't hinted at its function at all. So maybe they are keeping that info for a future update.
We could be. :)
The Oculus crew should probably rethink transparency and tack with regards to developers, backers/investors. This was EXACTLY the right time to come forward with confirmed specs that developers can actually work with and plan for. Artificially dragging those details out so that an update log can be filled until release is a great way to add to the delay pitchfork party (you can find other reasons for those cheerleader updates). You should probably also consider cracking open the doors to your Developer Center in December to further mitigate the delay.

Coming from a manufacturing background, I always thought the December release was a bit rosey but I assumed Oculus had some secret ace up their sleeves because of who was now involved. China is China though and there's no getting around delays, mistakes, communication barriers and generally a long and painful period of disappointment and stress :lol:

That being said, I have a product being designed for the Oculus developer/backer community and the delay most definitely has an impact on funding and its potential success. Missing the mark by 4 months creates a tangible challenge for me and an earlier heads up that it would be late would have had an ENORMOUS and beneficial impact on this past month of development. I just hope it doesn't have as negative an impact on others projects.

Belly aching over. Still very excited, still a HUGE supporter of everything Oculus is doing!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Unclebob »

EdZ wrote:
Unclebob wrote:The Oculus management team dropped the ball on this one and they should be apologizing to the community, the people whose money is paying their salaries not patting themselves on the back.
The 'Oculus management team' was the same as the Oculus development team, the Oculus marketing team, and the Oculus production team, with all those teams being Palmer. Prior to the kickstarter, the idea was to produce maybe 200-300 rifts by hand, with off-the-shelf parts and a tape-together case. That's that the lead time was estimated on. This is not feasible for mass production of several thousand units, hence the delays.
But this is after kickstarter.

There is a management team in place.

They knew they would have to make about 10000 units when kick starter ended.

The estimated delivery date must have been known when contracts were exchanged for the build of the developer kit units.

This must have been done prior to November 11th as this is when production of molds started.

This should have been communicated earlier.

Taking web orders with an estimated Jan ship date on the web site with fabrication plan in place is completely wrong.
UB

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

Post by sergehag »

I wonder if the last minute notice is again a fear that if delay was communicated earlier it might have motivated a company to manufacture and promote a product before the Rift is out.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by wavefunction »

Unclebob wrote:
Anyone who has backed them has INVESTED

Backing and investing is not the same thing. Backing on Kickstarter is essentially donating. They are held to Kickstarter's guidelines and that's about it.

The silence in this case is the problem. One thing that they information on, that people have been relying on, is the one thing they did not bother speaking about.

I don't think it's a case of "not bothering" so much as it is a case of "not knowing for sure." Publicly stating on their website that the units are ready to ship in November and then posting something like this would have been awful but they didn't do that. They figured everything out and went to the community after they had a relatively finalized and clear agenda. Sure, there are a couple of things they could have done better but given all that's happened in the past year or so I applaud how well they're handling this. They are a tiny, tiny company and even Valve with all their experience misses deadlines constantly all the while not keeping their followers in the loop. When the end result is awesome, people will be able to overlook this (just like people overlook and even expect "Valve time").

They are not the first people to bring a product to market. The technology is not extraordinary as Palmer himself says its more about the availability of hardware than pure innovation. We are not talking about the first microprocessor here, its a ski mask with a 7inch panel some lenses and a motion tracing sensor. The mix is special though.

If it was just a matter of putting the right parts together, then Carmack would have done it (or Sony or the US military etc). Don't let Palmer's modesty make you think that it was something anyone could have come up with. If that were true, then we can say that the only reason Steve Jobs was successful is because he stole everything he could get his hands on.

But they forgot to tell the people that provided the money to allow them to do all the things you mentioned about what matters to them. That is the changes to a DELIVERY date that they said they would honor.

What change would it have made, though? Do you want a refund? Sure, they could've handled this better but if you're looking for consistency and strictly adhered to Corporate timetable, then why did you "invest" in what was essentially a garage project?
Last edited by wavefunction on Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Gunshot »

So I was wondering if there is a set amount of time between dev kit release, and final consumer product. Like a set number of months to collect developer feedback? Because I figured there would be, and that would mean the consumer product would be pushed back several months as well. Based on that thought I don't understand the people saying that they want to cancel their order and will just wait for a version with a better screen or whatever. It seems unlikely there will be any other product out in the meantime, especially not one with a better screen for a similar price... they claim several months greatly devalues their investment somehow, but there is absolutely nothing else out there to measure this perceived value against...
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by kalabalik »

If people can't accept delays they shouldn't even be surfing kickstarter, they should go to a store. Simple as that.

Coming here with burning pitchforks just ooze spoiled redneck without a clue. Cheesus, get a hold of yourselves and read up on the entire path Palmer has taken to bring this magic to our gaming future and calm the f*ck down in all seriousness.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by zalo »

It looks like the knobs on the sides are to hold the front assembly on, so you can twist them and remove the screen to get at the tracker and electronics.

Also, I can confirm first hand that tooling injection molds is ridiculous. And by first hand, I mean polishing them. By hand.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Unclebob »

Dycus wrote: Mightn't you suppose we were waiting to announce delays until we were absolutely sure we had to have them? I agree we shouldn't have been silent for so long, but we've been working our butts off trying to ship it on time, until we realized it just wasn't possible.
Goodness, we're trying to make a mass-produced product in under, what, six months? I've never even heard of anybody working with that kind of timeframe before.


I'm sorry, guys, that the update was mostly a bummer, and sorry if I made you think it'd be something spectacular.
Of course I'm sorry about the delays. None of us are happy with that, either. :( But we're still doing the best we can. Until you start working with factories, it's hard to understand how tooling is made, how long it takes, how a factory might not want to change something while we do, etc, etc. Tons of tiny nuances that just added up.
Even shipping that late, aren't we still gonna be the first Kickstarter in the top ten or something to ship, anyway? :P
Dycus

thank you for replying. It does not wash really though does it? eh?

Do you really expect people to believe that you drummed up to a factory in china on November the 11th and said "can you make this" and they said "ok then".

So you gave them some money and went away? No contracts, no timescales, no delivery dates - nothing.

And then got a phone call last Monday from them saying "But you did realise we have to make molds, fine tuning, testing, verification etc etc and oh we have a national holiday as well in ...Feb .... so we are looking at March April time"

Sorry mate. As soon as you guys knew the timescales you should have told us and you must have known them before. Its a commercial impossibility you didn't.

No one would have cared. No one actually does care really. Everyone wants the Rift to be a success.

But no one believes that you could not have known earlier and could not have let us know.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by MSat »

Someone commented about why would IPD adjustment have two separate knobs, instead of a single integrated one? Because it's easier to make. Looking at the images, it looks like each eyepiece isn't exactly centered horizontally in what looks to be a round cutout. Looking at the knobs at each side also indicate that they're not centered, but both are pointing in the same direction. So I'm guessing each knob is for 1/2 IPD adjustments. There doesn't appear to be any focal adjustments though. Either they'll offer press-on corrective lenses, or you guys with lousy eyesight need to get yourself some contact lenses :P


Upon further consideration, I really don't think that's a camera (or at least it won't be in the dev kit). The reason is that unless the motion sensor board changed, there is simply not a port for a camera (unless it's hiding on the back). The only other way is that if there is another board for the camera module, and either that, or the motion sensor board have an integrated USB hub (unlikely IMO, just as it's unlikely that they would send two separate USB links through the cable, or use two separate boards for what would normally be integrated in one)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by drifter »

hi rifters :)

Well, about the "psychodrama" ;) the only mistake i see here is to have underestimated the manufacturing process timeline.
Now i understand the lack of communication, annoucing a delay without a precise schedule would have been worse ! (See, there are even people to complain of the chineses taking holidays ! we are talking about flexible-near-slave workers here !)

Personally, i'm not really surprised (except for the new better display part), and as a modest Unity dev (and lurker since a few months), it won't bother me too much to have a few more months to master the soft and refresh my coding and 3d modeling skills :oops:

now, bon courage to the Oculus Team, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel 8-)

ps: sorry for the approximate syntax.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by bobv5 »

The Chinese holiday shouldn't matter, the chart says they will be in the boat by then.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by MSat »

Unclebob wrote:
Dycus wrote: Mightn't you suppose we were waiting to announce delays until we were absolutely sure we had to have them? I agree we shouldn't have been silent for so long, but we've been working our butts off trying to ship it on time, until we realized it just wasn't possible.
Goodness, we're trying to make a mass-produced product in under, what, six months? I've never even heard of anybody working with that kind of timeframe before.


I'm sorry, guys, that the update was mostly a bummer, and sorry if I made you think it'd be something spectacular.
Of course I'm sorry about the delays. None of us are happy with that, either. :( But we're still doing the best we can. Until you start working with factories, it's hard to understand how tooling is made, how long it takes, how a factory might not want to change something while we do, etc, etc. Tons of tiny nuances that just added up.
Even shipping that late, aren't we still gonna be the first Kickstarter in the top ten or something to ship, anyway? :P
Dycus

thank you for replying. It does not wash really though does it? eh?

Do you really expect people to believe that you drummed up to a factory in china on November the 11th and said "can you make this" and they said "ok then".

So you gave them some money and went away? No contracts, no timescales, no delivery dates - nothing.

And then got a phone call last Monday from them saying "But you did realise we have to make molds, fine tuning, testing, verification etc etc and oh we have a national holiday as well in ...Feb .... so we are looking at March April time"

Sorry mate. As soon as you guys knew the timescales you should have told us and you must have known them before. Its a commercial impossibility you didn't.

No one would have cared. No one actually does care really. Everyone wants the Rift to be a success.

But no one believes that you could not have known earlier and could not have let us know.

Ok.. Great. So what do you want them to do about it now? What's done is done, and there's no going back to change it. That's, uhhhh, what do you call it?... Oh yeah, LIFE.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Owen »

Disappointing, but if they had to change screen size then it can't be helped. Clearly it necessitated a significant change to the part that takes longest to produce.

More communication would be nice though, and even if the hardware is delayed I hope we get some opportunity to give feedback on the APIs so that the SDK does everything we need once they do arrive.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Unclebob »

wavefunction wrote:
Unclebob wrote:
Anyone who has backed them has INVESTED

Backing and investing is not the same thing. Backing on Kickstarter is essentially donating. They are held to Kickstarter's guidelines and that's about it.

The silence in this case is the problem. One thing that they information on, that people have been relying on, is the one thing they did not bother speaking about.

I don't think it's a case of "not bothering" so much as it is a case of "not knowing for sure." Publicly stating on their website that the units are ready to ship in November and then posting something like this would have been awful but they didn't do that. They figured everything out and went to the community after they had a relatively finalized and clear agenda. Sure, there are a couple of things they could have done better but given all that's happened in the past year or so I applaud how well they're handling this. They are a tiny, tiny company and even Valve with all their experience misses deadlines constantly all the while not keeping their followers in the loop. When the end result is awesome, people will be able to overlook this (just like people overlook and even expect "Valve time").

They are not the first people to bring a product to market. The technology is not extraordinary as Palmer himself says its more about the availability of hardware than pure innovation. We are not talking about the first microprocessor here, its a ski mask with a 7inch panel some lenses and a motion tracing sensor. The mix is special though.

If it was just a matter of putting the right parts together, then Carmack would have done it (or Sony or the US military etc). Don't let Palmer's modesty make you think that it was something anyone could have come up with. If that were true, then we can say that the only reason Steve Jobs was successful is because he stole everything he could get his hands on.

But they forgot to tell the people that provided the money to allow them to do all the things you mentioned about what matters to them. That is the changes to a DELIVERY date that they said they would honor.

What change would it have made, though? Do you want a refund? Sure, they could've handled this better but if you're looking for consistency and strictly adhered to Corporate timetable, then why did you "invest" in what was essentially a garage project?
Thanks for replying.

Its been handled badly. And yes yesterday you could order a Dev Kit with an expected Jan ship date ... not good as you say.

Oh and for your interest there is at least 2 other people on this forum that have explored a similar approach. Palmer has liaised and helped them along. Indeed if you look there is at least 1 DIY project with published instructions and 3d printer files should you wish to make your own. So it is a matter of putting the right parts together that after all is the basis of all manufactured products.

This is not new many projects along similar lines were started and abandoned by enthusiasts. In those days we use web cams for head tracking and screens from early hand held devices.

Simply put without the mobile phone and tablet revolution the hardware would not be here to allow Palmer to do his thing. These are Palmers words as well.

Good luck with the project guys but next time let people know as soon as, eh?
UB

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

Post by rmcclelland »

My take on the update:
- Waiting to announce a delay until you can quantify it is generally the best choice
- Finding the screen was probably the biggest issue since the rest of the design revolves around that choice
- The lack of availability of the demo unit screen is a bummer, but not at all surprising since the UMPC is a dead platform
- I wish there would have been a cool new feature... but there still might be
- The prototype clearly shows a lens in the Oculus logo. It is probably a camera but could be an LED.
- The prototype clearly shows IPD adjustment based on the location and type of mechanism
- The buttons on the control box appear to be power, brightness, and contrast controls
- Thin flexible cable is a nice design
- Sadly, the 7" screen makes the industrial design fugly.

Best of luck to the Oculus team
Last edited by rmcclelland on Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Bretspot »

Slashdot has a post about this in its pending articles.
Up-vote it if you want it to show on Slashdot's front page. (if you have a Slashdot account of course!)
I wonder who that "Anonymous reader" is... :D

http://slashdot.org/recent
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

I feel bad that Oculus is getting some negative criticism about this delay. The real cause of the delay is that they are a tiny little company that (because of the unexpected popularity of their product) had to get involved in large scale manufacturing way before they should have had to. If there had been less than 1000 orders, then they probably could have just re-housed the show demo kit and sent that out on time. It's unfortunate that they priced the kit so low because I think they got a ton of impulse-buy, consumer customers who add no value to the product or to the cause (and yet are probably some of the most focal bashers).

I know that Oculus meant well, but I really wish they had priced it at $700 or higher. I think serious enthusiasts and developers would have gotten on board at that price, and it would have reduced their orders, increased their profit margin and investment capital, and freed them to focus more on R&D instead of devoting time and resources to large scale manufacture. That's the stuff you normally have to do for commercial product - not a prototype kit. I understand and I'm fine with the delay, and I commend the team for following through with such a huge task. I just can't wait until they can get these kits out of the way so they can focus on research and product development instead of having to listen to a bunch of whiny babies !
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