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

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

Post by cybereality »

Yeah, great read.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by lnrrgb »

Spotted a casual mention (a small flame out, down around mid-page). Anyone give their kids an iPhone? LINK
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by juggernautxb »

Well, this is a fascinating forum that has been a pleasure to spin through. Between this and the multiple John Carmack articles I've read and 2012 E3 vid's I've watched, I'm truly excited about what the next few months, and perhaps more importantly the next two years, has in store for HMD's. ...and the potential for what could someday be called the baby steps that led to viable VR hardware. (and software)

I have to admit, I'm a console gamer at heart. However, I understand that this will be built for the PC with the idea of a grassroots movement of individuals trying to better this unit with the big picture in mind. It's fascinating to see a small group of individuals (growing daily though), rivaling some of the largest tech corporations in the world over this type of technology. Take pride in this.

HMD's (and VR) are again gaining steam. Microsoft is apparently researching an HMD, Sony has released a commercially successful unit, and the first 1080P units have just hit the shelves. Still, approaching this from the true gamer's stance, as you are, is the path that interests me most.

When gaming, I like to get lost in the environment that is the game. I guess all entertainment mediums are forms of escapism. But gaming, being the interactive art form it is, drives this home further. I rarely play MP games anymore. I'm always looking for new campaigns to conquer, new places to see.

When console 3D gaming became en vogue over a year ago, I was all in. I purchased a 3D TV and enjoyed several games in 3D on the Xbox360 and the PS3. The 3D did help to draw me into the environment a bit more than ever before, but this is just the beginning. An HMD with a wide FOV, head tracking, low latency, good optics, and sound software could put us inside the environment. I think this has been the dream for many of us since the term virtual reality originally surfaced.

Anyway, I'm sure Palmer is busy, so... Could someone please provide a reset for the state of things, at this moment?

As I understand it, the Kickstarter will start in the next few days. At that point, any money raised won't fund until the goal is reached. However, I also realize that Palmer is accepting pre-Kickstarter funding. For the $500 price point, what would be the differences between the pre-Kickstarter and the Kickstarter? ...perhaps just an earlier delivery?

My interest... For one, I'd like to collect what I think will be considered a piece of technology history. Secondly, I'd like to say I was in from the ground floor and helped to participate in its advancement. Even if at a minute level.

I wish all involved the best of luck. Keep working hard and moving forward!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

coresnake wrote:Sweet interview, once again though all the comments are way off. 'Only Carmack could pull this off', 'Carmack is a genius' etc...

I hope when the Rift comes out officially Palmer gets the credit he deserves :evil:
Don't discount Carmack's contribution to this project. Palmer had the brilliant insight that you could create a compelling piece of hardware using simple, cheap components but he was not able to express this idea fully without the necessary software support. Only a handful of people really understood the potential of the PRx (now called Rift) and luckily Carmack stumbled upon it at exactly the right time and understood its significance. The Rift is a marriage of hardware and software and Carmack was able to provide the second part of the puzzle. He provided a proof of concept that everyone could understand. Without Carmack, the Rift would have been a small garage project that 20 or 30 people had access to. Software support would have been spotty and slow to mature. And the larger gaming community would have ignored all of it. Instead, because of the quality of Carmack's Doom3 demo and his personal influence, the Rift has invigorated the hobbyist and commercial gaming community.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

You make a good point Brantlew, I didn't mean to discredit Carmack either, its obvious he's brought a lot to the table here too; the difference is that Carmack is already rich and famous...
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Krenzo »

I was surprised to read in that article that John Carmack offered a $10,000 bounty to reverse engineer/make an open source box for the HMZ-T1 and that no one took him up on his offer. Does anyone know where he posted that bounty? He mentioned wanting to get rid of the lag in the Sony box in the HMZ-T1 thread, but I didn't see anything about a cash bounty.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

He offered a bounty on this forum, and that's when he started talking to Palmer. If you look back in the long HMZ-T1 thread you can find it. But I don't think he ever quoted a dollar amount though.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by FingerFlinger »

I remember the discussion about the bounty here; I forget who was looking into it, but the conclusion was that you'd need to roll your own custom built FPGA solution which, even discounting engineering costs, would be very expensive.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by android78 »

I would rather if someone could reverse engineer the iphone display so that we can send it raw images directly. Mounting two side-by-side, giving 960*640 wide-screen display which could (with appropriate prisms) even be put into a 'consumer acceptable' form factor, for about $60 for the displays!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Krenzo »

FingerFlinger wrote:I remember the discussion about the bounty here; I forget who was looking into it, but the conclusion was that you'd need to roll your own custom built FPGA solution which, even discounting engineering costs, would be very expensive.
It would cost ~$200 to get all of the hardware required (for someone who already does FPGA development and has the necessary lab equipment). The only hard part would be writing the FPGA code since you would have to communicate via DisplayPort protocol instead of HDMI which isn't as readily available. $10k would be very worth it which is why it caught my attention when I read about it. It doesn't seem like much of a point now though since everyone is onboard the Rift train.
android78 wrote:I would rather if someone could reverse engineer the iphone display so that we can send it raw images directly. Mounting two side-by-side, giving 960*640 wide-screen display which could (with appropriate prisms) even be put into a 'consumer acceptable' form factor, for about $60 for the displays!
Why the iPhone screen? Just from a quick search, a lot of Android phones have 800x1280 and 720x1280 resolutions.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by ViruzZ »

I dont know if it was already posted but I found a guide how to make a similar wide FOV single screen device for 25$ using android phone for screen and video.

Or more advanced users can replace the android with real screen with inputs and whatnot.

http://www.vrtifacts.com/hmds/leep-on-the-cheap/
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

DisplayPort isn't really an issue (it's just TDMS in a different wrapper to DVI/HDMI), rather taking that and talking to the OLEDs themselves. Even with a datasheet, writing an interface to a custom display is A Bit Tricky, and even moreso when you have to first reverse-engineer the interface for a panel with unknown response characteristics, especially when you have two of them you need to keep genlocked. Same issue with the iPhone display, or any other bare LCD or OLED panel.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

Is this reverse engineering problem you guys are discussing right now somewhat analogous to the problem being discussed a few pages back? Someone noted that we couldn't just rip a high res OLED screen from a newer Samsung phone etc. to get a 1080p display on the cheap, due to the fact that it talks directly to the phone hardware and so requires a custom 'driver board' (sorry if I got the terminology wrong). I remember whoever it was said that it would be extremely difficult to get something like that working, but from your current discussion of the HMZ-T1 it almost seems doable with the right combination of tools and coding know-how. (Or is it just that tasty 10k bounty which is making people optimistic all of a sudden?) ;)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by C3DPO »

Maybe you are all getting sick of these interviews, but my curiosity is maxed out on this. Anyway, here is another "long -version" interview with Carmack. It's similar to the one I posted a link to a couple days ago. A few interesting different quotes from Carmack in this one. He goes a little more in depth about Palmer's research. Of course the reporter gets his name wrong. And he specifically says that both Sony and Microsoft saw a version of the HMD. I can't wait for the fresh interviews to come out of quake-con!

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3226063
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by BillRoeske »

Nice job tracking down the longer interviews, C3DPO. Thanks for posting!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Krenzo »

EdZ wrote:DisplayPort isn't really an issue (it's just TDMS in a different wrapper to DVI/HDMI), rather taking that and talking to the OLEDs themselves. Even with a datasheet, writing an interface to a custom display is A Bit Tricky, and even moreso when you have to first reverse-engineer the interface for a panel with unknown response characteristics, especially when you have two of them you need to keep genlocked. Same issue with the iPhone display, or any other bare LCD or OLED panel.
But the bounty was to replace the Sony box which according to the discussion back then was sending a DisplayPort signal to the headset. The headset itself was doing the hard part you mention of driving the OLED panels.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by brantlew »

It seems doubtful that the bounty even exists anymore. This was back before the Rift and the to-be-determined commercial HMD, when the Sony was the only real option. Plus there's a good chance that after CES, Carmack is getting direct support through Sony with this issue.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by EdZ »

Ah, I see (I haven't had a chance to actually use a HMZ-T1 before). From reading the manual, it appears the processing box takes a HDMI input and outputs DP (and recieves control signals) through the proprietary connector. Presumably (and as described in the manual and marketing blurb), the processing box is dedicated to image processing and alignment (in place of doing it on-board the headset itself, either with a chip or by moving the OLED panels themselves). If said alignment were done in software, the processing box should be superfluous, as long as you provided the correct voltages via the custom connector (and assuming the controls require no response, or only a basic ACK) you could just connect the lines from the custom connector to a regular DisplayPort connector and connect directly to a PC.

But as Brantlew says, now the Rift is on it's way it doesn't really matter.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by zalo »

Thanks for the link!

It's kind of funny seeing John trip over himself in an attempt to say as much as possible. He tried to cover everything he didn't in the last interview, but it's muddled and hard to understand in the one if you hadnt heard the last one. His whole degrees of interaction with the controller integration and the mouse was out of context here.

Just goes to show how excited he is that he tries to say everything and forgets a few bits. I can only understand how hard it must be to explain why things like "FoV" are issues to the uninitiated.

EDIT:
We’ll have the source-code available.
;)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Krenzo »

Does anyone know exactly what's going to happen at Quakecon with the Rift?
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by PalmerTech »

So, so sorry for not replying to anything, wanted to wait for some things to solidify (And they all did!) I am going to reply to things that other people have not already explained, if I missed something, let me know!
BillRoeske wrote:Given the plan to pursue a consumer-friendly HMD post-Kickstarter, do you still see supporting the kit version with display upgrades and the like, should they become available?

At this rate, are you going to have a booth at Quake Con?
I will support it as much as I can! It really depends on how much of a leap the consumer version is. If it needs new displays, new optics, and a new enclosure, there might not be much from the Rift that can transfer over. I am not going to have my own booth at QuakeCon this year, but we will definitely be there. Don't worry, Oculus will have a good presence. :)
zdam wrote:What are these panels that will give 1080p for each eye? Up until now this thread has said that better panels will be a huge jump in price, now you are saying will be able to do 1080p for sub $1000.

- will we also be able to upgrade to wireless, and also have hand/weapon/wand positioning?
The panels are not available right now, there are several options that will be in production next year. Upgrading depends on how far improved the hardware is, a quantum leap would mean that there is little from the Rift that would go into the consumer unit.
StreetRat wrote:Did you ever think when you first started this as a backyard project, that youd be leading a revolution?
Did you ever imagine youd be able to dictate your own rules to some of the biggest game companies in the world? - That would get me all giddy and take a while to sink in
It is not a revolution just yet, but I do have to admit that I did not see this coming. :) I am not dictating any rules to the game companies, though, just trying to get them to work with me! ;) Thus far, everyone has been very fun to work with, game developers all want games to be as fun as possible!
optimus wrote:Seems like great progress all 'round!

Mr Palmer, does the 2013 model depend on the success of the Kickstarter effort/sales of the kit model? As in, will the number of kit sales determine whether production of the 2013 model will go ahead?
It goes ahead regardless. :) Showing support is still very, very important though. The profit margin on the Kickstarter is going to be practically non-existent, so I have little to gain myself, but a lot of Rifts sold = A lot of gamer interest = even more developer support!
PalmerTech wrote:... absolute head and hand/weapon/wand positioning ...
Are you talking with Sixense/Razer about this? The Hydra is amazing and I saw Mr. Carmack talk about it a while ago.[/quote]

Yes, I am.
android78 wrote:I'm actually quite surprised at how overwhelmingly positive the reaction to this has been. I don't think I've see a single 'bad' review from those who have tried it out, and there seem to be at least as many positive comments on the articles I've read, compared to the negatives. This compares to what seemed to be about 90% negative responses to any article that mentioned 3D (mostly referring to TVs or movies) a couple of years ago.
This is one of the best things about the Rift, IMO. In the past, cool looking and well marketed HMDs got a lot of hype, but the people who actually tried them usually came away unimpressed. In contrast, EVERYONE who has tried a Rift (One of the two prototypes currently in existence) has has a hugely positive response, even the several people with vision problems or a little dizziness when they unplug. :lol: The only people slamming it are people who had not had a chance to use it yet.
ido wrote:I am pretty happy to see Palmer making this come true. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these as I know Palmer does good work.

I'm down to ZERO HMDs now, and I've had everything from i-glasses to a V8 to a modded MRG2.2. I need my fix.
Glad you will be getting one! I like to think my work was good before, but the results of it have gotten much better over the past year as a result of working with some of the most brilliant VR people in the world. :)
lnrrgb wrote:Spotted a casual mention (a small flame out, down around mid-page). Anyone give their kids an iPhone? LINK
Kevit Mellott is a really knowledgeable guy, his site is a fantastic resource: http://mellottsvrpage.com/ I don't know why he has been so hostile towards the Rift, I have seen him on a few different sites assuming it is going to be a bad HMD, an opinion nobody who has used it shares. The Rift does not use a cell phone display as he asserts, and if this is about being first to the "finish line", I would think that the FOV2GO project I was a lead on beat that Sanwa by a long shot. :roll:
Krenzo wrote:Does anyone know exactly what's going to happen at Quakecon with the Rift?
Deathmatches. ;)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by PalmerTech »

Another update: CliffyB (Cliff Bleszinski) is the design director for Epic Games, he got to try out one of the prototype units:

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/stat ... 3216811008
Image

He liked it. ;)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by blitter »

Just wanted to say I couldn't be any more stoked about this. :D

Thank you Palmer! Can't wait to play with this!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by TheInevitable »

First, I'd just like to say that, before the price reduction, I was on the fence as to whether to buy the Rift due to it being just outside of affordability for me, but now I'm definitely buying it! Thanks Palmer and investors! :D

Anyway, I've read all 50 pages of this thread and every interview I could find, but I still have some questions (thought I might have missed an answer or two). And I apologize for the large number of questions below. I've been collecting them for a long while; I just haven't had the time to post them until now. I hope that Palmer or some of the very knowledgeable people here will be willing to answer what they can! Thanks in advance!


- Would DDD or IZ3D to enable 3D for the Rift work with any game? If not, what are the limitations?

- I've seen some minor complaints about the low resolution in interviews, but is it more or less noticeable than the HMZ-T1?

- Due to the way the image is distorted pre-HMD and how, when the fish-eye optics compress the image back into normalcy, there are more pixels in the center than on the edges, which is supposed to mimic how the human eye works. However, the display doesn't move with the human eye; it moves around and will be looking at other parts of the screen as well. Would it be a concern that, unless you are looking dead-center, the resolution will look significantly worse than if there is no fish-eye distortion? I'm honestly not aware of how much attention I give the center of the screen vs the sides while gaming, so I'm a little concerned about how it might affect playability.

- Related to the above, how much denser is the pixel density at the center of the screen versus the edges? How much of the viewable area is at a higher pixel density than if there was no distortion? That is, if the Rift's display size is 6", its pixel density is approx 251.6 PPI. What percent of the viewable screen is above that number?

- Also, some multiplayer games have a chat box located in the corner of the screen. Because of the lower pixel density combined with the magnification, will the text be still readable without having to have a huge font size?

- How much of the $400-500 cost is the screen?

- The optional film that can be placed on the screen (or was it the lenses?): its supposed to make the individual pixels less noticeable, but how does that affect the sharpness of the image and the quality in general? Does the film have to be applied before shipping or is it one of the things done by the customer? If the latter, can I remove and re-apply it to do comparisons to see whether the effect is something I'd like? If its not easily re-applyable, can I buy more of it?

- What kind of game support does the Hillcrest head tracker have? I'm wondering if it would be better to just go with something like TrackIR that already has a lot of game support. Since I will likely be gaming only in front of my computer with a keyboard and mouse, I don't need 360 degree motion, but I like the idea of having greater freedom of movement with the tracker being on my head and the future game support of it. Does Doom 3 support TrackIR?

- At what distance does your eyes focus at when looking at the display? Is it like the HMZ-T1 where the eyes think the screen is actually far away instead of an inch from your face?

- Can you take a picture of an image as seen through one of the optics and show it to us?

- Since it comes with no manufacturer's warranty, it seems like you could get a 3-year warranty from Square Trade for $85 under the Miscellaneous->Other Electronics category. Would it be possible to get a receipt in case of a warranty claim?

- Will you have a presentation at QuakeCon? Or just John Carmack touting it during one of his events? And as far as the deathmatches hint goes, does that mean its going to be used for the Quick Draw contest this year? I've been going to every QuakeCon since 2000 and I'll look forward to seeing the Rift there! (And I'm hoping I'll get a chance to demo one while there before my own gets sent to me after Aug 19th ;)

- I know little about Kickstarter. If I give money to your Kickstarter project and the Kickstarter goal is not met, would I still get an Oculus Rift? If not, could I still buy one directly from you?

- At what time on the 19th will your kickstarter go up? Or will that be sent out in the newsletter? I wanna get in before the rush! ;)


Thanks again! And special thanks to Palmer for the amazing work you're doing!!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by android78 »

I'm probably not the most qualified to answer all these questions, but the bit that stood out was:
'there are more pixels in the center than on the edges, which is supposed to mimic how the human eye works'
I think that you're not quite understanding the problem. It's not that the optics mimic how the human eye works and having higher pixel density in the center of the screen, but it is an unintentional distortion of the optics that stretch the pixels towards the edge. Emerson has been working on a way to invert the distortion caused by the optics, so that it will all appear straight to the viewer:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15086
There has also been some discussion about doing the same for chromatic distortion correction.
I don't think that it will change the resolution within the viewable area much though.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

Another article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-immersive ... ing-part-2

Seems like this is really starting to get popular!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by coresnake »

Perhaps a little offtopic but there's a cool Raytracing demo here that apparently the source will be available for soon, maybe someone can adapt it to use the rift, seems like it would be a cool thing to try with it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRlw-Qw9 ... e=youtu.be
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by zalo »

Ray tracers are really the perfect thing for the rift and hmds.
You can shoot the rays at different angles for real (mathematically correct) distortion effects AND you can have a variable resolution to take account of that variable acuity thing.

It's too bad that it will be 5 or so years before graphics cards get powerful enough for it to become popular.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by TheRealistWord »

zalo wrote: It's too bad that it will be 5 or so years before graphics cards get powerful enough for it to become popular.
Speaking about rendering technologies that would go great with the Rift, have you guys heard of Unlimited Detail? I've been following it like a hawk since 2010. It's a rendering engine that utilizes an advanced search algorithm to sort through massive amounts of point cloud data, only displaying/rendering on the screen what's directly visible to the viewer (so, it only needs to grab enough points for each pixel based on the resolution). The end result is just about photo realistic graphics running realtime at a comfortable FPS (the developer, Euclideon - with an o, not an a - is still sorting out lighting and animation and physics, all that stuff). As far as I know, only one company so far is incorporating the engine into their product, but of course once Euclideon works everything out and actually releases it to the public, it'll probably be a hit (I hope!). Here are a couple of vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUXsep0egj0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVB1ayT6Fdc

They're trying to revolutionize the graphics industry by doing away with polygons and shifting entirely to point cloud data (which Bruce Dell, the founder/main developer refers to as "atoms"), and the sweet point is that it doesn't require a powerful beast to run. I believe it's running off of a single core laptop, without even touching the GPU's power (though I may be wrong). But anyway, point of this post is - wouldn't it be amazing to incorporate the Unlimited Detail engine with the Rift?

Playing through FPS's with the Rift will most likely be amazing because of the immersive effect you'll get, but we can complement that with photorealistic graphics for an even deeper experience. And here's a thought:

Using the Rift for extreme immersion in a virtual, photorealistic environment rendered by Unlimited Detail, with 3D recreations of your hands being displayed onscreen in realtime with extreme accuracy from Leap Motion's Leap. :woot

Three groundbreaking technologies that are definitely go to shake things up a bit. Amazing separately, and possibly even more amazing together 8-)
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by spyro »

I have a more technical question about another aspect:

If you render a game with 1920 x 1080 pixels at 60 fps, you have to calculate 124.416.000 Pixels every second.

If I got that right, Oculus Rift will need 640 x 800 x 2 Pixels at 120 fps. So this is a total of 122.880.000 Pixels which is nearly the same. So any game that runs at 1080p with 60 fps should work nicely in terms of performance. As Doom 3 was made to be run at hardware of 2004, this should not be any problem for current systems.

The successor of the Rift will have "more pixels than 1080p per eye" according to Mr. Palmer. So let's estimate - say - 2560x1600. This would be 2560 x 1600 x 2 x 120 = 983.040.000 pixels/sec. - that's 8 times more than with 1080p@60 and AFAIK twice the maximum numbers even Display Port 1.2 can handle! Even with a Quad-SLI-System and a linear performance progression you will only get half the frame rate than you would get at 1080@60!

So there should be no way to push modern games to that frame rate and sheer pixel fillrate, even if you lower the detail extremely, deactivate v-sync and anti aliasing, use low res textures and so on.

So what could be the solution? Maybe a VR-optimized engine must have some special methods implemented to consider this.

Let's start some unqualified brainstorming:

- (Enhanced) stereo reprojection: Calculate only one image, reconstruct the other image out of the internal rendering data of the first image (see http://www.technology.scee.net/files/pr ... ionPS3.pdf, Slide 76+ and http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 64&start=0). A implementation was made by Crytek in their Cry Engine 3 (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjNB-zMsaNk) and by TRIOVIZ in various games. The results are ok but maybe this could be enhanced by some new algorithms for occluded volumes (http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/bmvc2008/pr ... ers/75.pdf)

- Realtime framerate upscaling: Calculate only 60/40 fps, synthesize in-between-frames based on the last frame with 2D calculation + Z-Buffer from the frame which is currently being processed (see http://and.intercon.ru/releases/talks/rtfrucvg/). At 120 fps, a single frame is only visible for about 8-9 ms. One shouldn't notice much difference to a native frame. The difference between two single frames at 60 fps should be even smaller than it would be at 30 fps, too. There should be no delay as this would be the case with interpolated frames because you flip the synthetic frame in WHILE the next regular frame is processed. So you will see your actions earlier on the screen compared to 60 fps.

- Find a way to render less details at the edges where you spend not as much attention to

- Render more pixels than you need (overscanning) and shift only the "visibility window" for small head movements

- Think about alternatives to traditional v-sync like Virtu's "HyperFormance/Virtual V-Sync" where the GPU renders as much frames as it can but if they are "unlikely" to be displayed (because of the display timing) they will be discarted while they render (textures and shaders will not be applied). So the next loop in the game engine will run sooner which decreases the delay between input and visual feedback (see http://www.behardware.com/articles/858- ... ction.html, Page 8)

- Maybe use some special lenses and some rendering magic to use physically lower resolution in the edges (no idea if this is even possible).

- ...

If John Carmack needs some new technical challenges - here they are! ;)

Looking forward to the RIFT v1 now!

spyro
Last edited by spyro on Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:19 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by zalo »

Unlimited Detail uses voxels, not raytracing. On the voxel front you have Atomontage, which is a much better engine than unlimited detail in pretty much every way (add shadows, shaders, tools for converting polygons, tools for generating high resolution terrain and rocks, polygon/voxel hybridization, realtime destruction and construction, and subtract the BS claims of "infinite points"). Plus, the developer was making it on a crappy laptop until recently.
Link: http://www.atomontage.com/

Also, spyro has hit upon a real concern, and I think that all his suggestions except realtime frame interpolation are good. If interpolating 1080p frames in real time was easier than actually rendering them, you'd think that Nvidia and ATI would have already implemented something like that in a driver. Plus, it adds the bane of John Carmack: LATENCY.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by pilzbefall »

i hope the microdisplays from emagin (WUXGA OLED-XL, 1920x1200) http://www.oled-info.com/emagin-awarded ... crodisplay are an option for the oculus rift in the future :)
http://www.emagin.com/oled-microdisplays/

P.S. great project, Palmer!
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by WiredEarp »

Kevit Mellott is a really knowledgeable guy, his site is a fantastic resource: http://mellottsvrpage.com/ I don't know why he has been so hostile towards the Rift
Haha I enjoyed that little interaction. Engadget is the only place I go where I can be an bum-exit with no guilt, simply because its full of idiots. While he's been in VR for a long time, I don't really find his site a particularly good resource, looks like something out of the late 80's (seriously, spinning radioactivity symbols?) and the info in it is pretty much ancient as well.
I do always find it amusing to see those with some knowledge, refuse to admit they are wrong.

Very excited to hear about possible 1080+ screens and Hydra support for the Rift!

EDIT: Can we get the profanity filter reduced or removed? I think auto shortening the word 'a$$hole' to 'bum-exit' is kind of lame. Might be ok on a Disney chat site, but seem a bit out of place here.
Last edited by WiredEarp on Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by fireslayer26 »

Yeah, I don't understand why he is so against the Rift. I have been following his work for a long time. He has also done alot to keep the Forte VFX-1 alive with projects like his Linkbox.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by android78 »

pilzbefall wrote:i hope the microdisplays from emagin (WUXGA OLED-XL, 1920x1200) http://www.oled-info.com/emagin-awarded ... crodisplay are an option for the oculus rift in the future :)
http://www.emagin.com/oled-microdisplays/

P.S. great project, Palmer!
I don't think that would work. The optics of the rift are designed for a larger screen, so putting them on one of these would have no advantage in terms of FOV over something like a VR920.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by Endothermic »

android78 wrote:I don't think that would work. The optics of the rift are designed for a larger screen, so putting them on one of these would have no advantage in terms of FOV over something like a VR920.
I also wouldn't be surprised with the jolt and buzz that the RIFT has kicked up if eMagin go and make a successor to the Z800 HMD they released in which case they wouldn't be selling the screen to their competition :P
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by cybereality »

@TheInevitable: The DDD and IZ3D drivers should work OK in side-by-side mode. The main issue is that the aspect ratio will be off, and the screen will be warped against the edges. Emerson and I am working on 3D drivers to fix this, but they will only support a couple of games at launch. I've got L4D and Portal 2 working, and Emerson got Skyrim and Mirror's Edge.

@TheRealistWord: All the "unlimited detail" stuff is total marketing BS. If you are rendering anything on a computer it is within finite limitations: the number of pixels on the screen, the amount of physical RAM on the PC (or GPU), fill rates, bus speeds, etc. None of this stuff is even remotely "unlimited". Its all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Now granted, voxels are pretty cool and may be used more in the future. But right now polygon rendering is way ahead of voxels in terms of hardware and software support.

@spyro: The Rift uses a single 1280x800 panel physically divided in two, and runs at 60Hz I believe.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by spyro »

zalo wrote:Also, spyro has hit upon a real concern, and I think that all his suggestions except realtime frame interpolation are good. If interpolating 1080p frames in real time was easier than actually rendering them, you'd think that Nvidia and ATI would have already implemented something like that in a driver. Plus, it adds the bane of John Carmack: LATENCY.
Hello zalo,

no, there is in fact no latency at all, because the in-between-frame is interpolated (and showed on the screen!) while the next native frame is still in the rendering pipeline! So you see the first result of your last action earlier on the screen.

Image

Image

Image

Full presentation: http://and.intercon.ru/releases/talks/rtfrucvg/

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

Post by EdZ »

'Unlimited Detail': a scam, or somebody fobbed a basic voxel renderer and some empty promises onto some clueless guys who proceeded to embarrass themselves by trying to sell it. Watch the video of it closely; every object is the exact same orientation, and there are maybe 5 or 6 unique objects replicated across the landscape. Classic hallmark of an octree layout, saving memory space by reading copies of the same object. Not scalable in any way to large amounts of unique objects without using terabytes of memory. Additionally, they appear to have done nothing towards the problem of voxel animation, as everything they show is static. It's not workable as an engine, and does nothing above what other research engines have done for the past decade or two. Atomontage, however, actually does some new things.


On high resolutions: game rendering difficulty (as opposed to ray-tracing) does not scale to linearly with increasing resolution. Most recent GPUs can handle multiple high-resolution screens without much more difficulty than a single display. Is is because the actual pixel pushing portion of the rendering pipeline is not necessarily the most time consuming, what with all the geometry (e.g. Tesselation) and texture work that has to go on before that, which doesn't scale much at all with resolution. The main boundary for truly ludicrous resolutions is memory size, and with modern GPUs carrying 1.5-2gb (or more) on board, that shouldn't be an issue for any display you could strap to your head in the near future. I'm not too worried about performance issues, and wow-factor you might lose by turning down somehow the quality settings will likely be more than offset by the massive increase in immersion.
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Re: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter

Post by spyro »

cybereality wrote:@spyro: The Rift uses a single 1280x800 panel physically divided in two, and runs are 60Hz I believe.
Didn't Carmack in his E3 interviews talk about the importance the render 120 fps for his VR demo?

spyro
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