Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[gilesgoat]

Just tried first time ever ... The Ocolus Rift ... It's serious shit, in 3 words "it simply works" !

Well ..yes and no .. Actually a bit of sniff for me, because at east the prototype seems
"almost unusable" for me cause my astigmatism and the absence of better regulations.

Tried to use it with my glasses on as well but still not been able to find a proper perfect
Setting, it was like my eyes all time could not 100% agree to what to focus on.

However I hope they will put in the final version the possibility to focus the lens better and
Move the inter ocular distance.

Apart from that "the tech is the fucking shit" it is really totally immersive and works as you could
Expect, however I am really praying they add some better settings otherwise this would be
For me an amazing toy I cannot use.

But yeah, this is the kind of device that makes you say "I want one too", it is truly
"scarily immersive" after a couple of mins you totally loose contact wi reality it is scary in
A good way but it is also pretty impressive how you get into "another world".

So "weird incredible experience but blurry" hopefully the final version will be better.

[Mqark]

Saw the twitter piccie down the pub! I said a while back someone should buy you two an OR, guess someone did!

[gilesgoat]

No it is not ours, it belongs to our Swedish friends that are visiting

However this is really a no-brainer wanna buy one, but I will wait for the final version
Because this one as I said unless I would find a way to fix it I cannot use it as it is.

Definitely in the future there "could be something" this is finally tech that works as it should.

[Mqark]

This is the first Kickstarter so far I was thinking about and didn't go for, now I'm kicking myself... However, I'm in the same boat as you and will wait for the final version.

[gilesgoat]

After another bits of try and such I still cannot be 100% sure what the problem is, certainly in
One thing they ate correct "resolution is too low" needs to be at least twice as much as this
Cause is a bit like to see an old tv quite close.

I would say that "seems to be problem in the right eye settings" ( mine ), but in all and
All I would say that as it is I cannot fully understand nor what the problem is nor what kind
Of correction is needed to make things ok and/or how much ok they should/can be.

So yeah, very promising but not perfect yet, hopefully it will improve.

[Yak]

Well last time I tried VR it was some fairly high end stuff in the 90s, VPL Eyephone, Polhemus Tracker kind of thing (proper expensive and exotic) and it was utter pants compared to what this $300 rig could do.

Proper impressed with that. I wonder how hard it'd be to build support for that into the PC port of TxK...

[Whiteball]

....I wonder how hard it'd be to build support for that into the PC port of TxK...

Oooh, yes please, that would be ace.

[toxibunny]

we need a 'llamasoft approved' badge for situations like this.

edit: also, I thought Jeff was bong-eyed and couldn't see 3D. Pleasantly surprised, etc.

edit again: it's proper tragic, that lead guy who got run over recently. On one hand, everyone knew Oculus was kicking ass, so at least he died on a high. On another hand, it hadn't took over the world yet, so he didn't die a billionaire... and then another third hand, he had friends and family and plans of his own that will never ever happen now

[gilesgoat]

On the other hand, to be fully honest, I think Oculus Rift still needs technical improvements, terrific
"proof of concept" that can work but definitely not fully perfect yet.

I am confident improvements there will be ... or I don't think I'll be ever able to use one.

[Yak]

I can't see stereoscopic 3D. the only kind of "3d" that makes any sense to me is stuff that tracks head movement because for me that *is* 3D IRL. So head tracking VR works for me whereas static 3D like in films is a huge waste of time and in fact just appears to me as a dimmer, lower frame rate version of a film.

So Oculus works fine for me even if I'm not seeing the stereoscopic aspect of it. The tracking is the thing.

[gilesgoat]

What I am saying here is that I tried the protoype SDK first time ever, now if that should be a thing ( it is not really yet ) that ANYONE RANDOM X can take, put on, look and see all good, well CLEARLY IS NOT, it NEEDS ADJUSTMENTS.

First impression I had was "WOW super cool, super immersive and .. wait a minute why everything I see is totally blurred and can't focus on things ?".

We tried all the lenses and settings and it's still like "I can't see it clearly" at this point really I don't understand if it's me not
seeing clearly OR if I expect to see something I can't see yet and my frustration is "I don't know what I should see or how".

If I expect to see a low res but clear in focus pic of something that isn't actually the more I was desperately trying to focus
on things it was like the worse it was getting with my eyes "incapable to decice" what they should focus on, I still don't
get if my "main problem" is not accepting the res is low or something else.

One thing is true that "grid effect" of the "pixelation" is quite annoying adds one extra level of difficulty in what one should see, it's a bit like to see a world through a fine grating but that is still there.

There was some sort of "color bleeding" as well but that's not the lens, I noticed it was in the rendered stuff as well so it
was really present in the source pic as well, not sure if that's part of the "spherical distorsion algo" but I think it is ( i.e.
a black and white set of squares has blueish/orange/green bleeding borders and you see them".

There was a certain "natural blurring" occuring during panning, again this wasn't the oculus was exactly the same thing
was seeing in the PC screen, so dunno was it the graphic card, the screen or the algorithm itself ?

I tried the "test room" .. "something was still pretty wrong" .. again could not really see "anything perfectly in focus" and
at some point I wasn't conviced it was my eyes because I was able to focus on certain things yet the "overall scene" was
looking like "or too low res, or too out of focus".

I am absolutely NOT sure about "what is that I was/am seeing or what is that I should see", one thing I
am sure is that the lens system or what of the Oculus seems to "amplify all of those defects" so something "noticeable but
not too much" on the PC screen seems to become "fully noticeable" on the Oculus screen.

It definitely needs improvement to be "easier to be used" it needs to be able to adjust individual focus of lenses or provide
it via better SW or dunno what, but as it is in this form it certainly is a bit far IMHO for being "very general purpose".

Now don't take me wrong, overall else it works flawlessy, the immersion is "total", the thing works, probably a person
without sight problems can already enjoy it at full.

But a person like me short sighted with some ( not extreme really ) astigmatism certainly cannot simply get the SDK, put
it on and see it right.

I tried it for about 20 mins or so and really "could not find a good way yet", the first 5 mins of try been so cool but at
the same time gave me real motion sickness cause all the super immersion and blurness I was seeing, imagine like to
all in a sudden be projected into another world but with the wrong pair of glasses on.

Could be I am extremely unlucky however both my eye shortness and astigmatism are really low on the
absolute scale so I could say "I am not even that far away from the normal and yet I have problems".

I know what I would expect to see ( I mean what I'd love to see ) but that's not what I am seeing, so I say "yes but
not yet ( for me ) ".

It needs more work to be more perfect and I really wish/hope it does get because otherwise it's going to be "something
that does not work for me".

This time Yak is lucky but me not.

[Istar]

Apart from that "the tech is fucking shit" it is really totally immersive...

For the sake of search engine indexing, and assuming you don't want to vex the guys at OR if they stumble across this post, you should probably put a 'THE' after 'is'.

I mean, you liked it, right? As opposed to what this statement actually means as it stands...

[gilesgoat]

Apart from that "the tech is fucking shit" it is really totally immersive...

For the sake of search engine indexing, and assuming you don't want to vex the guys at OR if they stumble across this post, you should probably put a 'THE' after 'is'.

I mean, you liked it, right? As opposed to what this statement actually means as it stands...

Well I liked it and I did not.

But if they stumble across the posts they really see what I really mean

"To vex" not really, but to let them know "hey guys is not perfect yet" maybe someone should.

I actually think I do know what that thing would need and basically is :

- adjustable eye distance (*)
- adjustable individual focus
- adjustable spherical mapping (*)
- higher rez
- much better calibration SW with more refined calibration tests
- better support for people wearing glasses
- separate brightness/chroma control per eye (**) (i.e. look those two colors/brightness fiddle until they look the same )

Now I think the two (*) can be made in SW but not in the current SW I have seen, (**) could be easily done in SW too.

I anyway suspect that this tech is really not going to work for everyone, if you put a piece of paper 10 cm in front of my eyes from the nose ( just tried it, distance
measured with a caliper ) and you ask me to focus on it I cannot do it, my eyes cannot do it with glasses on but CAN do it without glasses and even keep it.

Then I did try at 9cm, 8 cm, 7 cm ..

9 cm still ok
8 cm starting to get a bit complex
7 cm and below NO WAY

I wonder how much is the "focusing distance" between the Rift screen and the eye, if it requires such distances then people like me would need to be able to adjust
all lenses "much better" until a point is found, astigmatism you should be able to correct it by simply changing lightly the axis of the spherical projection and size
( literally rotate the image and make it elliptic instead of circle ).

It needs adjustments, I do hope they have some optometrist or such in their team

As it is it's cool but certainly NOT cool for everyone if it stays as it is, it's cool only for those that can use it

[edit] and if/when at some point we get one and I can make an SW that fixes problems better and can make it work even for my eyes "my fucking arse I am going to give it that thing away free", if someone wants it has to give me a slice of all that thing or they fix it by their own

[edit2] we'll give it another go later one with a better calibration SW that is somewhere in TF, we'll see what we get from there.

[gilesgoat]

Apart from that "the tech is fucking shit" it is really totally immersive...

For the sake of search engine indexing, and assuming you don't want to vex the guys at OR if they stumble across this post, you should probably put a 'THE' after 'is'.

I mean, you liked it, right? As opposed to what this statement actually means as it stands...

Also I cannot re-edit the edits they are not editable any more, so there's no way I can insert a "THE" in the middle, maybe some mod could but not me.

[Yak]

There you go, sorted.




















(wouldn't want them to get the hump and delay the Oculus devkit I ordered last night)