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

[PalmerTech]

Glad to see a lively discussion. I wish it could be different, but we had to make a call between being on-time and being the best possible VR experiences. I am still making mistakes, but try and cut me a little slack; We are still an itty bitty company trying to pull this off as best we can, and the lack of updates is at least partially a result of working 12 hour days 7 days a week!

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 working perfectly fine. The horizontal FOV in that video was set to 110. While his movements appear to be barely moving onscreen, keep in mind that turning 90 degrees at 110 FOV moves a lot less pixels than a 90 degree turn at a typical game FOV of, say, 75 FOV. This is compounded by the fact that he is using the joystick to recenter himself pretty often, and not even moving his head much to make sure he stays in frame. I have played that demo myself, believe me, things are really moving inside.

We are still on track to ship this year.

Palmer said this 3 weeks ago, I guess he didn't anticipate the outcome of their visit to China

They had already started the initial stages of manufacturing, if everything had been perfect, the factory visit would have been little more than a confirmation that everything was going well. We had to pull back and make a few last minute changes, and that changed our manufacturing schedule more than anticipated.

Are we getting more? As far as i can tell we are getting a magnetometer and a bulkier HMD with a huge delivery delay. This 7 inch screen must use new optics yes? Is it using prisms now to offset the width mismatch? How much more colour aberration and distortion? How apparent will the screen door affect be with the new display? Unfortunately the update was a dose of bad news without much padding, if there were more positives it really would have been a good idea to put them in there.

There is more to announce than was in the update. No bad news, just don't want to announce good news without quantifying it accurately. We would rather hold back on good news till we can report it accurately than just push it out to try and make the bad news seem better. The color and distortion characteristics are on-par with or better than the prototypes in every regard.

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

Lastly, what's that top strap for?

He is. The top strap is optional, it helps distribute weight better.

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!

There is only one mold. You re-use it for every single Rift, making a mold that will last for tens of thousands of units needs hard steel.

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.

Regular readers on this forum knew we were switching out the panel, but we were not going to update on things that caused delays until we actually know how long the delays are! What if we gave you a best guess of April last month, went to the factory, and were told that tooling would not even finish by Chinese New Year? People would be even more upset than they already are, and we knew that, so we waited until we could give everyone rock solid dates. It has nothing to do with respect.

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.

FOR SHAME sums it up well.

They had already started, we had to halt everything and make some last minute changes to fix flaws in the design that were not evident until our late November factory visit. We were on schedule up until two days before Thanksgiving when we finalized the new contract. You don't know anything about our contracts, maybe you could use your active imagination to imagine a scenario where we were forced to change our schedule and let everyone know within a week. That scenario is much closer to reality than whatever kind of picture you are painting.

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?

Because we did not know how much of a delay, if any, we would need. Worst case scenario would have been that tooling would not even finish by the New Year, which would have put delivery in May or June. Announcing a delay without any dates is never good, and people knew the hard dates a week after we did.

Rather than a constant stream of "looks like more delays", "wait we trimmed some time off", "looks like it's delayed a little farther though now", I'm sure it was a far better idea for them to wait until they knew for certain what the date would be, instead of taking everyone on a roller coaster of disappointment

Exactly! Much better for everything we release to be as true as possible than to constantly go back and fourth.

You state in your post that Palmer was making sure that things could be finished before the Chinese holiday. But the Chinese holiday doesn't even begin (according to the helpful spreadsheet! ) until February. If it was that tight, it sounds like the ship date was already being pushed to January or February. If injection molding takes several weeks or a month, I'm truly surprised no one on the staff who has developed mass-produced hardware before was able to say, "Hey it's November and we haven't started making the mold yet, there's no way we can hit a November delivery date any more".

We were pretty confident that Chinese New Year would not be an issue, but we did not want to announce until we were sure. Otherwise, we would have announced that there was potential for a delay to as late as May or June, and announcing uncertain bad news like that does not make sense. Like I said before, they had already started manufacturing, there was still hope for December! The factory trip was ideally just a check up to make sure everything was going well, but we ended up having to make changes. After we told them to pull back and make those changes, they gave us a new schedule, which we pushed out to the community about a week later.

I did have one gripe. Stop using chinese manufacturers. Nothing against china, but there are american manufacturers that can do it to. Hopefully for not TOO much more than a chinese one. Hell even japan would be better.

American companies don't make displays or components, so those parts would have to be shipped over here either way. They are far more expensive for things like PCB manufacturing, lens manufacturing, and assembly, there is absolutely no way we would have been able to produce the units for anywhere near $300 in the US. I think the US needs to make more as well, and they can do a good job for things like tools, cars, and clothing, but a high tech consumer electronics device is just not feasible.

Optimistically, I hope that now that Oculus has posted the useful timeline chart, they will report in on a regular (weekly) basis as to how that timeline is shaping up. Will we receive reports on how the injection molds are going? I sure hope so!

Yes, that is exactly our plan.

You've all scared Palmer into lurking.

Hopefully none of the negativity gets to him. It can be hard putting a ton of effort and feeling like you're doing well only to get shot down by the vocal turds

I deserve some of the shooting. I founded and managed a large forum for years before joining MTBS3D, I got a pretty thick skin.

The update was good in that sense. I guess what is bugging me are the affects of that screen width. More details on teh affects of that would make me happy, teh delay doesn't bother me so much.

Several updates are in the works, including an update on the FOV and lens changes.

[Modab]

Glad to see a lively discussion. I wish it could be different, but we had to make a call between being on-time and being the best possible VR experiences. I am still making mistakes, but try and cut me a little slack; We are still an itty bitty company trying to pull this off as best we can, and the lack of updates is at least partially a result of working 12 hour days 7 days a week!

I'm sorry to be the vociferous bad guy in a lot of this! I can only imagine working such long hours for so many weeks.

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.

Regular readers on this forum knew we were switching out the panel, but we were not going to update on things that caused delays until we actually know how long the delays are! What if we gave you a best guess of April last month, went to the factory, and were told that tooling would not even finish by Chinese New Year? People would be even more upset than they already are, and we knew that, so we waited until we could give everyone rock solid dates. It has nothing to do with respect.

I disagree with your example, though I certainly can see it from your point of view. If the manufacturer told you a certain date, and you told that to us, and it turned out to be wrong, sure, I would be a little upset, but I would still be glad I was in the loop. Missing production dates is a normal part of the manufacturing circle of life This is, I believe, part of the whole Kickstarter thing, you keep us informed as best you can, and we learn to live with the consequences.
Anyway, I realize that this post in itself was unprofessional, so I apologize for the harshness.

They had already started, we had to halt everything and make some last minute changes to fix flaws in the design that were not evident until our late November factory visit. We were on schedule up until two days before Thanksgiving when we finalized the new contract. You don't know anything about our contracts, maybe you could use your active imagination to imagine a scenario where we were forced to change our schedule and let everyone know within a week. That scenario is much closer to reality than whatever kind of picture you are painting.

That is truly tragic!

Rather than a constant stream of "looks like more delays", "wait we trimmed some time off", "looks like it's delayed a little farther though now", I'm sure it was a far better idea for them to wait until they knew for certain what the date would be, instead of taking everyone on a roller coaster of disappointment

Exactly! Much better for everything we release to be as true as possible than to constantly go back and fourth.

I think we will just disagree on this. I will learn to cope.

Optimistically, I hope that now that Oculus has posted the useful timeline chart, they will report in on a regular (weekly) basis as to how that timeline is shaping up. Will we receive reports on how the injection molds are going? I sure hope so!

Yes, that is exactly our plan.

That makes me incredibly happy, thank you!

[Libertine]

Is it wrong that I'm a little peeved that the factory workers in China get a full month off for the new year?

It bothered me. Unless you mean its unfair we don't get it in our respective countries. Or your not aware that Chinese workers getting paid very little is often a huge understatement. They do have slave and child labor there too.

[LazloTheGreat]

I understand that this kind of response, waiting until you know everything so you can have the good news with the bad news, is typical company PR. I think in the case of Kickstarter, however, it is inappropriate.
----------------------------------
From Kickstarter:
What should creators do if they're having problems completing their project?
If problems come up, creators are expected to post a project update (which is emailed to all backers) explaining the situation. Sharing the story, speed bumps and all, is crucial. Most backers support projects because they want to see something happen and they'd like to be a part of it. Creators who are honest and transparent will usually find backers to be understanding.

It's not uncommon for things to take longer than expected. Sometimes the execution of the project proves more difficult than the creator had anticipated. If a creator is making a good faith effort to complete their project and is transparent about it, backers should do their best to be patient and understanding while demanding continued accountability from the creator.
-----------------------------------

Between the successful finish of the Kickstarter, and today's post of delays, there was just *1* update. How transparent is that? The project has simply not been following the spirit of Kickstarter, despite their good intentions. In otherwords, I think the Oculus team is being honest, but not forthright.

It is also inappropriate, because this is a project for developers, and not consumers, and we should be mature enough to factor in negative or inconclusive reports. I am annoyed by all the people asking for refunds because they won't be able to gift it to people, or have it for Christmas, or resell it on Ebay, etc... There is nothing too ambiguous about the statement: "We cannot source the originally desired screens. There may be a delay as we have to meet with a new vendor and possibly retool our design". The annoying part is that these are precisely the kind of posts Palmer was doing before he formed the company, and it seems as though some business guy has told him to shush it up.

Optimistically, I hope that now that Oculus has posted the useful timeline chart, they will report in on a regular (weekly) basis as to how that timeline is shaping up. Will we receive reports on how the injection molds are going? I sure hope so!

A completely valid take on how the context of Kickstarter's expected practices should inform deciding what is or isn't an appropriate way of treating the matter. However, the crux of my point is *not* that an argument such as yours couldn't legitimately be made, but rather it is not the *only* legitimate one that could be made within this context (Kickstarter spirit of transparency and all). Incidentally the "spirit" of appropriate practice is, itself by definition of the term, subject to contextual interpretation of what does or doesn't mete out as appropriate, dependent on any number of extenuating circumstances, a number of which certainly seem to have presented themselves in the way this situation unfolded.

Again, it's not that your rationale isn't a sound one, nor that your frustration isn't valid. It's just to say that it isn't the only conceivable sound one, nor would it be bulletproof against being deemed inappropriate or frustrating through a different interpreted take on the spirit of how the team should've approached all of this. OT's assessment of what was an appropriate course of action just happens to be a different, yet still conceivably sound one made apart from yours. And made, I might add, with likely more of a first hand understanding of every particular influence going into deeming said appropriate course of action, than any of us not walking in their collective shoes would be privy to (one they've done their best to outline without taking away further production time by writing an ongoing protracted novel on the matter... as I... am apparently doing... here... hm... I'm a lonely... lonely... man... sorry, sidetracked). Of course, doesn't mean their approach is *more* right, nor that yours is. Indeed, an argument *might* be made that theirs was, by context, more informed than any of ours could be. But, again, maybe not. You clearly feel that you would have handled it differently based on honestly legitimate and sound reasoning. Were you to actually be in their shoes while deciding your course of action, perhaps your take would still be the same. Perhaps not.

Either way, when all is said and done, it's true that transparency is a good, and appreciated thing. Trumped, perhaps, only by the productive energy put toward product completion, and maintenance of imminently crucial consumer/developer faith for a product in a market some would say, hence the litany of previously failed, or at best, underwhelming attempts, plus the economy, is excruciatingly pre-disposed to skittishly dismissing the technology outright at the slightest drop of an erratic, directionless appearing hat. Perhaps in the name maintaining productivity, and their own take on what professional and appropriate presentation should continue to be, *even* within the spirit of Kickstarter backing etiquette, they prioritized the health of this productivity, as well as that of clarity, and that of the undeniably, though unofficially, growing market expectation. Perhaps they did so by shrewdly forgoing the transparency of this particular state of affairs given that it was, as explained... yet-to-be ascertained. Every update announcement they make doesn't just broadcast to our Kickstarter backing eyes, but in fact splashes across tech headlines everywhere the moment it's posted. Realistically, due to the less than typical mainstream public attention for a kickstarter project, ours (the backers) are not the only reactions impacting the shape of their continually growing pre-release market progress. Given the current state of media focus it has garnered, some may argue it's counterproductive and inappropriate for a number of reasons to announce, "We don't know if we yet have any news different than what we've already told you." (Although... come to think... they did kind of did say that, didn't they?)

At this scenario's conclusion, has the OT appropriately maintained the faith of majority long-term interests through this approach, or did they fundamentally reduce it with the majority? Perhaps, it'll show that they reduced it, and this will be a natural learning experience by a new company going through typical growing pains. Or perhaps they'll only show to have lost yours somewhat, along with a vocal minority but, overall, to have maintained it with that of the majority. I suspect the latter. I could be proven wrong. But in the spirit of my point, even if that were so, hindsight wouldn't deem illegitimate my *having* potential suspicion of the latter in the first place.

Time will ultimately tell how their continued practices bode for their long term success. We shall see.
Thus far, I say well done.

[Qoheleth]

I just want to say that I'm glad for the delay and want to thank everyone at Oculus for their hard work. I'm happy we'll be getting something better than the show/demo prototypes. The rate at which updates are coming are perfectly fine. I really only expected 1 update every month and a half so I'm happy to receive what we are now. I've only invested in one other kickstarter project, Wasteland 2, and they've been coming up with small updates every 1.5 to 2 months.

A word of advice to people who are antsy: have confidence in your donation and faith in who you've donated to.

Remember, you don't have to wait to start developing for the Rift. Just start whipping up your game in UDK, Unity, or your own engine. If you want to get an idea of how it may play in the Rift, you can always build your own by following instructions at the DIY Rift thread.

[TheRealistWord]

I hate to beat a dead horse (this is the first chance I've had today to really sit down at my laptop for more than a few minutes!), but I want to throw my opinion into the mix here as well. When I backed the project on Kickstarter, I had hoped to receive my Rift by year end, but I walked into the mindset that delays are realistic and probable, especially when attempting to manufacture an entirely new product on a mass scale (considering all the tweaks and minor adjustments, building for comfort, structure, etc.). So as another supporter who's been around these forums for quite awhile now, the delay isn't something I'm particularly upset about. Palmer's doing an absolutely incredible job with all of his contributions to the field of VR, so a few extra months of being Riftless is no sweat

Now some hopeful speculation on my part.
I've been over in the other thread - DIY Rift one - and for a display, I've been using a 7" 1280x800 display with a 60Hz refresh rate (Nexus 7), so the specs of that match up pretty closely to the Rift's display. Giving me a good idea of how it might feel (granted, I'm just using the aspheric 5x lenses, of course not the custom ones in the Rift ). But as someone mentioned earlier, a 7" screen might be a good sweet spot - with the success of 7" tablets (Nook HD, Kindle Fire, Nexus 7), it seems like it's quickly becoming a standard display size - where there's demand, there'll be supply, so just based on the fact that there's been a deluge of 7" tablets lately makes me feel confident that display manufactures will focus on developing higher resolution, better quality 7" panels. Which, of course, could find its way into future versions of the Rift

I'm really hoping that Palmer and Oculus can work something out with Unity to have the Rift's plugin integrated in the free version. I know they're discussing it, and maybe it's wishful thinking, but it'd be incredible. I create games, but purely as a hobby. I have so many ideas whirring around in my head that I'd love to tackle with the Rift, but currently don't have the funds to purchase the Pro version of Unity. Seems like there'll be a lot more content available for the Rift if anyone will be able to program games with Unity free and access the Rift plugin without having to shell out the $1,500 for Unity Pro. Well, there's also Cyber's incredible driver, but direct Unity integration in the free version would be great.

There's quite a bit more I was gonna say, but when my posts are too long, they become a babbling, incomprehensible wall of text Keep up the great work Palmer & team!

[cybereality]

OK. Well I am late to the party but would like to add my 2 cents.

First and foremost: I have been waiting for VR to take off for some 20 years now. Had my first taste of VR at the now-defunct Virtuality arcades, where I got to play Dactyl Nightmare. Boy was that an experience. That was back in like 1993. So having to wait an extra few months for the Rift to ship is really nothing. Anyone that is complaining or asking for a refund really hasn't been in the game long enough.

Secondly: I can totally understand the people that are disgruntled about the delay (or the lack of transparency before-hand), but I also can totally understand what Palmer and the team are going through. Palmer had a design for an HMD, which he posted on the forum for everyone to see. He then made a Kickstarter based on that design. For whatever reasons, the design was not scalable to 10K units and they had to basically redesign the whole thing from scratch. It's almost unheard of for a mass-produced electronic device to be designed and manufactured in such a short time-span. The team at Oculus is doing an amazing job. Its unfortunate that there are delays, but I am sure they did everything they could to avoid them. So you can't really be too upset. Stuff happens, you have to deal with it.

Thirdly: The new case looks awesome. I really do hope those dials on the sides are diopter adjustments, because I would love to wear the Rift without glasses. All in all it is looking more like the polished product that was shown in the 3D renders. This is so much better than the styrofoam/duct-tape kits everyone was originally expecting. Don't forget how far we've come in such a sort amount of time. I am very excited to hear more updates.

[tmek]

Couple of things mentioned by Nate on the kickstarter comment page that people still seem to be wondering about:

“The Oculus Logo on the Headset... I could swear there is a camera in there... these colors and design... to complicated for it not to be something else...”
@OlivierJT - The logo on the front of headset has actually been changed to eliminate unnecessary weight in the front plate from those light guides. Instead, there’s a single LED light indicating whether the unit is on.

"What are those knobs for? Those ones on sides of goggles? Can you explain?"
@Iza - Hah-- We can't explain yet. They're part of an experimental feature we added to the latest design. Whether or not those end up in the final developer kit is yet to be decided, which is why it wasn't mentioned in the update. Sorry we can't say more-- Good catch though!

[TheLookingGlass]

OK. Well I am late to the party but would like to add my 2 cents.

First and foremost: I have been waiting for VR to take off for some 20 years now. Had my first taste of VR at the now-defunct Virtuality arcades, where I got to play Dactyl Nightmare. Boy was that an experience. That was back in like 1993. So having to wait an extra few months for the Rift to ship is really nothing. Anyone that is complaining or asking for a refund really hasn't been in the game long enough.

Dactyl Nightmare was my first VR experience as well and boy was I hooked! I was but a small kid but it was great! The HMD was so large on my small head and I remember worrying that I was going to lose my balance and fall out of the ring/pod. I was so enamored with VR and the desire to be immersed in the game/virtual world when I got home I took the box to my 1st generation playstation and carved it up into my own little HeadMount/Viewer taped to my 20 inch CRT TV! It wasn't very immersive obviously but it cut out the outside world! I guess all I was missing was a couple lenses or a single large fresnel! Sadly I gave up on that little project after about week! Wish I had a picture to show you guys!

[Unclebob]

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.

They had already started, we had to halt everything and make some last minute changes to fix flaws in the design that were not evident until our late November factory visit. We were on schedule up until two days before Thanksgiving when we finalized the new contract. You don't know anything about our contracts, maybe you could use your active imagination to imagine a scenario where we were forced to change our schedule and let everyone know within a week. That scenario is much closer to reality than whatever kind of picture you are painting.

I deserve some of the shooting. I founded and managed a large forum for years before joining MTBS3D, I got a pretty thick skin.

PalmerTech mate.

Have been chatting with you on and off over a number of years on different forums with different names.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me and in explaining the situation.

Apologies if you found my post aggressive but I'd humbly suggest that you guys show more confidence in your backers and in your position in the community at large.

7500+ people have given you money on the HOPE that you can deliver. No more, no less. Just hope. You should take credit and be proud of that.

The only negative stuff posted seems to be about how and when things were communicated, very few regarding any delay.

So include the community as and when things come up.

There are 7500 interested and positive people here that can help (at no cost to Oculus) just look at the post regarding the US molding company that can deliver in 15 days.

This is a tremendous resource of experienced, technically minded and well connected people.

Who knows those 12 hour days could be a lot less.

Good luck with everything and hopefully you will hit that period of less pressure.

UB

[mahler]

There are 7500 interested and positive people here that can help (at no cost to Oculus) .... This is a tremendous resource of experienced, technically minded and well connected people. Who knows those 12 hour days could be a lot less.

This comes to mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
But you're right ofcourse. Having input from such a large community is valuable.

[rcblob]

The only thing I'm a bit sad about is the 7" display. I was down for one of the 100 unassembled kits, and there is a perfectly good Virtual Boy Shell lying next to me. I was hoping to have the best VirtualBoy in the world

A lot of the comments here have a very "The toys are out of the pram"-esque feel about them. It seems the only people complaining are the ones that the Kickstarter explicitly stated should not order the device, namely, consumers.

To balance some of the negativity in this thread; Palmer, I have nothing but respect for you and the guys/gals/genderless people at Oculus, and I love you

Just so you don't feel left out Dycus, I love you to

[hurdlejade]

i will wait the extra few months, but i feel like i want to get it NOW! i guess just like everyone else..

any ideas where I could buy the tracker used in rift? at least i want to be able to use it with hmz-t1..

[diwata]

7500+ people have given you money on the HOPE that you can deliver. No more, no less. Just hope. You should take credit and be proud of that.

The only negative stuff posted seems to be about how and when things were communicated, very few regarding any delay.

I believe that how they handled the news for the delay was the best way. I see the point about more frequent updates since I check daily too, but bad news like this should always have as much details as possible.

Had Oculus gone the route of "There's a high chance of a delay, but we can't know for sure how long," I believe the negative reaction would be MUCH worse and less reasonable.

Unfortunately, of that 7500+ people that gave money, some do believe they invested, lent the money, or bought a product as if from a store. Comments on the Kickstarter page shows this.

[jaybug]

A lot of the comments here have a very "The toys are out of the pram"-esque feel about them. It seems the only people complaining are the ones that the Kickstarter explicitly stated should not order the device, namely, consumers.

This.

Unfortunately, of that 7500+ people that gave money, some do believe they invested, lent the money, or bought a product as if from a store.

And this.

The "I am an Investor" people are the worst.

[Zaptruder]

Mad props to Palmer for doing what he's doing.

Score high marks from me for been transparent, open, concise and providing insight into the development process. If only this could be true of every other company in the world, the world would be a significantly better place.

From your perspective, you know what can be done better with the lessons been learnt here; but from my perspective, things look like they could go much much worse. So cheers mate.

[Steinsholt]

Just watched the progress update! Looking really good! Nice to see a proper version of the Rift.

In the unreal3 demo video, it seemed he leaned forward and it tracked; does it do position now??

[mahler]

does it do position now??

No ... but perhaps it has the same head-neck model as in Doom3 BFG

[Steinsholt]

does it do position now??

No ... but perhaps it has the same head-neck model as in Doom3 BFG

Oh, ok! If it "emulates" somehow small position changes like that, its all I need really (Ofcourse full position would be awsome)

Great work PalmerTech and Team!

[PatimPatam]

I think Palmer, Dycus and co are managing to do a very difficult job very well, and i am proud to be a backer of this awesome project. Keep it up!!

Only thing i'm slightly disappointed about is the massive form factor because of the 7'' screen. I hope the Oculus team can find another solution for the final version; for a consumer product to be really successful looks is one of the most important aspects, unfortunately..

As i mentioned before on some other thread, perhaps using 2 smaller 1080p screens at an angle, with partial overlap.. I know this would probably increase the price and present some new problems and challenges, but maybe they are worth the trouble in order to get increased resolution, even larger fov, and a nicer profile.

[Parity]

Driving a single screen is technically very easy.
Driving two screens syncronised it not so straight forward.
How would you attempt that... Rendering on two outputs on the computer with the same performance is not something trivial. Other scenario would be an active box, that post-processes the SBS-Signal and outputs two seperate DVI or LVDS signals. But this will require additional hardware and will pretty sure add a noticable delay.

So one screen is the way to go. Actually that is exactly what's the innovation in a rift-like system is, and what will make immersive VR-HMDs affordable for consumers like us, and not costing touthands of $$.

[brantlew]

Driving a single screen is technically very easy.
Driving two screens syncronised it not so straight forward.
How would you attempt that... Rendering on two outputs on the computer with the same performance is not something trivial. Other scenario would be an active box, that post-processes the SBS-Signal and outputs two seperate DVI or LVDS signals. But this will require additional hardware and will pretty sure add a noticable delay.

So one screen is the way to go. Actually that is exactly what's the innovation in a rift-like system is, and what will make immersive VR-HMDs affordable for consumers like us, and not costing touthands of $$.

Why is driving two screens difficult? How is this fundamentally different than rendering games across multiple monitors from a multi-port graphics card?

[rhinosix]

They're still a little way off, but I'm curious to see how Samsung's flexible OLEDs develop.
They should be much lighter than glass screens.
I wonder how they will perform, and whether it will be advantageous to have the screen curve around your face?

[BOLL]

Only thing i'm slightly disappointed about is the massive form factor because of the 7'' screen.

I too thought it looked huge and crazy! One of the new pictures is very unforgiving. In that shot, the entire rift looks like a large funnel, crazy!

Though, in this shot it is evident that the width is fairly consistent, and the depth comes from it wrapping around your face. It feels like that first image is unfortunate as it makes the Rift look proportionally awkward, at least if you haven't seen one IRL. Next time they should release a 360 shot ;)

It does seem to be a bit high though, but meh... I guess it just means we'll have to be careful when eating with the Rift on. Yes, no way I'm ever taking it off after I have my hands on it! I will have to shower with a plastic bag over my head... what, not a good idea?

[logicalChimp]

Why is driving two screens difficult? How is this fundamentally different than rendering games across multiple monitors from a multi-port graphics card?

But with multi-monitors, you're generally only looking at one monitor at a time - so if the left monitor gets a frame behind, it's no big deal.

However, with a 3d headset, you're taking the two separate outputs, and (via the brain) overlaying them. As such, even a very small discrepancy could be very jarring

[Parity]

Why is driving two screens difficult? How is this fundamentally different than rendering games across multiple monitors from a multi-port graphics card?

Hm, that works somehow, you are right. But from my experience I see a big performance decrease when I move a windowed D3D-application from the primary screen to the secondary one. Maybe it is just my system.
But at least you would need two outputs, or the additional hardware afterwards. Probably alignement has to be really good and stuff.

However I would gladly take whatever Palmer throws at us to improve the VR-experience.

Pssst: I would actually spend much more than the 300 bucks to get a HMD capable of what the Rift will be able to do. But don't tell Palmer!

[sth]

Driving a single screen is technically very easy.
Driving two screens syncronised it not so straight forward.
How would you attempt that... Rendering on two outputs on the computer with the same performance is not something trivial. Other scenario would be an active box, that post-processes the SBS-Signal and outputs two seperate DVI or LVDS signals. But this will require additional hardware and will pretty sure add a noticable delay.

So one screen is the way to go. Actually that is exactly what's the innovation in a rift-like system is, and what will make immersive VR-HMDs affordable for consumers like us, and not costing touthands of $$.

Why is driving two screens difficult? How is this fundamentally different than rendering games across multiple monitors from a multi-port graphics card?

I used to run multi-monitor setups a few years back and running 3d stuff on multiple monitors always came at a performance penalty (compared to running the same number of pixels on a single monitor).
Besides, running on anything besides desktop PCs is pretty much out of the question. Neither most laptops, nor consoles or other mobile devices have multiple digital outputs.

In my opinion, having an HMD that presents itself to the host system as a single display is the right way for the forseeable future.

[FingerFlinger]

In my opinion, having an HMD that presents itself to the host system as a single display is the right way for the forseeable future.

This might still be possible (for two LCDs) with a custom driver board.

[Metathias]

@OlivierJT - The logo on the front of headset has actually been changed to eliminate unnecessary weight in the front plate from those light guides. Instead, there’s a single LED light indicating whether the unit is on.

Ok i was almost completely convinced my eyes were deceiving me. And it was in fact an led.
However is light of some of the recent comments from OT about this. Im starting to wonder if in fact this is a CCD.
But will not be a part of the dev kit (that will contain only a light). After considering the whole job listing for optical flow engineering. It makes sense to build atleast a few of the units with a functional CCD for optical flow research and development. Therefore i stand by my original comments for now.

[sth]

In my opinion, having an HMD that presents itself to the host system as a single display is the right way for the forseeable future.

This might still be possible (for two LCDs) with a custom driver board.

Hence the careful wording of my post.

[MSat]

While it is technically possible to use multiple displays, there really aren't any small high-res panels with close to 1:1 height/width ratio, and there's really no good arrangement for using two large aspect ratio displays.

I think the real future of high-res displays for HMDs lies in LED displays made using CMOS technology. If the density of pixel elements can be kept in line with those of camera sensors, then imagine if one was like Nokia's 808 PureView unit: 1" diagonal with 41 megapixels

[EdZ]

there's really no good arrangement for using two large aspect ratio displays.

Fold the light path out with a pair of mirrors and you can use whatever size or aspect ratio panels you want without worry of overlap. I'm not sure 1:1 is the best aspect ratio for full coverage, either:

[MSat]

there's really no good arrangement for using two large aspect ratio displays.

Fold the light path out with a pair of mirrors and you can use whatever size or aspect ratio panels you want without worry of overlap. /quote]


I had actually considered something like that, but then you just end up changing the aspect ratio of the pixels. Perhaps it would still be usable though?

Maybe I'm not understanding the image correctly, But it seems that as long as the center of the display is not lined up with the center of the eye, a nearly symmetrical display would have the best use of pixels.

[EdZ]

but then you just end up changing the aspect ratio of the pixels.

Only if you use a curved mirror. A flat plane used to fold the path will not stretch or squash the image unless you start rotating the panel relative to the new folded path. 16:10 gives a good coverage of any eye's field of regard (assuming a fisheye lens is used):

[zacherynuk]

Hey, Palmer et alii (Or indeed aliae if you now have some lady staff!)

Some exciting changes - hell, it's all still very exciting! Kudos for taking the time to make it right, and hopefully line up the ducks and grease the path for the full scale roll-out too - I can't imagine what the learning curve of the Oculus troops has been like; I hope you managed to relax a little for TG!

Does the secret FOV info pertain to partial overlap ? - I have never been able to align a screen of that size without it - I do hope so!

I am very much looking forward to the dev kit and all of the toys we get with that! - I'm particularly excited about the things this community conjures up, never mind the big games makers!

The specs keep getting better, in my opinion and like previously mentioned; the 7" panel scene is gonna be rife with high resolution parts soon! I like the simple things like a head strap too!

I'm wondering if a lot of the less than ecstatic posters have ever tried to buy a high FOV headset before... (let alone play games on one) for less than £30,000, even £3000 - I would gladly have donated 300 bucks just to get the fuse lit under the industry (as you have!) - let alone the incredible equipment and experience you have promised!

Keep it up, but don't burn out!

Zach

[quietboy]

i read pretty much disappointment for the delay. my suggestion to palmer is to make updates as often as possible. it's not necessarily update about most important things, daily little things like when you go to china, posting a photo with the great wall behind will make backers feel more involved.

[MSat]

but then you just end up changing the aspect ratio of the pixels.

Only if you use a curved mirror. A flat plane used to fold the path will not stretch or squash the image unless you start rotating the panel relative to the new folded path. 16:10 gives a good coverage of any eye's field of regard (assuming a fisheye lens is used):

Hmm.. I must admit, I'm not familiar with all the terminology. I might be misunderstanding what you mean by "fold the path", and I don't know how you would change the apparent dimension using a flat mirror without it being at some angle relative to the LCD. Are there any examples on the internet you could point me to?


I also can't find the definition of "swivel" as it pertains to the image. I'm guessing it's eye movement?.. If so, then corneal only is roughly symmetrical.

Either way, it would seem that most phone displays are too small in one of their axis. I do wonder if you could replace a typical LCD backlight system with a wide angle point source LED, and thus be able to project an image onto something like a diffuser. It might work, though the characteristics of each pixel probably wouldn't be uniform (unless the panel has good off-axis viewability) - but that could probably be corrected with an appropriate software filter.

[Randomoneh]

but then you just end up changing the aspect ratio of the pixels.

Only if you use a curved mirror. A flat plane used to fold the path will not stretch or squash the image unless you start rotating the panel relative to the new folded path. 16:10 gives a good coverage of any eye's field of regard (assuming a fisheye lens is used):

Growth of FOV area that is being occupied by a flat display is not linear to dimension growth of that display.
So for example, you have a 5' (vert.)' x 50'' (horiz.) display, AR is 10:1. Let's put that display 5 inches from our eyes. What do we get? Portion of our FOV that is being occupied by display is 53° vertically and 157° horizontally. Effective aspect ratio? 2.96:1. Not even close to 10:1. This is of course because a flat object can never occupy 180 degrees of viewer's FOV and higher we want to go, it becomes increasingly hard to achieve high FOV.

My point being you can't equal objective aspect ratio of a display to aspect ratio of FOV area it will occupy.

[EdZ]

Hmm.. I must admit, I'm not familiar with all the terminology. I might be misunderstanding what you mean by "fold the path", and I don't know how you would change the apparent dimension using a flat mirror without it being at some angle relative to the LCD. Are there any examples on the internet you could point me to?

Here's a quick diagram:

The display as seen by the eye will appear identical in both these cases, as long as the image in the right hand panel is mirrored horizontally.
If you folded the path so you had one display on either side of the head, you could increase their size without the displays hitting each other, past the point where the panels would 'overlap' if placed directly without the mirror.

[cybereality]

Personally I really like the wide-screen aspect ratios and think the odd 4:5 aspect may be claustrophobic. I can understand why they did this, but I am not sure that is 100% optimal for all content. For example, if I want to watch a 3D movie on the Rift (which can range from 16:9 or even wider like 21:9) what do you do? Watch it in a small letterbox? Crop a good portion of the image? Not sure any of those options are great. And a lot of modern games are designed for wide-screens.

Now, its not the end of the world. I'm sure it will still look great and be super immersive. I just wonder if there are other ways to make an HMD like this, for example with 2 smaller smart-phone screens or something like that. Or, even better, a 7" 3D screen with built in 3D glasses. Would be great to retain the full aspect ratio and also the full resolution. I know this has been discussed before, but I'm just adding my 2 cents.