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Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

reuters.com

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Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#41

Post by wlesieutre »

moron4hire wrote: post #31
ahupp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. I worked at Oculus on the product that became Quest from 2014-2019 and this statement could not be more wrong. You need more than a vulkan driver to make a VR headset, e.g: * lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact * astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency…

> lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact That was Corning, not Meta. > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy That was Valve, not Meta. > latency reduction and prediction throughout the stack That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago. > foveated rendering T…

> > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy

> That was Valve, not Meta.

When did Valve make a headset with camera based tracking instead of setting up lighthouses all around the room? Their tracking that I'm aware of is all about the timing of light flashes sweeping across light sensors, it would be totally useless on Meta's self-contained headsets.

> > foveated rendering

> That was a waste of time.

If you're trying to sustain non-barf-inducing framerates on a mobile processor this seems useful to me?

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#43

Post by calamari4065 »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #9

Its kind of underappreciated how much of a failure their entire software stack is (Bosworth should be the first to leave). For those paying attention, the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. The user side Android system is, really badly done and irritating for people using it as people like Carmack have pointed out. This is possible the biggest software development blunder in history, th…

I write applications to run on the quest and it's miserable. Simply getting your apk onto the device is the most unnecessarily difficult things I've ever seen. In order to unlock developer mode, you have to have a Facebook account with your phone number associate with a Facebook developer group for your company which requires additional verification to set up.

Then you are required to install the oculus app on your phone and link it into your Facebook account. If you're lucky, this will work the second or third time you try it. Even then, sideloaded apps are hidden away in a separate menu.

Oh, and you think you can just use your quest tethered while you work in Unity? Good fucking luck. It's remarkably unreliable and unstable. Usually I get a black screen until I restart my headset, my computer, SteamVR, unity or a combination thereof. It's been over a year and I still don't know what the right incantation is. If you want to try air-link, you don't get hand tracking. Intentionally. It's not a technical limitation.

Beyond that, it's mostly-standard Android, which is also painful to develop for, but in new and exciting ways.

Conversely, targeting Valve Index and an ultraleap tracker is as easy as it gets. If your application runs on the PC where you're developing it, you're already done. It's plug and play almost every time. There's no extra layers of bullshit to wade through, you just open unity and hit play and that's it.

Well, unless you count all the ways that PC development sucks.

Development concerns aside, the quest is a low power phone with some cheap optics. Resolution is bad, frame rate is bad, battery is bad, it literally does not fit my face. I can't see anything because you only have three IPD choices and they're all wrong. Hand tracking is consistently worse than ultraleap, and with the latest update it's totally unusable for me. And I mean that I literally cannot select UI items. It nags me every 30 seconds about turning on my controllers. I also have this weird issue where different colors render at different depths. Red text floats above the surface and green is sunk below. It's really hideous.

The Quest is worse than a PC HMD in every way except that it's cheap. That's it, that's all it has going for it. It's cheap and technically does run VR.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#44

Post by calamari4065 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #41
moron4hire wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact That was Corning, not Meta. > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy That was Valve, not Meta. > latency reduction and prediction throughout the stack That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago. > foveated rendering T…

> > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy > That was Valve, not Meta. When did Valve make a headset with camera based tracking instead of setting up lighthouses all around the room? Their tracking that I'm aware of is all about the timing of light flashes sweeping across light sensors, it would be totally useless on Meta's self-cont…

Have you ever tried foveated rendering? I find it to be significantly more uncomfortable than low framerates.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#45

Post by wlesieutre »

calamari4065 wrote: post #44
wlesieutre wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy > That was Valve, not Meta. When did Valve make a headset with camera based tracking instead of setting up lighthouses all around the room? Their tracking that I'm aware of is all about the timing of light flashes sweeping across light sensors, it would be totally useless on Meta's self-cont…

Have you ever tried foveated rendering? I find it to be significantly more uncomfortable than low framerates.

I have a Quest 1, so yes, games that use it look terrible outside of the center area (including text being unreadable). If you want to look at something you have to turn your head and face toward it, since there's no eye tracking to move the high detail area around. It's not great.

But the alternative is the games wouldn't sustain acceptable framerates, so I'll take that tradeoff. I'm not saying it looks good, but it's running on a Snapdragon 835 so you do what you have to.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#46

Post by ahupp »

moron4hire wrote: post #31
ahupp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. I worked at Oculus on the product that became Quest from 2014-2019 and this statement could not be more wrong. You need more than a vulkan driver to make a VR headset, e.g: * lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact * astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency…

> lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact That was Corning, not Meta. > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy That was Valve, not Meta. > latency reduction and prediction throughout the stack That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago. > foveated rendering T…

> That was Corning, not Meta.

I don't know who manufactures them, but Meta has had a team of optics engineers working on new lenses for years.

> That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago.

Timewarp was one of many improvements, done by many different people over the years.

> That was Valve, not Meta.

Are you referring to the classic Valve room demo which used fiducials plastered on the wall for tracking, or the Valve lighthouse which projects lasers on the walls for tracking?

Whether you put fiducials on the wall and a camera on the headset, or vice-versa (like the original Rift did) is not that relevant of a distinction. Whatever "inside out tracking" meant in 2012, today it means you get 6dof without having to setup a pile of gear in your room.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#47

Post by wkat4242 »

AgentME wrote: post #33
upon_drumhead wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech that works in it is still Qualcomm. The UI is going to be the same that the other quest headsets have

What other headset shares the Quest's UI? Most headsets aren't even standalone like it.

Pico kinda copies the quest UI. I was surprised how similar it was.

I bought one to hold me over until the quest 3 came out but it had a wobbly lens flaw that made me nauseous. It turned out to be quite common. I had to return it. Luckily the quest 3 is now out.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#49

Post by paul7986 »

rabf wrote: post #30
ahupp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. I worked at Oculus on the product that became Quest from 2014-2019 and this statement could not be more wrong. You need more than a vulkan driver to make a VR headset, e.g: * lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact * astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency…

The hand tracking has seen continuous improvement and the depth correct passthrough is pretty good and I'm sure quite a feat to accomplish. Its worth noting that much of that 10 Billion wasn't just spent on Horizon Worlds as critics off-handedly suggest, but has been sunk in to lots of acquisitions (hardware and software companies) and research, much of which has yet to be seen in released products. I'm very impresse…

Just bought Meta's latest smart glasses and i use them almost daily because for taking pics and short videos they were almost perfectly and like most people I wear sunglasses almost daily.

Im not sure they will win this race, but the glasses are solid for the two instances i mentioned. Other features aren't as solid like Hey Meta barely works.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#50

Post by justinclift »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #28
golergka wrote: post #24

Layoffs got to C-level?

At the executive level, there are parachutes. Layoffs don't hurt the same.

"Golden parachutes" is the term.

Along the lines of: "I was laid off from the last two places, and I will never need to work again".

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