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Hands On With Virtual Reality's Greatest Hope

Posted by samzenpus on from the eye-on-the-prize dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Oculus VR Rift is a one of the seventeen kickstarter projects to raise more than a million dollars in 2012 and a recently published hands-on shows exactly why it was so successful. Using Oculus VR Rift with the upcoming Infinity Blade and a modified version of Unreal Tournament 3, the analyst found that the 3D effect and head tracking provided a great sense of immersion. At one point while playing Infinity Blade, the analyst describes walking around the guards and watching their swords shift as he stepped, seeming like they were inches from cutting him. While he felt that the demo was impressive, he found that the software limitations made the whole experience a bit unrealistic. Needless to say that Oculus Rift is a long way from hitting stores but Oculus VR is getting ready to ship developer kits."

14 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Still no eye tracking? by Kenja · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the 90s I worked a bit in VR & 3D video/movies. The big hope was always a way to track eye movement to vary the interocular distance based on what you where trying to focus on. There where some prototypes that where able to do this using infrared cameras to track your eyes and adjusting the software accordingly, but I have never seen a production system that did it. Until they get this working, VR will always feels forced because the software is deciding what you are looking at rather then your eyes.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Still no eye tracking? by Kenja · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You mean the 3D movies they had in the 50s and now again? They've not really changed that much, and people do get very tired of them, just like they do every decade. What's more, unlike a movie, in a VR game or environment you have control. The scene changes based on your actions, including tracking your head movement. No not change the focus based on what you are looking at makes it fairly unusable. In a game for example, you turn your head to look at an enemy, but its out of focus. You strain your eyes trying to focus on it, but it wont happen and you get a headache.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    2. Re:Still no eye tracking? by dpidcoe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As a trackIR user, I can say that when using these sorts of devices it's helpful to think of your head as controlling a joystick that's moving your view, rather than being directly linked (most people set their trackIR profiles up to amplify movement on a curve, which also helps break that illusion). You don't get annoyed at having to move your hand a little bit to see something in an FPS when you could have just flicked your eyes instead because your brain understands that the mouse is a controller. It doesn't need to be any different for your head.

      Also, one of the features of the rift that makes it different is that it has a wide FOV, so there's much less of the looking through a straw feeling that happens with current gen VR headsets.

    3. Re:Still no eye tracking? by JakeBurn · · Score: 2

      If you could track a person's eyes you could solve many hardware limitations you might have. I read this paper on only making a certain sized circle directly where you're looking in focus and high def, A slightly larger circle around that is less sharp but still decent, then everything outside of that was low rez and blurry. Seemed like a decent idea to make what you're looking at seem much higher def than normal.

    4. Re:Still no eye tracking? by Jesus_666 · · Score: 2

      Actually, focus is one of the cues we use to determine the relative depth of objects we see. Most of what you see at any given time is not in focus. Rendering everything in focus (which many video games with stereoscopy support do) is confusing to some people as the focus suggests that all objects are on a plane while the difference in perception between the eyes suggests otherwise.

      There's a simpler solution: Developers stop using stereoscopy until we have consumer-ready volumetric displays. (Or, alternatively, developers stop using stereoscopy until 2025 when the current fad is forgotten and they can sell it to us as a "brand new" technology.)

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    5. Re:Still no eye tracking? by Osgeld · · Score: 2

      its cute for the first few moments, when you slowly gaze around the demo disk, but you hit it, my hand, which can do all sorts of stuff out of sight only has to make a slight movement, my head doesnt, and is not nearly as quick

    6. Re:Still no eye tracking? by Scytheford · · Score: 2

      These don't need eyeball tracking. The field of view of the image is such that your eyes can roam around the visible cone of the world to your heart's content, as with reality. The headset has accelerometers and gyros in it so it can track your head's orientation. You have the same five degrees of movement available (3 head rotation, 2 eye rotation) as you do without the goggles. The lower resolution, and the way the rift's optics are designed, means objects far from the centre of the FoV have fewer pixels comprising their image. The only meaningful limitations are the resolution of the screen, and the field of view of the optics. The lower FoV means that you might need to move your head to look at something you would've just moved your eyes toward in meatspace.

      The only thing you lose is a true depth of field, because the system can't read the focal plane of your eyes. The result is that everything is in focus at all times, without your eyes having to adjust their focus. It will be the cause of discomfort for some, but I find that I adjust quickly enough after taking off my (non-rift) goggles.

  2. Until... by bmo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...someone cracks a cure for VR Motion Sickness (TM) where the inner ear conflicts with what the eye is seeing, you're not going to see a lot of VR uptake.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:Until... by Xenkar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This condition is actually called simulator sickness and a good portion of the population suffers from it. Basically your mind thinks it has been poisoned due to the conflicting messages and tries to induce vomiting to expel your lunch to correct the problem. There is no cure for it. The only solution is to have the VR helmet also hijack the inner-ear.

    2. Re:Until... by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 2

      Or a system which places the "outside world" correctly as you move around, which either needs a large amount of space to move around in, or a moving/tilting floor.

      --
      Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    3. Re:Until... by bmo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There is a kind of vertigo where your semi-circular canals get infected or otherwise screwed up. You basically can't walk and are bedridden until it clears up. A friend of mine suffered from this and it wasn't fun.

      Any time you mess with a biological function like this, it's safer to go slow. Permanently mess up someone's inner ear and you'll condemn him to a hell that you would wish on anyone.

      Animal testing. Lots and lots of animal testing are needed for this before it's considered safe.

      --
      BMO

    4. Re:Until... by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

      It's the same situation that causes sickness in boats and planes.

      It may be possible to have while playing a FPS, but I've never heard of anybody that sensible. (Yet, some people have sickness while whatching TV, so it may just be due to a small sample.)

      --
      Rethinking email
  3. Re:Suggestion. by loufoque · · Score: 2

    a hooker might end up cheaper than all this tech.

  4. Re:Suggestion. by qwak23 · · Score: 3, Funny

    A hooker? maybe.

    20 hookers? probably not.

    Look at it as an investment.