GDC 2013 - News and impressions

Post by **KBK** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:41 pm

"It is Inevitable, Mr. Andersen."

(Not dumb enough to use the Swedish spelling

)

Swedish, Norwegian, what's the difference...

Post by **Evenios** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:26 pm

been impressed with things so far ok sure not a lot of things new but its nice to see the final dev kit out there and positive reactions to it even if the screen is a tad more pixelated

i cant wait to try it out myself!

Post by **antimatter** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 11:00 pm

Zoide wrote:
unsilentwill wrote:this Verge article is one of the more negative reviews I've seen. Worth a look.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/41477 ... culus-rift
Ouch! They call the Rift "unplayable"...

some people are going to be disappointed. The current tech has limitations and fast movement is one of them.

Post by **Paintbrush** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:01 am

I think part of the problem with nausea (aside from too fast (non optimized for VR ) movement) is that people are jumping from demo to demo too quickly... without acclimatizing first.
VR is new. I bet jumping from Hawken to fast paced racing game and TF2 can be hard to stomach. Hell, I remember I was a bit dizzy looking at the monitor when first 3d titles came out. Now I'm playing 3d without even a little bit of discomfort. It took a bit of getting used to (my girlfriend, who's not a gamer, still can't watch fast camera movements in games), it will take even more so for VR.

Post by **V8Griff** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 2:43 am

I'm not convinced about driving games. There was a driving game on the original Virtuality 1000SD ( that's why you sometimes see a cover with a wheel attached and pedals) but it never worked all that well as a VR game as you spend most of your time looking forward with only slight head movements and that really defeats the object of being in a 360 degree world.

FPS will be popular, but I'd guess they will be games especially developed for VR rather than the fast paced games we currently have.

RPG and exploration games will be excellent and the Gallery has the potential to be one of these. It reminds me of Dactyl Nightmare at the moment but I'm sure it's going to be much more involving. All of these types of games will require great tracking and natural hand controls so either new peripherals or perhaps a more accurate Hydra to be really compelling.

I'm investigating an idea for a peripheral that I think will be ideal but it all comes down to accurate tracking in both orientation and position in 360 degrees without being complication, free from occlusion and most importantly affordable.

Post by **NiceGuyAndersson** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:22 am

KBK wrote:"It is Inevitable, Mr. Andersen."

(Not dumb enough to use the Swedish spelling )

What's wrong with the Swedish spelling?

Post by **DaEmpty** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:38 am

At several points, my perspective "drifted," forcing Oculus to reset Hawken so that the Rift's’ line-of-sight lined up with my own.

Drifting head tracking is the worst thing that could happen.

I think we cannot fix this in software.

Maybe it's a good idea to order a track ir and use the rift tracker only as fallback.
****... I hate this news.

Post by **2EyeGuy** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 3:48 am

I don't understand why it's drifting. It has a compass which tells it which way North is at all times. Is there some magnetic interference? Or is the sensor fusion just not quite ready? Or is there some other bug in DriVR or the Unity integration that's causing it?

Post by **danielbln** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 4:54 am

Since no one ever mentioned anything about drift with the Epic Citadel or Unity demos, I'm going to say it's due to Hawken's alpha-ish implementation maybe?

Post by **NegativeCamber** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 4:57 am

V8Griff wrote:I'm not convinced about driving games. There was a driving game on the original Virtuality 1000SD ( that's why you sometimes see a cover with a wheel attached and pedals) but it never worked all that well as a VR game as you spend most of your time looking forward with only slight head movements and that really defeats the object of being in a 360 degree world.

As an avid sim racer trust me you do look around, otherwise you'll crash into people beside you. That's why a large proportion of sim racers have triple monitor setups to see what cars beside them are doing.

Obviously you don't need to look over your shoulder but that's an uncomfortable thing to do sitting down anyway.

Post by **adoral84** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:01 am

You wouldn't perceive the drift in the epic citadel because you have no fixed point of reference (like the cockpit in hawken), even with a tracker without a magnetometer. I was surprised by this comment as well though, I haven't had drift problems with the YEI tracker when seated looking around like they were in the demo.

Post by **KBK** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:08 am

NiceGuyAndersson wrote:
KBK wrote:"It is Inevitable, Mr. Andersen."

(Not dumb enough to use the Swedish spelling )
What's wrong with the Swedish spelling?

Just a bit of humor.

I remember when I was sitting in on the first North American showing of some video hardware from Norway, and the menu system that was internal to the device was brought up onto the video screen.

In the crowd was a friend of mine, a Hockey fan who was also politically astute. This friend noted that there was no Swedish menu, and said so. Which everyone in the room, including the Norwegians who produced the device - had a laugh about.

Some rivalries go deep.

I've been told that in hockey, Sweden vs Norway can be a pretty rough game.

Post by **NiceGuyAndersson** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:15 am

KBK wrote:
NiceGuyAndersson wrote:
KBK wrote:"It is Inevitable, Mr. Andersen."

(Not dumb enough to use the Swedish spelling )
What's wrong with the Swedish spelling?
Just a bit of humor.

I remember when I was sitting in on the first North American showing of some video hardware from Norway, and the menu system that was internal to the device was brought up onto the video screen.

In the crowd was a friend of mine, a Hockey fan who was also politically astute. This friend noted that there was no Swedish menu, and said so. Which everyone in the room, including the Norwegians who produced the device - had a laugh about.

Some rivalries go deep.

I've been told that in hockey, Sweden vs Norway can be a pretty rough game.

Hahaha, yeah Swedes and Noobwegians sure can be rivals at times. Jokes about how Norwegians are stupid used to be very popular in Sweden

Post by **superbike81** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:22 am

The common buzzword from what I've read so far seems to be "blurry."

I wonder just how blurry things are? Is it just a very soft low resolution image? Or does it actually appear out of focus?

I'm personally not concerned with it as I understand this is the first version of a developer kit. But I'm wondering with the all too familiar "sky is falling" commenters and journalists, will this be a problem that people can look beyond and avoid starting to spread bad press and rumors?

Is this "blurry" thing something that can be minimized/optimized by the developer. As we know, this version of Hawken was very early and not optimized for the Rift, the DriVR demo they showed seems to be have been thrown together in a couple days. It just caught me off guard a little when that one article called it "unplayable" as that's the first time I've heard someone say that.

Post by **jaybug** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:34 am

unsilentwill wrote:this Verge article is one of the more negative reviews I've seen. Worth a look.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/41477 ... culus-rift

From the article:
"The Rift’s 720p display, despite sitting so close to the eyes, doesn’t look like a 720p display."

Really? DESPITE being so close? Do screens usually improve as you get close to them?

Post by **miFFhoe** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 5:54 am

jaybug wrote:
unsilentwill wrote:this Verge article is one of the more negative reviews I've seen. Worth a look.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/41477 ... culus-rift
From the article:
"The Rift’s 720p display, despite sitting so close to the eyes, doesn’t look like a 720p display."

Really? DESPITE being so close? Do screens usually improve as you get close to them?

Haha yeah laughed at that too.

Actually the article felt a bit off at several places IMO.

Post by **MaxPalmer** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:29 am

superbike81 wrote:The common buzzword from what I've read so far seems to be "blurry."

I wonder just how blurry things are? Is it just a very soft low resolution image? Or does it actually appear out of focus?

I'm personally not concerned with it as I understand this is the first version of a developer kit. But I'm wondering with the all too familiar "sky is falling" commenters and journalists, will this be a problem that people can look beyond and avoid starting to spread bad press and rumors?

Is this "blurry" thing something that can be minimized/optimized by the developer. As we know, this version of Hawken was very early and not optimized for the Rift, the DriVR demo they showed seems to be have been thrown together in a couple days. It just caught me off guard a little when that one article called it "unplayable" as that's the first time I've heard someone say that.

I've picked up on this in a couple of articles too. The comments I've seen appear to apply to the production rift, but I don't recall any 'blurry' comments from the earlier hands-on experiences. Having never seen either unit it's hard to tell how blurry is blurry (is it an optics alignment issue with respect to how the unit is positioned on the head, is it a diopter correction issue, a lens quality issue, a low comment on the lower resolution or a panel rendering update issue / software issue)? Would be nice to think it's just an alignment issue that can be fixed through a more careful setup.

Post by **Flim** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:38 am

Setup is a big part of the demo issues, which should be different person to person. I'm sure that is why we see a very positive review, then a semi negative review with the next person in line. OR is a personal fitted device...

Post by **superbike81** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:44 am

Also something I often forget is that many people wear glasses. So it's possible that their vision with glasses on or off wasn't completely compatible with their choice of lens.

Post by **zebrastealer** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:49 am

This article is from Reddit - they guy was at VR2013 and makes some observations about the 'bluriness' of the dev kit. His take is it might be more the cheap optics than the low-resolution screen.

http://blog.ruisystem.net/archives/277

Post by **Flim** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:52 am

superbike81 wrote:Also something I often forget is that many people wear glasses. So it's possible that their vision with glasses on or off wasn't completely compatible with their choice of lens.

Ya, kind of like trying on another persons broken-in underwear.... It's not going to feel the same !

Post by **mattyeatsmatts** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 6:57 am

zebrastealer wrote:This article is from Reddit - they guy was at VR2013 and makes some observations about the 'bluriness' of the dev kit. His take is it might be more the cheap optics than the low-resolution screen.

Oh dear!

Post by **strangedays** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:02 am

I just thrashed around a racetrack banging into every wall I could before rolling the car over. I wonder why I am feeling a little queasy? :/

Post by **strangedays** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:03 am

and WTF!

Post by **Namielus** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:10 am

Regarding Norwegian/Swedish ice hockey, there just aren't those same type of fights you see
in the american hockey league.

The culture is so different here.

Post by **Fluke** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:26 am

V8Griff wrote:I'm not convinced about driving games. There was a driving game on the original Virtuality 1000SD ( that's why you sometimes see a cover with a wheel attached and pedals) but it never worked all that well as a VR game ... RPG and exploration games will be excellent

There was also Legend Quest around the same time, which was pretty much a RPG/exploration game (ish) but looking back without the old rose tinted specs, it was pretty bad in all honesty (my teenage self probably didn't think so at the time, but it was all new back then) with low detail, slow FPS, and bad lag. My point anyway is that saying how well a genre will work today in VR by comparing it to a 90s arcade one probably isn't a valid argument.

Post by **superbike81** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:31 am

The absolute most important things for a driving/racing game is input lag, display latency, and head tracking latency. For the best experience, we need virtually zero lag from our steering wheel inputs, head movements, and as little ghosting as possible.

It seems like most of that is taken care of already in the dev kit and it will only get better.

Post by **Alejux** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:51 am

mattyeatsmatts wrote:
zebrastealer wrote:This article is from Reddit - they guy was at VR2013 and makes some observations about the 'bluriness' of the dev kit. His take is it might be more the cheap optics than the low-resolution screen.

Oh dear!

Is this control coming with the commercial version of the Rift?

Post by **Namielus** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:54 am

Its a controller for The Cave.

Post by **NiceGuyAndersson** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:00 am

Will it be possible to watch the Oculus panels online somewhere?

Post by **brantlew** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:17 am

Alejux wrote:Is this control coming with the commercial version of the Rift?

I think these guys scheduled the wrong convention. Shouldn't this be at AVN?

Post by **Ericshelpdesk** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:28 am

DaEmpty wrote:
At several points, my perspective "drifted," forcing Oculus to reset Hawken so that the Rift's’ line-of-sight lined up with my own.
Drifting head tracking is the worst thing that could happen.
I think we cannot fix this in software.

Maybe it's a good idea to order a track ir and use the rift tracker only as fallback.
****... I hate this news.

That's not what I wanted to hear. I thought the entire point of this whole rift thing of this was that we had rock solid tracking and any drift could be weeded out by the magnetometer. If that hasn't been fixed, I might as well just strap a wii motion plus to my head and call it good.

Post by **NikoKun** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:31 am

NiceGuyAndersson wrote:Will it be possible to watch the Oculus panels online somewhere?

I'm also curious about this..

Post by **3usergreend** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:52 am

I don't understand why it's drifting. It has a compass which tells it which way North is at all times. Is there some magnetic interference? Or is the sensor fusion just not quite ready? Or is there some other bug in DriVR or the Unity integration that's causing it?

From http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/26/41477 ... #152187561 by the reporter (comments section):

As for the improvements, I think it’s a pretty short (but challenging) list:

a higher resolution screen with better color
improved head tracking to prevent “drift” (though Oculus suggested this is a problem for developers to solve)
Actual games (also a ball in the court of game developers)

Post by **Namielus** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:04 am

I could only speak for myself obviously, but I would easily pay 600 dollars for a 6.1" 2560x1600 OLED screen in a deluxe edition consumer Rift.

Post by **TheHolyChicken** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:06 am

Ericshelpdesk wrote:
DaEmpty wrote:
At several points, my perspective "drifted," forcing Oculus to reset Hawken so that the Rift's’ line-of-sight lined up with my own.
Drifting head tracking is the worst thing that could happen.
I think we cannot fix this in software.

Maybe it's a good idea to order a track ir and use the rift tracker only as fallback.
****... I hate this news.
That's not what I wanted to hear. I thought the entire point of this whole rift thing of this was that we had rock solid tracking and any drift could be weeded out by the magnetometer. If that hasn't been fixed, I might as well just strap a wii motion plus to my head and call it good.

Another rumour set to spiral out of control

The Rift contains a magnetometer and should not drift. Read more about the sensors here: http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/building-a ... atency-vr/
"Nevertheless, we can leverage the accelerometer to estimate the “down” vector and our magnetometer to measure strength and direction of the magnetic field. Combined, these allow for correction of drift in all three axes."

The Verge's article notes that there was drift, and in the comments it is written that "Oculus suggested this is a problem for developers to solve". I took this as meaning "Oculus suggested this was a bug for the developers of Hawken to fix". To believe anything else is to disregard all information regarding the sensors we have, and all previous demos of the Rift where there has not been a single report of drift. I can only assume something is up with Hawken's implementation.

Post by **brantlew** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:07 am

Just a short comment to say that sensor fusion is incorporated into the SDK and is not something that we are asking developers to solve.

Post by **geekmaster** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:12 am

brantlew wrote:Just a short comment to say that sensor fusion is incorporated into the SDK and is not something that we are asking developers to solve.

How hard will it be to get Oculus sensor fusion working on my Rasberry Pi? Are you providing source code? For now, my code is mouse controlled.

Post by **STRZ** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:15 am

Have you at oculus checked the ingame FOV's of Hawken and DriVR? They seemed a bit high to me. If you have a wrong ingame FOV, the headtracking doesn't feel real and could be perceived as "drift".

Post by **dbuckvs** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:19 am

NikoKun wrote:
NiceGuyAndersson wrote:Will it be possible to watch the Oculus panels online somewhere?
I'm also curious about this..

Not the GDC panels no, they stream them online after the show as part of the GDC Vault, but it's a pay service at ~500/person. not a bad gig if you're a real dev house, but a bit out of the range of the normal human