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

[Deckard]

One for the tinhat brigade but then this is FB we are talking about

http://gameranx.com/updates/id/47004/ar ... urn-it-on/

and from Giz

If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes:

By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.
Basically, if you create something using the device through their services, Oculus can’t own it, but the company can use it—and it doesn’t have to pay you for the use. Oculus can use it even if you don’t agree with its use.

[seibu]

One for the tinhat brigade but then this is FB we are talking about

http://gameranx.com/updates/id/47004/ar ... urn-it-on/

and from Giz

If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes:

By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.
Basically, if you create something using the device through their services, Oculus can’t own it, but the company can use it—and it doesn’t have to pay you for the use. Oculus can use it even if you don’t agree with its use.

My experience as a developer was that Facebook worked hard to close the platform from the moment they became involved. The DK1 was fully open - a screen and some accelerometers which could be easily read and implemented. There was a javascript implementation for pete's sake! The DK2 suddenly needed a closed-source demon to be running for it to work properly. Then Linux & Mac were dropped. Now the CV1 wont talk to non-Oculus-signed software without a setting change. Facebook / Oculus are under no obligation to keep that setting available. I would put money on a completely closed Rift coming sooner rather than later. For me it's very obvious the direction the money is pushing.

[gilesgoat]

One for the tinhat brigade but then this is FB we are talking about

http://gameranx.com/updates/id/47004/ar ... urn-it-on/

and from Giz

If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes:

By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.
Basically, if you create something using the device through their services, Oculus can’t own it, but the company can use it—and it doesn’t have to pay you for the use. Oculus can use it even if you don’t agree with its use.

It's quite a bit crap ( the terms and conditions ) .. on the other side I don't think for a minute they are the only ones doing that, I think you may have similar situations/conditions any time you use one of those "free" Cloud services, XXXhub and generally whatever comes for "Free".

"Interesting" the "Oh yeah we ABSOLUTELY NOT have OWNERSHIP of that thing BUT fundamentally we have the rights to do ANYTHING we want with it regardless of you like/want it or not the moment you use our SERVICES to put it out, FOREVER". .. which .. in a way kinda makes you question at this point "what is ownership/right to own" in such a case ? (i.e. "just a word ?" ).

It's all about "data collection" nowadays .. and ultimately to sell you even more stuff .. and ultimately to make more money coming out from your pockets for whatever reason / any way they can find.

"Coercion to buy more and spend more".

Time ago I left some places as I went into quite some "conflict" with this "all free" as in .. "if it's free, it has to be really free for everyone, it must NOT be I put it out free someone takes it and makes money from it for a thing I created for free".

But in a way here ( and in many other places ) you put your own data for free and someone makes money on it by selling stuff .. to you ..

On the other side there's a fine fine line between "ok targetted ads" as in "after all they are presenting me the most potential stuff I could be interested in" and "just bullshit and exploitation of what can be done because they have the means to do it".

But yeah, what else could you expect from multi-billion FB ? ( or Google, or such ? ).

[KlaxonCow]

"Steam VR" ad from Valve, featuring the HTC Vive:

[Misfit]

"Steam VR" ad from Valve, featuring the HTC Vive:

I'm sure lots of homes in the UK have that much free floorspace and are fully green screened!

Plus, everyone else can f-off when I'm playing a game in VR. Do people really want an audience?

Other than that, looks pretty good.

[Mqark]

The size of that box though!

[KlaxonCow]

I'm sure lots of homes in the UK have that much free floorspace and are fully green screened!

To be clear, you don't actually need a green screen room in your house for VR.


(Also, if you saw the earlier video I posted of Martyn from the Yogscast setting up his Vive, you walk around your room with the controller, running it against the walls to let it know the extents of the space you have. So it adapts to what's available.

Well, within limits, as there is a minimum size. Because the interesting thing with that video is that he barely has the space in his office to do it, as they had to do it twice. The first time Trott just casually takes it around the room and it fails the test. So he does it again and, that time, properly runs it against the walls and then it's just big enough. So the video is useful for seeing what that minimum size is, as they only just manage to fit it into his office space.)

[Barney]

Back when I were a nipper, I went to Hull Uni looking to do some sort of CS degree. I'd got some coding experience behind me writing shit accounting software for t'local authority so could skip the entrance requirements. They offered me a chance while I was at the interview to try the latest thing in VR.

It was a piss-pot helmet hanging from a chord as thick as my arm in the ceiling, connected to two SGI machines. I put the helmet on, and was flying over a convincing (for the time) flat-shaded polygonal landscape, with some yellow bird-like things flapping along around me. It was bloody amazing. No head tracking, just twin CRT output in front of lenses but it was incredible.

Ever since, I've wanted to get into VR but it never took off. There were rumours of it coming to the Amiga and a demo at a show of Wings being played in VR (no headtracking again).

I've now got this Samsung GearVR and it's amazing - It has headtracking and a controller on the side (though it's better with a BT gamepad) but the field of view is about 106 degrees, which makes it look and feel like you're inside a scuba mask (which is great for Rift Ocean!) where the old CRT VR I tried had display as far round as I could move my eyes - you literally couldn't see the helmet, and there was no chromatic aberration.

That said, you don't really notice the edges of the display after a while. I've been playing Hero Bound quite a lot, and it's lovely - a nice, uncomplicated PS2-era style game in terms of graphics which makes use of the 3D really well in an unobtrusive manner. Sod needing the latest NVidia card - if VR takes a step back in terms of graphics to the early 2000s, I think we'll all be a lot happier.

Looking forward to Minecraft VR now!

[Barney]

Oh, and Quake VR is a thing of beauty and terror.

[gumboot]

I'm sure lots of homes in the UK have that much free floorspace and are fully green screened!

To be clear, you don't actually need a green screen room in your house for VR.

But it is helpful when your uncoordinated flailing goes viral.

[Barney]

Oh, and Doom in VR is... unsettling. The only port for GearVR atm is running in 640x480 (per eye) with quite a restricted FOV and in 256 colours to boot. It's very authentic. I don't normally get queasy and Doom itself is no exception - until I turned my head to look at a body on the floor and it rotated due to being 2D. Nearly lost my lunch there.

I think I'll wait for the GL based Doom engines to be ported

[gilesgoat]

Oh, and Doom in VR is... unsettling. The only port for GearVR atm is running in 640x480 (per eye) with quite a restricted FOV and in 256 colours to boot. It's very authentic. I don't normally get queasy and Doom itself is no exception - until I turned my head to look at a body on the floor and it rotated due to being 2D. Nearly lost my lunch there.

I think I'll wait for the GL based Doom engines to be ported

"Here is the proof while you CAN NOT do FPS that way in VR" .. you can't move the camera that way, the only "semi safe way" is leave you free to look around but "the world has to stay still".

The moment you begin rotating stuff around you it's the moment your stomach goes on the floor, think about it, in real life you do not rotate your head and things rotate, things stay where they are.

"Funny" that they actually done it that way, it takes "0 for everyone" to have the same response you had to that rotation, at Sony SW like that would be rejected for TRCs cause 'causes discomfort'

[gumboot]

until I turned my head to look at a body on the floor and it rotated due to being 2D.

Had to think about that to guess what you meant. You mean it's a billboard sprite?

Easy to fix... extrapolate the models into proper 3D using the following technique:



Sorted.

[KlaxonCow]

How does looking up and down work?

The original DOOM engine can only do yaw. It's not capable of pitch and roll.

If that actually works - you can look up at the ceiling and down to the floor without issue - then it must be an OpenGL port already, as that was just not possible in the original engine.

The real problem is that the game doesn't have 3D models for all the entities, only billboard sprites. So you'd have to create actual 3D models for all that stuff - and properly animate the rigs, unless you want to be fighting very creepy "Weeping Angel" stop-motion flick-book bad guys.

Mind you, by this point, you're just needlessly recreating the act of writing the GLQuake engine, basically. So it would make more sense just to port that in the first place and then, you know, drop the DOOM assets - the maps auto-converted over to Quake format and the newly-minted 3D models you've created - into that engine instead.

[gilesgoat]

until I turned my head to look at a body on the floor and it rotated due to being 2D.

Had to think about that to guess what you meant. You mean it's a billboard sprite?

Easy to fix... extrapolate the models into proper 3D using the following technique:



Sorted.

.. tried that ... everything looks like "origami in the middle of a thing" .. I mean it looks exactly like that "pieces of cut paper standing out" ...