Yes that was my fault and then continued to derail it with the QE stuff
sorry.
zalo wrote:Maybe industries thought it had a bad nerd stigma, and inadvertently starved the public of a product that it would really like!...
I think in the early days it would of just been to expensive to have a proper consumer VR HMD and after that there was just no interest since VR came out and peeked interest but then not releasing any proper consumer product it just died off. You then had attampts over the years but they all fell short and never gave a proper experience. iGlasses tried t ofix it by using somewhat affordable at the time high res 640x480 screens etc but the FOV was still narrow and you wern't properly enclosed and the head tracking wasn't great and consumer wise software never got behind it so they were all aim with your head reather then look with your head aim with the mouse which most ppl I know find it really annoying and i think thats why it didn't really kick off.
I remember the first time I used one in an arcade, can't remember the came it was just a rail shooter so you stood in the thing but your guy walked around by himself all you did was look around and point the crosshair at things to shoot. The graphics were just low poly shaded and resolution was terrible (had to be less then 320x240 but hey the machines were only running a 286 so you couldn't do much more) and you could see the subpixels however there was no clear mesh effect over the image, the FOV wasn't great but still better then consumer HMDs since and you were fully enclosed with whever they used so you didn't just see the sharp edge of the screen so even though it wasn't a HUGE FOV you still felt like you were really there looking at something not just looking at a small screen. It was heavy, the tracking was slow but even with that, the low res, seeing subpixels, lower FOV etc it was fantastic. I was sure in the coming decade things would of just gotten WOW and been the same in the home.
But alas as the years went by and HMDs did come out such as VFX-1, iGlasses, VFX-3D, Phullips Scuba, eMagin basically every single one of them were..... crap.... none of them you had that feeling that you were actually there looking at it they were all just screen in an empty black room syndrome, not taking into account how good the tracking was it was still expensive to get it with it, resolution got better but that didn't really do much while keeping the low FOV and basically nothing except the VFX really did a job of immersing you in the vision of what FOV there was.
Perhaps if they made the games so you didn't aim with your head things may of taken off better and they did a good job marketing the eMagin but it still fell flat with having to head aim with every game and i think even with acurate low latency tracking that would of still killed off the whole VR thing. Basically any HMD I used I disabled the head tracking and just used it to try and feel like your really there looking at things (which again usually failed because of the FOV) which is sad since the head tracking is a big element of VR and really adds to your perception of immersion. Because of the whole head aim thing I never actually bought a proper HMD ever since everyone I tried without using tracking was just so disappointing with the immersion factor and that was the only reason I wanted one fo immersion.
I don't know if many other people felt the same way but if they did then its more a matter of the software industry was the reason consumer HMDs never really took off and got anywhere as I think if they had proper head tracking rather then just mouse emulation for head aiming (I know there were a couple of games that did but 2/100000 is nothing
) in the games then I think VR would of probably taken off years ago regardless of low resolution and FOV and hopefull the RIFT will fix that problem (but again only if people actually write the games to be able to do it instead of just mouse emulation)
Anyway I can't believe how much I just ranting on about so I think i'll stop there about that.
I'd like to know whats going to happen with the kickstarter.... all the talk was about around 100 kits and now will be purchasing the parts before the kickstarter because of the funding gotten, so having never used kickstarter before and reading aboutthe pledge limits with OUYA what happens if there's a huge flux and 100's or 1000's of ppl that want a RIFT kit? Have to get in first and all the rest can not pledge for a kit or get told they'll be waiting longer for it etc?