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Valve Prepping Source 2 Engine For VR

Posted by Soulskill on from the setting-right-what-once-went-wrong dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a Q&A session on Reddit last night with Valve's Gabe Newell, the founder confirmed that the company is in the process of getting the highly anticipated Source 2 game engine 'working well with VR.' Valve's Alex Vlachos, Senior Graphics Programmer, is apparently leading the charge. Still no word on when the engine may ship. Valve, who is openly collaborating with Oculus VR, demonstrated a VR headset prototype in January at Steam Dev Days. The company also launched a beta version of SteamVR which offers Steam's 'Big Picture' mode in a format compatible with the Oculus Rift VR headset. A developer who got to experiment with Valve's VR prototype says it's very impressive, even more so than the original Oculus VR dev kit."

6 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Carmack Talk QC 2013 by pieisgood · · Score: 3, Informative

    This was evident from Carmacks talk at QuakeCon 2013. He talked about meeting with valve employees and discussing VR. He talked about how the Valve guys showed him that black to white times on the screen were just as important as standard refresh rates. So it makes sense that they would be developing Source 2 to work with VR.

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  2. Re:Valve by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My bet is that HL3 will be the first source2 game and it will have full VR support and be sold in bundles. headset (insert witty name here) + steam machine + hl3. Steam after all was (practically) launched with hl2.

  3. Occulus Rift price by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Forbes claims the Occulus Rift will cost $499 or less, with the device, an omni treadmill, and supporting software going for $999.
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

    This would be pretty impressive considering that Sony's 3rd generation HMD sells for $999.

  4. Re:Valve by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've held this suspicion too. Why deliver a game people have been begging for like oversexed whores for years, when you can deliver the game and a tech improvement that'll bust everyone's balls, propelling the former to "technical marvel" and instantly making a market for the latter?

  5. Re:How do you know what nintendo is doing? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I highly doubt it. Nintendo has been a majority about group-in-a-room play. VR takes heavily away from everyone sharing the same point of view

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  6. Re:My doubts about VR by umafuckit · · Score: 2

    3D TV is different to VR, IMO. 3D is a little like the jump from 720p to 1080p. You notice it, sure, but soon merges into the background. The VR headsets, by many accounts, offer a very different and more immersive experience and they're better suited to their medium. VR headsets are pitched at games because in a game you're interacting with a virtual world. Up until now, your window into that world is a fixed screen that you control with your fingers. With a VR headset you're stepping into that world. Many beta testers have reported that the experience is quite startling.

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