Live data from Hacker News

Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

tomshardware.com

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#52
post #7

There is a really sort of chilling feeling when you get really good head tracking and high DPI visual input, it fools your brain enough to move your sense of place. The absolute creepiest thing I've experienced with this was put the goggles on and have the screens showing the view of a pair of cameras mounted on a telepresence robot in the same room. Then slowly pull the telepresence robot back so that I could see my…

I've tried many controllers throughout my life. There's still nothing better than keyboard (WASD) plus mouse.

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#53

... only if game developers fully embrace it.

It could work without the developers embracing it, the same way as almost any DirectX game works with NVIDIA 3D VISION, because it's doing the stereoscopic rendering in the video driver without the need of special code in the games. Of course a few games has visual bugs in 3D but most of these are fixed in newer video drivers.

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#54
Anecdote time.

The last time I played with a set of VR goggles was a few years back, and the technology was certainly not up to this pace. That said, the head tracking was pretty good, particularly for the FPS we were playing.

The problem wasn't in the head tracking... it was that the head tracking was pointless. Since you couldn't realistically look around more than ~120 degrees, you still needed a way to turn around and move. The result is that while the head mounted VR goggles were neat, they were just a trick.

After 30 minutes of play, I found that my head had lolled down to rest on my chest (in part due to the weight of the headset), and I wasn't using the goggles for anything more than I would use a monitor for.

Given that, despite the advances in technology, you'll still have a practical limit on how much your head can turn (and thus still requiring a mouse/joystick for real movement), I have a hard time seeing the niche these will successfully fill.

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#55

Anecdote time. The last time I played with a set of VR goggles was a few years back, and the technology was certainly not up to this pace. That said, the head tracking was pretty good, particularly for the FPS we were playing. The problem wasn't in the head tracking... it was that the head tracking was pointless. Since you couldn't realistically look around more than ~120 degrees, you still needed a way to turn aroun…

If you were set on using the head tracking for movement, you'd have to set it up like a controller's thumbsticks (which also have a fairly limited angle of motion). There's a dead spot in the middle, but going outside it makes you turn. Speed increasing the farther out you go.

Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii (and possibly other games) used a similar control system based on the wiimote pointer. It had an adjustment period when you first picked it up, but worked very well. Whether the same holds true with head tracking, I can't say.

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#56
Isn't there a history of VR headsets directly causing brain and eye injury? (Sony, Nintendo Virtual Boy, eye desynchronization) Does anyone know if I am misremembering this, or if not, how the Rift avoids the earlier issues?

EDIT: Nope, I was not making this up... it was Sega VR causing strabismus.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/warning-3d-video-...

http://www.strabismus.org/all_about_strabismus.html

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#57
post #7

There is a really sort of chilling feeling when you get really good head tracking and high DPI visual input, it fools your brain enough to move your sense of place. The absolute creepiest thing I've experienced with this was put the goggles on and have the screens showing the view of a pair of cameras mounted on a telepresence robot in the same room. Then slowly pull the telepresence robot back so that I could see my…

I imagine the real issue with a setup like that would be how quickly and smoothly the robotic camera could match your head movement. Did you experience any difficulty to that effect?

Re: Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

#60
post #7

There is a really sort of chilling feeling when you get really good head tracking and high DPI visual input, it fools your brain enough to move your sense of place. The absolute creepiest thing I've experienced with this was put the goggles on and have the screens showing the view of a pair of cameras mounted on a telepresence robot in the same room. Then slowly pull the telepresence robot back so that I could see my…

The sense of place is the vital element and it's really hard to communicate how significant it is.

If you're sceptical about Oculus Rift, here's an experiment for you. Download Doom and play it back-to-back with a modern FPS. What you'll probably notice most isn't the low resolution or the weird cardboard-cutout objects, but the absence of freelook. You'll find yourself jarring as you try to look up at ledges or peek down through windows, feeling peculiarly constrained, almost as if you're wearing a neck brace. The Rift is at least as big a difference.

HMDs with accurate head tracking are an absolute revelation, because they truly immerse you in the environment. You don't realise how much your natural vision relies upon your ability to take quick glances at odd angles - a look down at your feet to spot the last step, a peek over your shoulder before you merge into traffic and so on.

Post reply on HN