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John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

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Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#141

Post by mistercow »

untog wrote: post #92
hahainternet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'new' part of Google Glass is likely to be 'being on your face most of the day'.

Sure. But that isn't really a significant development in AR technology. The Oculus Rift certainly won't be worn all the time.

>The Oculus Rift certainly won't be worn all the time.

Of course not, but "always on" is not a very useful feature for VR. It's an incredibly useful feature for AR. Oculus Rift is not a good candidate in any way for an AR platform, since camera pass through to VR is not an acceptable replacement for seeing the world with your actual eyes.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#142

Post by adventured »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #44

I was actually just thinking recently that John Carmack was past his prime. Or, more accurately, that he was no longer sitting in the right sweet spot in the industry that he once was. But with this move it looks like that may change. He's a one of a kind genius, and if there's anywhere that could see his skills used to effect more I can't think of it.

Yeah the sweet spot (or interesting spot at least) was clearly moving. Gaming has been stagnating for the last few game cycles (oh look, Gears of War 7). Obviously the lack of new console hardware was holding back a jump forward in various aspects, but that's just evolution rather than a technology inflection.

VR of course is the inflection. Carmack will add a lot of fuel to the fire. It's truly appropriate that he have a ground floor role in pushing this all forward. So much better than his abilities being used for Quake N.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#143

Post by astrodust »

angersock wrote: post #56
adambratt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I read it based off the same recommendation. After reading that book I don't think there's any way you can come away without seeing him as one of the top 25 programmers in the world. Mad genius for sure.

Not so much genius as just an absurdly hardcore work-ethic, and a refusal to ship code that is sloppy where it would matter.

This stands in stark contrast to the "other John" from iD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero) that went on to flame out in the most spectacular manner because he'd waffle between not shipping at all, or shipping half-baked games.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#144

Post by sp332 »

untog wrote: post #85
lightbritefight wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing new by default, but its opening up a lot of hardware potential. Its not just a screen and camera that's at eye level, its also setting new social norms that make that acceptable. Even now, Glass isn't far from Bluetooth levels of socially okay, which is say annoying to most but acceptable. Once it reaches that point, I expect AR to be a focal point of development. It only makes sense. A simple street view ove…

A simple street view overlay + wikipedia filter would be basic AR, and that doesn't seem difficult at all. It would be extremely difficult. It would use a lot of processing power to examine the camera input and attempt to extrapolate positioning for overlayed elements. I'm not sure Glass has that power.

It's already being done. Nokia has a nice one, but they weren't the first: http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/11/13/livesight-immersiv...

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#145

Post by sp332 »

btbuildem wrote: post #65
AndrewDucker wrote: post #62

I've played with an Oculus VR, and I think they're amazing. But I'm not convinced that they're ready for the mass market yet. Not because of any failing on their part, but because I think that they need games, and controllers, specifically designed to work with VR. You can't use mouse/keyboard well if you can't see the mouse/keyboard. UIs that float at the bottom of the screen feel very odd when you move your head ar…

Leap Motion?

Razer's Hydra project, which you have to hold onto but gives you a much larger play area, is already being used in some Rift games.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#146

Post by KVFinn »

socialist_coder wrote: post #131
nrp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually pretty impressed by CastAR. It's certainly the most compelling AR-esque experience I've tried. It opens up a different set of game possibilities than a VR headset like the Rift. Think augmented multiplayer tabletop games rather than immersive worlds.

The market for those types of games is slim. The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low. AR tabletop games would have an even smaller market and also be more expensive to produce.

>The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low.

It's bigger than ever and steadily rising.

Blocks for building dungeons made 2 million on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-for...

I can see a single mind-blowing tabletop demo selling pretty damn well. The audience isn't huge and mass market, but it's decent sized, and willing to drop very high amounts of money on cool stuff.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#147

Post by sbierwagen »

malandrew wrote: post #139
thenomad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's waaaaaaaaay harder than it looks. The big problem with swords in VR is physical feedback. If I strike at you with a saber, the saber will stop moving, sooner or later - either because you parry, or because the resistance of your bones and muscle eventually slows the thing down. Either way, it's a key component of a realistic swordfight. And it's bloody difficult to do in VR. You're not just talking about force…

Can you use gyroscopes to provide resistive force. Keep a heavy one running at low speed in the sword in a gimble. when you are about to hit something predictively rotate it to the correct orientation and accelerate it to high speed. Not totally sure this would work but if there is anything that can provide counteracting force without physical contact, a gyroscope is it. You don't even have to make a heavy sword, the…

You'd have to apply a couple hundred newton metres of torque, which would probably require a 50kg gyroscope, (expensive, heavy!) and if you want it to be at all compact you'd have to make the reaction wheel out of tungsten. (even more expensive!)

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#148

Post by bluedino »

Saddens me to suggest that Carmack has finally 'jumped the shark'. Childhood hero of mine and all, but id hasn't been doing much lately. He's cutting back on funding Armadillo. Maybe he plans on retiring and taking it easy pretty soon? He's had to have an exhausting last 20 years.

No matter how cool this Oculus product is, VR headsets are just not going to catch on.

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#149

Post by teach »

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #42

John Carmack believes in the tech, and I believe in John Carmack, so I will be getting one. He has basically been with them since the beginning in some capacity, here is a video of him demoing a unit at E3 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-DlWwlXHo You can see that one is still a very early prototype held together with duct tape. It's not specifically stated, but it sounds like he will be leaving id for this.…

He's not leaving id. A recent tweet:

"My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!" https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/365126783290445824

Re: John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

#150

Post by teach »

bluedino wrote: post #148

Saddens me to suggest that Carmack has finally 'jumped the shark'. Childhood hero of mine and all, but id hasn't been doing much lately. He's cutting back on funding Armadillo. Maybe he plans on retiring and taking it easy pretty soon? He's had to have an exhausting last 20 years. No matter how cool this Oculus product is, VR headsets are just not going to catch on.

> "VR headsets are just not going to catch on."

There are a lot of very smart people who seem to disagree with you.

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