Speculation on secret "Key Features"

[Nick3DvB]

GPIO! That should keep the RasPi robotics guys happy, maybe the Pirate party will use it for their army of sky drones...

[mahler]

At one point npr was experimenting with positional tracking based on magnetic sensors with a Hydra base-station.
He aborted his experiments as they were of much lower precision compared to the actual Hydra controllers.

Now what if he actually managed to improve on that working with Oculus?

[jaybug]

But seriously, now you've made me obsessively aware of how much I actually move my head when looking around. Kinda like how whoever's reading this will suddenly become very aware of how their tongue feels in their mouth. You're welcome.

Your clothes are touching all over your body, your tongue cannot find a comfortable place in your mouth, the temperature in the room isn't quite right, and your breathing has now sped up.
You're welcome.

Rats! Hoist by my own petard :p

[Lilwolf]

Maybe just a clasp inside to host a hacked hydra controller. That would be cool.
And if you don't want it. maybe the space could be used for two cameras.

IE, behind the LCD, just enough space for a hacker to add two cameras, or a hydra controller, or a leap dev board, or a...

basically a place that you could clip on one more item of your choice. And make the clips / size a bit standard. So others could adhere to the size.

That and lasers!

[2EyeGuy]

Are you saying we won't be able to change the firmware?
Because it really sucked when eMagin and Essential Reality made their firmwares unchangeable and left their products almost unusable as a consequence.

[Dycus]

No, no, I'm saying header pins for changing the firmware probably won't be included. The footprint should still be there.
But don't quote me on this. Everything is subject to change. However, from what I know, we're trying to keep it pretty open, so I'm sure you'll have access to that stuff.

[Chriky]

Are you guys still on track for December ship date? I want to book some holiday from work to hack around and have to submit the dates soon.

[mahler]

Are you guys still on track for December ship date? I want to book some holiday from work to hack around and have to submit the dates soon.

If they start sending them around Dec 31st, you'll probably have them within a week (or 2-3 weeks internationally) - You might be smart planning your holiday around the end of January

[Dycus]

We're doing everything we can to ship on time. There should be an update on the exact ship date in the near future.

Any more or less than that I'm not allowed to say... sorry.

[space123321]

ugggghhhh - lol!!!! We appreciate everthing that you guys are doing! Like everyone has said on here - we have waited decades for this to come - we can wait alittle longer. That being said my wife is starting to think I have a serious issues going on in my head as I am constantly cheching for updates - whether it be in the car, when I wake up, while watching a movie - anything to feed the passion lol!!!

[Bishop51]

What's killing me isn't the wait for true VR, I've been waiting for over 20 years for that and I can wait a month or so more. The thing that's killing me is waiting to bring the Oculus into the studio to test the game we've been building specifically for it I'm sure that's a common bit of developer heartache these days

Go team Oculus Go!!!

[ejiwarp]

I think the "secret key feature" will be:

1. some compatibility function that make triditional 3D game can run on RIFT.
It is not so nesserary to an DEV kit, but as we know, RIFT's buyer right now is unquestionably include many players.
I think Palmer may forced to do something prevent the argue about that.
This is not a good thing thought, but for end user, that will become "key feature".

2. better LCD
Better than prototype used. Only rumor from my thread. I do not have any detail.
maybe bigger, maybe ghost free, maybe an 120Hz driven panel..... etc,
but It seems not so possible because most important is SDK and head-tracking sensor, others function can wait.

3. option parts that can addon RIFT
like a wireless HDMI adapter, apperently not free though.

[Bishop51]

Given the sources of information; Wireless hardware and an expanded FOV are pretty likely the big extras shipping to developers. That's absolutely awesome but I think what's got everyone chewing their nails is whether or not that implies that they've cracked the positional tracking issue as well. Its such a vital feature in combating some motion sickness quandaries and it really opens up the doors in terms of potential freedom of movement within game environments.

I think Palmer is well aware of the above and I'm sure its been a big point of focus (probably a stressful one too). Surely positional tracking will be incorporated into the commercial version of the RIFT, so getting that tech into the hands of developers early makes a lot of sense on a number of levels. Doubly so since it's very likely that potentially more than half of dev kit purchasers aren't developers (and it goes without saying that this segment might be pretty unforgiving unlike the developers who understand the issues).

[zalo]

I don't know if wireless is feasible yet. Those LCDs are kinda bright and take a bit of power, so you'll need fairly large batteries.
Also, the transmitter/receiever sucks up a lot too. Maybe if the batteries were hip or back of head mounted, the weight wouldn't be offset too much...

Wireless would be awesome though. With amplified transmitters, brantlew's redrovr system or Memebox's tracking app, and an open space, the possibilities are endless.

[WiredEarp]

I really dont see how positional tracking can work using gyros/accelerometers, at all. The drift problems are just too big. Its good for angles, no good for translations.

Positional tracking IMHO would require a base station of some type, like the Hydra, or the TrackIR.

[brantlew]

I don't know if wireless is feasible yet. Those LCDs are kinda bright and take a bit of power, so you'll need fairly large batteries.
Also, the transmitter/receiever sucks up a lot too. Maybe if the batteries were hip or back of head mounted, the weight wouldn't be offset too much...

Wireless would be awesome though. With amplified transmitters, brantlew's redrovr system or Memebox's tracking app, and an open space, the possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately, the range of current video transmitters is pretty short - something like 10 meters. For standing/360 motion though, I think video transmission might be a good option (until the rendering can all be done on-board the HMD). It's all a matter of bandwidth and latency however. But everybody who has tried this has used a normal mono-frame video transmitter. If a special encoder/decoder was developed to encode the SBS feed using stereoscopic compression algorithms then that would help the bandwidth problem a lot.

[Mart]

http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/c ... ts-oculus/

The proper final build is meant to have even higher resolution

Is he referring to the "proper final build" of the dev kit or the consumer version?

[EdZ]

Is he referring to the "proper final build" of the dev kit or the consumer version?

Consumer. Palmer has stated outright that the devkit will have a resolution of 1280x800.