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

[gilesgoat]

RIGHT !

So NOW I've seen Vive, I DO HAVE HERE a CV1 where I am running "the same identical thing" I am running on the PSVR ..

I have DK2 too ...

OK .. YES CV1 is much better than DK2 ... BUT

I am "sorry" .. PSVR IS REALLY THE BEST LOOKING THING, is the one where "you look into, stuff looks more natural" ..

OK I am still working "on the PC engine thing" there could be a few things there and there I yet have to try .. but I have to say "max QDOS to Sony guys" they managed to create something that is REALLY SOMETHING.

@Dio, "first quick look" you MAY BE RIGHT in one thing, the tracking of the CV1 surprisingly seems "faster" here they may have done some wonders.

Yes the screendoor is less than DK2, lot less BUT .. "not so good removed as PSVR manages to".

Also I am noticing some "weird blooming effects" I have to understand what's going on, do something "totally white on a black background" it seems "the lens reflect backlight scattering" or such.

Overall :

"best I look into it feels ok" -> Sony PSVR

"best weareability" -> Sony PSVR ( say what you say with my astimatic glasses I have to fiddle quite a bit to align them properly with the lens and the result is 'not super ideal' in terms of how it should be worn ), plus the wear design is really a bit shit, good the headphones anyway.

There are still anyway things I need to understand better and work on and see how to get the best out.

But yeah "of all the VR I've seen so far" 2 systems stand out, PSVR and Samsung Gear VR.

Controllers, shit, blah, yah yah yah .. BUT .. "first of all is what I SEE INSIDE" ..

PSVR, 120 Hz .. "no need to say more"

[Jamesac]

Near as I can tell the weird blooming effects are something you have to live with, a result of (I've been told) the lenses the Rift uses. I only really notice it heavy black/white contrasts, but it's there and, apparently, unavoidable.

Also- congratulations on finally completing the Rift Acquisition Trials.

[Whiteball]

Yeah, the so called 'God-rays'...

Eveyone seems to complain about the fresnel lenses which alledgedly where a last minute switch by Oculus. Guess they have their reasons... They certainly can catch very bright stuff on dark backgrounds and 'flare' though.

Funnily enough they only seemed to start being a real issue around SDK 1.3 time. They did something with the brightness which (imho) made things actually worse than before. Supposedly never turning the pixels on an OLED display completey off or something I've been told.

Make sure you set up the IPD properly and get a good fit on your head. If you find the sweet spot it can make a huge difference to the image quality and overall experience.

I have no trouble putting mine on or off and I wear glasses without any problem. I take it you know once the straps are set you put it on the back of your head and pull it forward and down so the spring loaded strap mounts allow you to easily get it on/off (especially over glasses)?

Can't wait to see what you guys can do with this!

[gumboot]

Fresnel lenses? I thought they had an inherent resolution limit of the pitch of the ridges.

I guess I have that wrong.

[KlaxonCow]

Hey, Jeff and Giles, have you been talking with Rory Cellan-Jones recently?

Because I'm reading one of his tech article about UK tech talent and he says:

In the last ten days I've met the founder of a British games company which is still independent after a quarter of a century, and about to launch one of Sony's first virtual reality titles.

And I'm thinking that this could only be describing Llamasoft, surely?

[gilesgoat]

@ClaxonCow : I have no idea, maybe Jeff knows.

I'd like to know "why they put those fresnel lenses", if you look carefully at and angle you can definitely see the concentric rings, it's like part of the lens is and part isn't they certainly are a pain in the arse for that "really bad effect" they do with "contrasting images".

Of course, sod's law, this means it will need - not sure how to do it yet - some "fine tuning" of certain colours/etc. that are "too psychedelic saturated blasted" for the CV1 and now create "light scattering" that is really annoying.

Anyway so far CV1 seems to do the job, it's fast, faster/better than DK2 sure .. yet I still have to work out better "how to make things look better on it", despite all and I am not really sure why, maybe has to do with the different frustum angle/etc. still PSVR looks quite much better some of the stuff ( on the CV1 ) looks still quite a bit "dotted" and it's odd, it's like some colours generate a sort of "wrong dithering" I mean I've seen stuff like a solid red thing become like a "black dotted red" and "does not make much sense".

And I know I am rendering at quite a higher rez than what the CV1 really is so should be "supersampled" and go better, hum.

Thing is when you spent SO much time as I did in VR looking for this and that and trying to optimise this and that you get a 'tremendous eye for all the shit' said that , ok , then you need to work out how to level that out.

But yeah "image quality speaking" nor Vive nor CV1 impress me so much as PSVR does, someone at Sony told me "they spent a lot of money to have a certain thing done" seems like they spent/done it really right

[gilesgoat]

Now there's another thing that is quite making me a bit nuts ...

"Is it me doing something wrong or is it the CV1 much darker/strange/different gamma compared to PSVR ?".

"Everything looks darker" and it should be not, I am quite sure I am into sRGB space so HUM ..

[pogo]

I'd like to know "why they put those fresnel lenses", if you look carefully at and angle you can definitely see the concentric rings, it's like part of the lens is and part isn't they certainly are a pain in the arse for that "really bad effect" they do with "contrasting images".

Space, weight and cost, as fresnel lenses are thinner, lighter and can be cheaper.

Probably mostly space, which is doubly an issue for such devices. Not only is there not much space, but the short distance between your eyes and displays means lenses needs to a lot of work to get everything in focus, so need to be powerful. Normally that would mean thick and heavy lenses, which might have added too much to the size or weight, making Fresnel lenses an attractive alternative.

[Rubisco]

Hey, Jeff and Giles, have you been talking with Rory Cellan-Jones recently?

Because I'm reading one of his tech article about UK tech talent and he says:

In the last ten days I've met the founder of a British games company which is still independent after a quarter of a century, and about to launch one of Sony's first virtual reality titles.

And I'm thinking that this could only be describing Llamasoft, surely?

Sorry if this makes you feel old but Llamasoft's been going for a third of a century

There's evidence on his twitter that he met David Braben at the Pi event, to be pedantic he doesn't quite qualify (independent 22⅔ years)
https://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/773931096396460032

PSVR Elite Dangerous confirmed?

[gilesgoat]

By using an MSAA 4X with oversample and removing the sRGB correction and going "linear" ( that should NOT be ) I KINDA get a look that looks like the other thing.

Hoewever even with MSAA and oversampling - improves quite a bit - but you can NOT get a "look" really so similar to PSVR, I truly *SO* much criticized that "diffuser" until I found out "how to use it properly" that NOW that I see "the comparision" between this and that whatever they put in ( they did NOT want to tell me any detail apart the fact 'is really expensive' ) "works almost like magic".

However even the previous Morpheus prototype that did not have it has "a look" that is "more clean" than CV1/DK2.

This thing from OR documentation PISSES ME OFF a bit ..

Proper treatment of sRGB rendering is a
complex subject and, although this section provides an overview, extensive information is outside the scope of
this document.

Erm .. yeah ? .. I hope that "support" may have something more to tell about ..

Anyway going on, going good, I think a few more days and I should be able to add the audio in and then we could have a real "side by side" comparison of "everything", I can literally simultaneously play the same identical thing and wear one VR or the other and play "spot the difference".

Those BLOODY "fresnel rays" are a PAIN IN THE ARSE !!!!

I may have to use "a final post process color correction shader" to avoid that shit.

[gilesgoat]

Things you get to know by reading around ...

.. Seems two "big things" ( negative things ) about those so called "god rays" and "colour bands" are all over the forums ( Reddit and many others ) with various people complaining about various issues but nobody seems to know the "exact explanation" about why that happens and how to minimise it.

Some CV1 seems lot more affected than others, quite a few people are asking for returns it seems.

[Whiteball]

The god rays where not a problem and practically no existent when I got my CV1 originally (on of the first batches).
Since then evey update they have done seems to have actually degraded my experiences but not to the point where they are unbearable.

The screen I believe is an OLED pentile so colours like green will look almost twice the res of red ones due to the sub pixel stuff?

[gilesgoat]

The god rays where not a problem and practically no existent when I got my CV1 originally (on of the first batches).
Since then evey update they have done seems to have actually degraded my experiences but not to the point where they are unbearable.

The screen I believe is an OLED pentile so colours like green will look almost twice the res of red ones due to the sub pixel stuff?

They are quite a pain, and NONE of them are existent in PSVR.

[pogo]

Things you get to know by reading around ...

.. Seems two "big things" ( negative things ) about those so called "god rays" and "colour bands" are all over the forums ( Reddit and many others ) with various people complaining about various issues but nobody seems to know the "exact explanation" about why that happens and how to minimise it.

Some CV1 seems lot more affected than others, quite a few people are asking for returns it seems.

It will vary with user. Basically a Fresnel lens works perfectly if your eye is in the right position, determined by the geometry of the lens: it has non-lens surfaces which you want to view edge on which is only possible from one exact position. Partly this means getting the distance right, which may be determined by focus, affected by things like short-sightedness and glasses. But even this is not enough as your eye normally moves about as you look about, so leaving its ideal position. Different people may do this to different degrees, and it may vary between games even for one person.

[gumboot]

Oh, so that's the concession that makes it possible to imagine a fresnel lens as behaving the same way as a normal lens? That there's a specific focal point?

If you just look from any old distance, the images in each continuous ring don't seem to join up with adjacent rings but they're still spatially adjusted so as to give the general impression of piecewise magnification. I hadn't realised that there was a sweet spot where it didn't look shit.