Hi....a lenses question from a noob member.

[torc]

Hello everyone, i'm torc from italy (so excuse my bad english).

I found this great community since i saw the great Palmer's oculus rift project, and i saw that there's a lot of HMD guru in this community.

It's been a while i'm working on my generic home cockpit (sci fi, flight and mech sim lover), but after a lot of project, i thought that an HMD would be great for immersion despite screens or projectors, and i'm pretty much happy to see i'm not the only mad guy that loves to put an DIY VRhelmet in his head!

By the way, let's go to the point:
Basically i'm waiting for the Oculus Rift, but if i understood correctly, this HMD doesn't work whit 2D games.
So i thought to build my 2D High FOV Helmet.

I made a deep research in this forum and i have a little questions for all of you:

- For a 2D display, can i use 2 aspheric lenses (one for each eye) or need i to use a big square one?

- Do you have more FOV whit a square or round lenses?

- I'd like to use this screen since it seems the best compromise for an HMD: 5.6" TFT ( http://bit.ly/O3Kn1o ) is there some new available more high definition screen or is it the best choice?

Those are my first noob question...i'll continue to make this topic updated whit my WIP.

Thank you all in advence for the support.... Keep it up people!

[cybereality]

You can play 3D games in 2D on the Rift. Just use a 3D driver and set the depth to the lowest value. Though I am not sure why you would want to do this.

[torc]

Hi Cybereality, thanks for the fast reply...so you mean that you can play ''old'' games that doesn't support the Rift new technology without problems? that's a good news! Anyway i'd like to go on whit my DIY project...so if you have some suggestion would be great.

[brantlew]

@torc: You can play old games that are supported by a driver like nVidia or Tridef that outputs SBS. HOWEVER, the images will be badly fish-eye distorted by the lenses. Warp correction software is necessary to correct this distortion.

[torc]

Hi Brantlew...some software as Nthusim would be good for this purpose?

[cybereality]

I have software I am working on that does the pre-warping. Currently only supports a couple games for 3D, but should be able to support a lot more if you don't mind playing in 2D. It will be available when the Rift launches, around Nov/Dec.

[torc]

Very good cybereality... but what you mean Nov/Dec? the Rift will be released by this date or just the development prototype?

[cybereality]

The dev kits will be arriving in December (or a little earlier for the people assembling themselves). This is the unit you can get through kickstarter. The consumer version probably isn't coming until late 2013 so if you want to get on this now I suggest throwing some money down on kickstarter. Certainly this is a better option than building a DIY headset yourself, unless you really know what you are doing (and even then, you could get the Rift anyway).

[torc]

TBH i tought to buy one unit on kickstarter, but IIRC Palmer says that the kit wil be sent only to developers and sponsors....and waiting for the final product for gamers audience...isn't so?

[brantlew]

Hi Brantlew...some software as Nthusim would be good for this purpose?

Yes, before PalmerTech started working with Carmack, he was using a combination of iZ3D and Nthusim to handle image preparation but I think game support was limited and fragile. A much better option would be to wait for the Rift-specific drivers (like cyberreality's).

[Namielus]

TBH i tought to buy one unit on kickstarter, but IIRC Palmer says that the kit wil be sent only to developers and sponsors....and waiting for the final product for gamers audience...isn't so?

Palmer has said no such thing. He has said its intended for developers etc, but anyone is free to buy.
He is just afraid people will have too high expectations, and that the "disappointment" will eventually hurt the oculus name before the upgrade hits the mass market.

Nobody will be denied the kickstarter product, and it will not require programming skills to play it with doom 3.

Frankly, my honest opinion is, paying 300dollars for this thing + doom3 bfg and getting the games cyberreality and emerson has managed support for, is worth it.

I am not a developer, but I do try to contribute with ideas and have started learning the unity3.5 engine. The 4.0 version will probably have built in support for oculus as they are one of the big-name backers of this.

[torc]

is very good to see this kind of support from nod-directly Rift developers great community!

Anyway glad to hear it...sorry ,maybe my bad english makes to me misunderstood some thing!

i'd definitively buy one of this kits, thanks for all the informations.

By the way...since i ve already molded my HMD box and other things, i'd like to go on whit my DIY project, just for research and fun.

So if you want help me would be great.