10 ms·

Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game

298 points by druidsbane 14y ago

zephjc 14y ago
Having been interested in VR since the early 90s, I have to say I am more than ready for any kind of good, hi-res, low-latency VR system - this definitely looks promising, given all the high praise from Gaben and Carmack.
sciurus 14y ago
Here's a video interview of John Carmack discussing this headset at E3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyuMVazQPos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyuMVazQPos
ghostfish 14y ago
This sounds really interesting, but there's a distinct lack of specifications, especially when this is targeted at the developer/early adopter community. How high is "high resolution"? Some display glasses companies (Vuzix) consider 852x480 high resolution, which differs greatly from what I'd consider an acceptable resolution for anything but old/SD TV shows. More details are needed.
- dyeje 14y ago
  Yea, it's light on the specs, but I feel it's a leap of faith that's reasonable to make when you have John Carmack, CliffyB, and Gabe Newell telling you to jump.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- Cushman 14y ago
  Carmack answered this in a comment: The display is a single 1280x800 panel; each eye only sees a 640x800 image stretched across the huge field of view. The perceived resolution is therefore much lower than even previous generation consumer HMDs. If you are looking for high resolution, this isn't for you. For immersion, the high FOV is much, much more important, though. Those are the prototype specs, mind.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    Ouch.. that kind of torpedoed any interest I had in this thing. I'll stand back and let everyone else take the jump :)
    - modeless 14y ago
      Don't worry, Palmer Luckey has already stated that higher resolution is a top priority for the next version, and it's definitely achievable. The small high-resolution and low-latency display panels necessary are just starting to become more available. The race for retina displays in phones is helping a lot there.
    - druidsbane 14y ago
      I think the key difference is FOV not resolution on this which will basically put you in there, albeit not as sharp as you'd like. There was a good point on one of the boards that HD will be hard to achieve on regular hardware just because you'd need to render at a minimum 60fps for each eye, and at 1080p few recent games will render at a smooth 120fps which this implies :) Maybe using 2 graphics cards?
  - gavanwoolery 14y ago
    I have used high and low-res VR and stereoscopic devices. It's not really that bad using a low-res one, latency is a much bigger factor. High latency causes motion sickness and overall crappy response/experience. That said, 1280x800 is actually pretty decent, and allows for high frame rates (try rendering even 1080p in stereoscopic mode at 60 fps -- not an easy feat.
    - druidsbane 14y ago
      That's actually the size of the panel. The resolution for each eye is half that, so 640x800 per eye. From the pictures I've seen to try and emulate it by printing a game render on paper and holding it a few cm away it looks pretty good :)
  - ghostfish 14y ago
- Lewton 14y ago
  In this demonstration he mentions it's 1200x800 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vIkrQK60N-4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v... Not exactly high resolution (considering the wide FOV), but not bad either Seems like an oversight that they've left out the specs
  - nrp 14y ago
    The specs are listed on the Kickstarter page now. Technical specs of the Dev Kit (subject to change) Head tracking: 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) ultra low latency Field of view: 110 degrees diagonal / 90 degrees horizontal Resolution: 1280x800 (640x800 per eye) Inputs: DVI/HDMI and USB Platforms: PC and mobile Weight: ~0.22 kilograms
gavanwoolery 14y ago
Just bought a devkit...hopefully this thing performs well enough to bring VR into the mainstream. :)
- wccrawford 14y ago
  At this point, I'm willing to settle for "A lot of fun to play with as a developer for only $300." ;) But if it could bring VR gaming into the mainstream, that would be awesome. Maybe people will start making games use the Razer Hydra natively, too. The only game so far to do that is Portal 2, and it was amazing. Everything else is emulating a standard gamepad, and it's horrible. (There's an indie game using Unity that uses the Hydra and it's showing promise, but it's not ready yet.)
  - tchock23 14y ago
    I'm approaching this project with the same mindset... For $300, even if it just turns into a toy to develop with I will still be happy about funding it (assuming, of course, it reaches its funding goal and is delivered - still big "ifs" with Kickstarter campaigns).
- ilaksh 14y ago
  I'm wondering what army or manufacturing facility is going to assemble 2,000 devkits?
incision 14y ago
How many Kickstarter projects have actually shipped a finished product? A serious question, not a jab. It seems "success" in the world of Kickstarter is defined by achieving a funding goal, not necessarily producing anything. I'm very tempted to sign on for this one, but I've already kicked into a handful of projects, none of which are anywhere near shipping or this price.
- chime 14y ago
  I've only signed up for one and it is supposed to be shipping very soon: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joylabs/makey-makey-an-invention-kit-for-everyone http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joylabs/makey-makey-an-i...
  - bockris 14y ago
    I too pledged for the MakeyMakey. It was a no brainer because they already on V3 of a working prototype. The money was to gauge interest and get a deal on parts. Nathan Seidle had an interesting blog post on it. http://www.sparkfun.com/news/909 http://www.sparkfun.com/news/909
- tinkertron5000 14y ago
  The Zombies Run project I donated to has a finished product and it's a blast!
- doug11235 14y ago
  I've kicked into 2 projects and one has delivered so far. I expect the other will eventually. Jot stylus - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/531383637/jot-capacitive-touch-stylus http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/531383637/jot-capacitive... They are still making progress albeit slowly. Openvizla - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bushing/openvizsla-open-source-usb-protocol-analyzer http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bushing/openvizsla-open-...
- tibbon 14y ago
  Its a good question that I think lacks good statistics. Kickstarter is trying to encourage people to actually ship/finish projects with little things, like the "expected ship date" on backer rewards to give people a little pressure. It also all depends why you back projects. I back them for the same reason that I'm a trustee of the Awesome Foundation- I want to encourage amazing things to happen in the world. Sometimes, this involves a lot of failures or false starts. Some people are ok with that, others aren't. How many Y-Combinator companies have actually shipped a finished product? Same thing.
losvedir 14y ago
Very excited about this! I'm in for the $300 package. I've been eagerly following the progress on the original thread: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=14777&sid=7db746c4f7fc949f126603db8047ac6e http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=14777&... . Carmack comes in and posts periodically.
bones6 14y ago
Cue transhumanist/Ray Kurzweil checklist watchers. You can mark off 'fully immersive virtual reality available to the masses' at the end of this kickstarter. Regardless of singularity thoughts, I really enjoy watching new tech become possible due to price drops in components. This would not have been possible just a few short years ago as the price(and size/weight) of LCDs and sensors have fallen significantly. I'd say the smartphone boom has been responsible for most of this advancement. This device is not much more than two phone-sized LCDs strapped to your head. Of course it's the code that makes the magic happen with low latency head tracking. Commoditization of hardware components will continue to open new doors for developers. "No one would have bought a $10,000 iPod" - as the saying goes.
- granfalloon 14y ago
  is this really what kurzweil meant by "fully immersive virtual reality," though? only involves the senses of sight and hearing...
  - bones6 14y ago
    Too true. He did write about suits or other methods that appeal to the other senses. That seems much farther off. Though, once environments have been created for this headset, I would imagine quite a few people spending a large portion of time "plugged in". I also think a controller gives a bit of touch sense to the experience. Using your hands and feet for full controls of a plane stick and rudder or car wheel and pedals lacks only the feedback from acceleration and weather. Looking down to see the pedals and "feeling" your vehicle react to your foot pressing could be more psychosomatic than we really know yet.
    - sigkill 14y ago
      A large part of our FPS experience revolves around manipulating the player camera. Since the Rift would essentially put the function of the mouse on our heads, we could free the right hand with just a trigger or two triggers (one for alt-fire). The left hand can now comfortably use a WiiMote like remote, or a nun-chuck like controller. This setup would NOT break the previous control-model that the player is used to, since you can always switch back to disabling head tracking and using the mouse/keyboard combo. I'm pretty sure that this would increase immersion.
sandGorgon 14y ago
I wonder what is the processing power needed to make a true-immersive game. I am not sure how the FPS requirements of a large HD monitor translate to the Oculus, but does anybody know if this is something that can be powered by the Tegra 4 ? If yes, then the next generation of games will be incredible, social and mobile.
- napillo 14y ago
  It could be powered by a Mali-400. If it has DVI output, then it can plug into the headset. It's just a display with an accelerometer.
msprague 14y ago
This seems awesome, but I'm not sure why they would need a kickstarter project. With the people interviewed in this video, it seems like they would have no problem getting the funding that they needed. The reason in the video is that so they could "get it to developers as fast as possible", but I'm not sure how kickstarter would help speed the development process to get it an SDK released any sooner than if it was funded a more traditional way.
- schraeds 14y ago
  Freedom from having big investors owning the IP or having to sign exclusive rights with one major developer?
- AJ007 14y ago
  It could be an experiment to gauge market demand. Compare a focus group or poll where the results are based on whatever some random person says, in comparison with a Kickstarter where the participants have to actually make a financial commitment. On a side note, I think Kickstarter is going to be as important as Google & Wikipedia in terms of the radical long term influence it has on human action. This completely reshapes the dynamic and monopoly that capital performs in the consumer marketplace. I continue to be blown away by how much money micro-niche, but legitimate, projects manage to raise in short time frames.
- Cushman 14y ago
  I can never understand why this comment pops up about every Kickstarter. Why on earth would you take out a loan when you can take pre-orders instead?
  - nooneelse 14y ago
    Low commitment pre-orders at that. The reasoning seems pretty simple and clear. Even if you plan on or think you might need to take a loan/investment later, since you already have the pitch ready, why not do the Kickstarter too?
a1k0n 14y ago
Wow. I've never seen a more impressive set of testimonials in a commercial in my life: John Carmack, CliffyB, Michael Abrash, Gabe Newell.
ben0x539 14y ago
I'll be surprised if notch doesn't drop a few thousand on this before it's over.
- druidsbane 14y ago
  He's already a backer...
Lewisham 14y ago
The video sets off all sorts of alarm bells. Something about this is very, very wrong. Why would all these game developers agree to be in a video endorsing the product, but not actually front money for it? iD/Zenimax, Epic and Valve would all see the hoped for $250 000 as chump change for a dev kit. Split between the three and it's essentially nothing. My guess is Microsoft or Sony would love nothing more than to tie up an exclusive peripheral for their next-gen consoles, and buy the company outright (as MS did with Kinect). This would be a true differentiator. That they're looking to Kickstarter to sell $300 dev kits makes me think something very bad is going unsaid. My wild guess is that they still give people headaches as with previous VR attempts, and no-one is willing to put money in the pot with the expectation that it is unsolvable. People putting money into this are as crazy as those who put money into the OUYA.
- chimi 14y ago
  So why does OUYA keep getting on the front page of HN day after day? If its likelihood of success is so low, why do we keep talking about it? And might the fact that we keep talking about it indicate that maybe those people who put money into it aren't so crazy after all? I don't have an opinion either way.
  - Lewisham 14y ago
    The OUYA is a self-perpetuating media machine that is built on a very shaky foundation in reality. It's driven on the dreams of those who would love, in essence, the Steam Box: a console that is not controlled in the same way Microsoft and Sony do. The problem is the reality of that dream is already here, and it's not working. Steam doesn't exist on Linux (yet). The Xbox Live Arcade Indie Games store is a cesspool. Android games, by and large, are not near parity with iOS games. There's a very real threat of piracy on an openly hackable device that will scare away anyone who actually needs to make money to live. The dream of indie is, right now, tied to Steam and the PC platform. It's the only place it has worked. There is no reason to believe that the OUYA, which does not exist, is in any place to change that. For more, check out Kuchera's article on it, which I agree with wholeheartedly: http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality-of-the-ouya-console-doesnt-match-the-hype-why-you-should-be-ske http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality...
evo 14y ago
I've been hacking on an intercept driver layer to retrofit existing games for this platform. http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15086 http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15086 It'll be great to actually get some hardware to play with.
- Sottilde 14y ago
  This is great, thanks for posting! I would love to see a generalized driver, either from the OSS community or even AMD/NV (we can dream). It's a little more complicated than existing 3D implementations, as you know, but if the Rift becomes popular enough, anything's possible.
stevejabs 14y ago
This is quite possibly one of the most exciting projects I've seen on Kickstarter. Despite my absolute desire to click that Back This Project button, I'm gonna hold off. I've never really been into game development (love playing games) so I'm gonna save the money and wait. I will be putting up my first $1 back though just to watch the show! Can't wait for this.
pwny 14y ago
There is something to be done here by combining this with a Kinect or by by finding a way to point a camera at where the user is looking and going the Augmented Reality way. I have to admit I'm a little turned off by the way those big players are only symbolically endorsing it but might very well get myself a dev kit anyways.
- cubicle 14y ago
  http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/ http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/
cubicle 14y ago
The reward structure is kinda odd. The standard model of kickstarter is "take money now, for a consumer product in the future". Consumer product, not dev kit. It'd make more sense for the ladder to be "$300 for a dev kit as soon as we can make them, $250 for the finished product, to be released in two or three years" or whatever the actual timeframe is.
Apocryphon 14y ago
Imagine this as a future game system package: an OUYA console library with graphics tailor-made for the Oculus and CLANG integration- brought to you by Kickstarter.
mtgx 14y ago
If Sony is smart, they would get this to compete with Kinect, and use it as a default accessory for PS4. The Gaikai guy seemed to like it, and Sony bought Gaikai recently, so I assume they've already heard about it. I also think Sony was already working on VR headsets, but it probably didn't work as well, and cost like $700 or more.
spiffistan 14y ago
Holy crap, I started watching the video at $188,000. Before I finished it had incremented to $190,000...$192,300..$195,490. This has some serious momentum right now.
- sillysaurus 14y ago
  Historical note: this kickstarter has now achieved $360,000 in less than two hours after your comment.
JVIDEL 14y ago
I been to the forum of this project, and it's nothing like the ouya. Why? because the Oculus exists, there are prototypes running Doom3 since E3. Granted, those units are held together by duct tape which is not exactly consumer-grade, but.it.works, and that's what matters here. Valve and Epic support probably (I hope) means they are going to use the Oculus SDK so that most Source and Unreal-based PC games could be patched and thus used with the Oculus. Now consoles, the problem with MSFT/Sony using this for the Durango/PS4 is that they would have to include one with each console sold, else you have the chicken and the egg situation where developers don't support it because it lacks an installed base and gamers don't buy it because it only has a few games. The Wiimote for example was meant to be an accessory for the Gamecube, but Nintendo knew that was a possibility so they decided to wait and launch it with the Wii instead.
gnarbarian 14y ago
I've been a big proponent of stereo 3d gaming for about 10 years. ever since I got a pair of the eDimensional shutter glasses. The first time I played quake 3 in 3d it instantly made me twice as good. I was actually able to see the vectors of the rockets flying through the air and gauge exactly when and where they would hit. I was able to hit people in mid air with rockets and grenades way more. Sadly Nvidia stopped including 3d support in the drivers for their new cards beyond the 7900. LCD monitors also became popular and didn't support the higher refresh rates needed for shutter glasses to work. so my glasses went into a box and eventually broke. I am extremely excited about the Oculus Rift. I pledged $335 and anticipate including support for a space combat game I've been working on for the past few years. I'm also super stoked that the biggest rock stars of game dev are pledging their support in upcoming games.
derekja 14y ago
This plus the leap motion could be really amazing. Imagine wearing the headset and having it track where you look while the leap tracks your hand holding the gun.
- natep 14y ago
  I've been thinking about this ever since reading Snow Crash. But then how would your character walk if both hands are occupied by holding a gun? Some sort of 360-degree treadmill? And then how would the game provide physical feedback (say, your character runs into a wall)?
  - sbierwagen 14y ago
    A grid of trackballs that you walk on, essentially, with slightly higher rolling resistance so there's some ground friction. The "wall problem" is mostly intractable, barring utility fog.
  - gnarbarian 14y ago
    you could simply put the controls on the gun like in the Cabelas dangerous hunts game. They managed to cram an entire Xbox 360 controller on to their gun periphial. I've longed to use this with other games and the kinect. http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cabelas-Gun.jpg http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cab...
  - gojomo 14y ago
    Perhaps by leaning, as with a Segway?
scrumper 14y ago
A lot of people here are talking about how $250,000 is 'chump change' to companies like Valve, Epic etc. The fact is, it's not. It's a quarter of a million dollars: rent for a satellite office for half a year, two junior dev's salaries and benefits, the art budget for a bit of DLC. Yes, it's small in the context of these companies' overall revenues, but it's a significant piece of cash. Then there's the structure of the deal with a Kickstarter. A Kickstarter campaign is emphatically not a crowd-sourced angel investment: it's a busker's hat, with basically the same responsibilities and obligations that a street musician has to her audience of sidewalk quarter-droppers. Palmer Luckey clearly wants this money with the minimum of fuss. Why would iD effectively donate 250k to a tiny hardware company? Short answer: they wouldn't. Companies spend their money only in the expectation of a return. There is absolutely no possibility of a return for any one of these companies, because the money is given in exchange for nothing. There is no equity stake, there's no debt, there's no guarantee of future exclusive rights to the headsets. It's just a gift. So let's say these firms consider investing 250,000 with Palmer to build his headset. That kind of decision is not made lightly nor is it made by any one person. All of these industry figureheads are responsible to their board of directors and their (private) shareholders. They don't have complete freedom of access to their companies' bank accounts. Such an investment would come with equity stakes and strings attached: strings which would likely not benefit Palmer, since competitors are usually unwilling to co-operate, even on something as cool as this. Then, Palmer himself may not want to sell of pieces of his fledgling company until he's in a stronger position. They (Carmack etc.) might well be tempted to make a personal angel investment with Oculus and indeed they may even have done so. Those deals will be highly secret, not least to protect Palmer's interests. All in all, the Kickstarter is a perfect way for Palmer Luckey to gain both a pile of risk-free, no-strings-attached cash and a great deal of exposure, without any of the dilution, influence or responsibilities of external investment.
- jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
  Kickstarter is also a great way to validate that customers are interested in an idea. Even if the bulk of your project is funded traditionally, a nice showing on kickstarter will be convincing to investors as well as developers.
- 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
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JabavuAdams 14y ago
Is there any SDK information available now? I want to start hacking now so I have some software by the time I get my unit.
Reltair 14y ago
How well would this work for people who wear glasses? I'm assuming I would have to wear contacts to use the devkit version at least.
- epaik 14y ago
  From Carmack's post in the comments of the Kickstarter: The early prototype could not be worn with glasses. If you modify it to stand off far enough from the face to allow glasses, the fov will be reduced a lot. One reason it can be so light is that it has smallish lenses very close to your eyes. With the limited resolution, you don't really need 20/20 effective vision. I hope someone experiments with the kits and builds a variable focus version, but the standard system is fixed focus.
JonoW 14y ago
I think something like this in combination with Kinect/Leap would be an incredibly immersive experience.
canttestthis 14y ago
I'm not really interested in gaming, but I'm really looking forward to other applications of this headset. Like multiple screens. Having multiple virtual screens around you to simulate a multi-monitor setup would be awesome. Same productivity, in a fraction of the space required. EDIT: It doesn't look like it will be possible with this though. The resolution is very limited.
- eavc 14y ago
  That's a neat idea I hadn't considered before.
- eostyx 14y ago
  Don't worry dreamer! I bet in a year or two (if this is mainstream that is) we will be seeing Super HD coming in. Imagine Retina HMD. All in good time we will be transcend the confines of our mere monitors and reach for the realm of <insert dream>.
maayank 14y ago
John Carmack answers comments on their kickstarter page - how cool is that? He gives more technical information: "Technical comments based on the prototype unit I have been using and conversations with Palmer: The display is a single 1280x800 panel; each eye only sees a 640x800 image stretched across the huge field of view. The perceived resolution is therefore much lower than even previous generation consumer HMDs. If you are looking for high resolution, this isn't for you. For immersion, the high FOV is much, much more important, though. It is not wireless. The prototype was analog VGA, but I think the kickstarter versions are DVI. Everyone commented on how light the prototype was, especially compared to the Sony HMD. The early prototype could not be worn with glasses. If you modify it to stand off far enough from the face to allow glasses, the fov will be reduced a lot. One reason it can be so light is that it has smallish lenses very close to your eyes. With the limited resolution, you don't really need 20/20 effective vision. I hope someone experiments with the kits and builds a variable focus version, but the standard system is fixed focus."
- brennenHN 14y ago
  How far away from the eyes are the screens going to be? Would glasses really be necessary at that distance?
  - _frog 14y ago
    Glasses aren't just for distance vision, hence why many DSLR cameras have adjustable focus on the viewfinder.
  - wccrawford 14y ago
    It depends on how good your eyes are. Mine are bad enough that I expect to have trouble seeing it. Most people's glasses aren't nearly as strong as mine.
    - maayank 14y ago
      what number of you consider as a cutoff?
baggachipz 14y ago
I don't get it. Why do people want to pay for a dev kit? They should be paying developers to take it and use it. "I've been thinking of buying a new car. Pledge to give me $500 to help me buy my car and I'll send you a t-shirt with my car's picture on it."
- scott_s 14y ago
  If developers believe this technology will be important in gaming, then they will want a dev kit as soon as possible to remain competitive. Note that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo sometimes charge for their dev kits.
- rufus_t 14y ago
  The dev kit isn't just an SDK - like console dev kits, it includes the hardware. Giving them away to anyone who says "yeah, I'll totally make software for that" doesn't sound like a brilliant business plan.
  - wccrawford 14y ago
    Actually, that is a valid tactic, if you are having trouble getting your hardware to gain mindshare. For this, though... Well, it's already over 3x its initial goal and shows no signs of slowing. They absolutely made the right decision to charge for the devkits. At least, to the plebs, like me. Higher level developers (i.e. famous names) probably will get a kit or 2 for free still. If Carmack wasn't already part of it, he'd be one of the names I'd expect to get a free kit.
deleted 14y ago
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tripzilch 14y ago
You put on the videohelmet, and you quickly realize that this is not just another videogame ... Your entire field of vision fills with another worldly scene--You're in the game! One day will come as you enter the cyberspace and you never ever want to get out because reality is shit and cyberspace is gone: DELETE YOURSELF, you've got no chance to win! ;-)

298 points by druidsbane 14y ago

Having been interested in VR since the early 90s, I have to say I am more than ready for any kind of good, hi-res, low-latency VR system - this definitely looks promising, given all the high praise from Gaben and Carmack.

sciurus 14y ago

Here's a video interview of John Carmack discussing this headset at E3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyuMVazQPos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyuMVazQPos

ghostfish 14y ago

This sounds really interesting, but there's a distinct lack of specifications, especially when this is targeted at the developer/early adopter community. How high is "high resolution"? Some display glasses companies (Vuzix) consider 852x480 high resolution, which differs greatly from what I'd consider an acceptable resolution for anything but old/SD TV shows. More details are needed.

dyeje 14y ago
Yea, it's light on the specs, but I feel it's a leap of faith that's reasonable to make when you have John Carmack, CliffyB, and Gabe Newell telling you to jump.
- deleted 14y ago
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Cushman 14y ago
Carmack answered this in a comment: The display is a single 1280x800 panel; each eye only sees a 640x800 image stretched across the huge field of view. The perceived resolution is therefore much lower than even previous generation consumer HMDs. If you are looking for high resolution, this isn't for you. For immersion, the high FOV is much, much more important, though. Those are the prototype specs, mind.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  Ouch.. that kind of torpedoed any interest I had in this thing. I'll stand back and let everyone else take the jump :)
  - modeless 14y ago
    Don't worry, Palmer Luckey has already stated that higher resolution is a top priority for the next version, and it's definitely achievable. The small high-resolution and low-latency display panels necessary are just starting to become more available. The race for retina displays in phones is helping a lot there.
  - druidsbane 14y ago
    I think the key difference is FOV not resolution on this which will basically put you in there, albeit not as sharp as you'd like. There was a good point on one of the boards that HD will be hard to achieve on regular hardware just because you'd need to render at a minimum 60fps for each eye, and at 1080p few recent games will render at a smooth 120fps which this implies :) Maybe using 2 graphics cards?
- gavanwoolery 14y ago
  I have used high and low-res VR and stereoscopic devices. It's not really that bad using a low-res one, latency is a much bigger factor. High latency causes motion sickness and overall crappy response/experience. That said, 1280x800 is actually pretty decent, and allows for high frame rates (try rendering even 1080p in stereoscopic mode at 60 fps -- not an easy feat.
  - druidsbane 14y ago
    That's actually the size of the panel. The resolution for each eye is half that, so 640x800 per eye. From the pictures I've seen to try and emulate it by printing a game render on paper and holding it a few cm away it looks pretty good :)
- ghostfish 14y ago
Lewton 14y ago
In this demonstration he mentions it's 1200x800 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vIkrQK60N-4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v... Not exactly high resolution (considering the wide FOV), but not bad either Seems like an oversight that they've left out the specs
- nrp 14y ago
  The specs are listed on the Kickstarter page now. Technical specs of the Dev Kit (subject to change) Head tracking: 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) ultra low latency Field of view: 110 degrees diagonal / 90 degrees horizontal Resolution: 1280x800 (640x800 per eye) Inputs: DVI/HDMI and USB Platforms: PC and mobile Weight: ~0.22 kilograms

gavanwoolery 14y ago

Just bought a devkit...hopefully this thing performs well enough to bring VR into the mainstream. :)

wccrawford 14y ago
At this point, I'm willing to settle for "A lot of fun to play with as a developer for only $300." ;) But if it could bring VR gaming into the mainstream, that would be awesome. Maybe people will start making games use the Razer Hydra natively, too. The only game so far to do that is Portal 2, and it was amazing. Everything else is emulating a standard gamepad, and it's horrible. (There's an indie game using Unity that uses the Hydra and it's showing promise, but it's not ready yet.)
- tchock23 14y ago
  I'm approaching this project with the same mindset... For $300, even if it just turns into a toy to develop with I will still be happy about funding it (assuming, of course, it reaches its funding goal and is delivered - still big "ifs" with Kickstarter campaigns).
ilaksh 14y ago
I'm wondering what army or manufacturing facility is going to assemble 2,000 devkits?

incision 14y ago

How many Kickstarter projects have actually shipped a finished product? A serious question, not a jab. It seems "success" in the world of Kickstarter is defined by achieving a funding goal, not necessarily producing anything. I'm very tempted to sign on for this one, but I've already kicked into a handful of projects, none of which are anywhere near shipping or this price.

chime 14y ago
I've only signed up for one and it is supposed to be shipping very soon: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joylabs/makey-makey-an-invention-kit-for-everyone http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joylabs/makey-makey-an-i...
- bockris 14y ago
  I too pledged for the MakeyMakey. It was a no brainer because they already on V3 of a working prototype. The money was to gauge interest and get a deal on parts. Nathan Seidle had an interesting blog post on it. http://www.sparkfun.com/news/909 http://www.sparkfun.com/news/909
tinkertron5000 14y ago
The Zombies Run project I donated to has a finished product and it's a blast!
doug11235 14y ago
I've kicked into 2 projects and one has delivered so far. I expect the other will eventually. Jot stylus - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/531383637/jot-capacitive-touch-stylus http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/531383637/jot-capacitive... They are still making progress albeit slowly. Openvizla - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bushing/openvizsla-open-source-usb-protocol-analyzer http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bushing/openvizsla-open-...
tibbon 14y ago
Its a good question that I think lacks good statistics. Kickstarter is trying to encourage people to actually ship/finish projects with little things, like the "expected ship date" on backer rewards to give people a little pressure. It also all depends why you back projects. I back them for the same reason that I'm a trustee of the Awesome Foundation- I want to encourage amazing things to happen in the world. Sometimes, this involves a lot of failures or false starts. Some people are ok with that, others aren't. How many Y-Combinator companies have actually shipped a finished product? Same thing.

losvedir 14y ago

Very excited about this! I'm in for the $300 package. I've been eagerly following the progress on the original thread: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=14777&sid=7db746c4f7fc949f126603db8047ac6e http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=14777&... . Carmack comes in and posts periodically.

bones6 14y ago

Cue transhumanist/Ray Kurzweil checklist watchers. You can mark off 'fully immersive virtual reality available to the masses' at the end of this kickstarter. Regardless of singularity thoughts, I really enjoy watching new tech become possible due to price drops in components. This would not have been possible just a few short years ago as the price(and size/weight) of LCDs and sensors have fallen significantly. I'd say the smartphone boom has been responsible for most of this advancement. This device is not much more than two phone-sized LCDs strapped to your head. Of course it's the code that makes the magic happen with low latency head tracking. Commoditization of hardware components will continue to open new doors for developers. "No one would have bought a $10,000 iPod" - as the saying goes.

granfalloon 14y ago
is this really what kurzweil meant by "fully immersive virtual reality," though? only involves the senses of sight and hearing...
- bones6 14y ago
  Too true. He did write about suits or other methods that appeal to the other senses. That seems much farther off. Though, once environments have been created for this headset, I would imagine quite a few people spending a large portion of time "plugged in". I also think a controller gives a bit of touch sense to the experience. Using your hands and feet for full controls of a plane stick and rudder or car wheel and pedals lacks only the feedback from acceleration and weather. Looking down to see the pedals and "feeling" your vehicle react to your foot pressing could be more psychosomatic than we really know yet.
  - sigkill 14y ago
    A large part of our FPS experience revolves around manipulating the player camera. Since the Rift would essentially put the function of the mouse on our heads, we could free the right hand with just a trigger or two triggers (one for alt-fire). The left hand can now comfortably use a WiiMote like remote, or a nun-chuck like controller. This setup would NOT break the previous control-model that the player is used to, since you can always switch back to disabling head tracking and using the mouse/keyboard combo. I'm pretty sure that this would increase immersion.

sandGorgon 14y ago

I wonder what is the processing power needed to make a true-immersive game. I am not sure how the FPS requirements of a large HD monitor translate to the Oculus, but does anybody know if this is something that can be powered by the Tegra 4 ? If yes, then the next generation of games will be incredible, social and mobile.

napillo 14y ago
It could be powered by a Mali-400. If it has DVI output, then it can plug into the headset. It's just a display with an accelerometer.

msprague 14y ago

This seems awesome, but I'm not sure why they would need a kickstarter project. With the people interviewed in this video, it seems like they would have no problem getting the funding that they needed. The reason in the video is that so they could "get it to developers as fast as possible", but I'm not sure how kickstarter would help speed the development process to get it an SDK released any sooner than if it was funded a more traditional way.

schraeds 14y ago
Freedom from having big investors owning the IP or having to sign exclusive rights with one major developer?
AJ007 14y ago
It could be an experiment to gauge market demand. Compare a focus group or poll where the results are based on whatever some random person says, in comparison with a Kickstarter where the participants have to actually make a financial commitment. On a side note, I think Kickstarter is going to be as important as Google & Wikipedia in terms of the radical long term influence it has on human action. This completely reshapes the dynamic and monopoly that capital performs in the consumer marketplace. I continue to be blown away by how much money micro-niche, but legitimate, projects manage to raise in short time frames.
Cushman 14y ago
I can never understand why this comment pops up about every Kickstarter. Why on earth would you take out a loan when you can take pre-orders instead?
- nooneelse 14y ago
  Low commitment pre-orders at that. The reasoning seems pretty simple and clear. Even if you plan on or think you might need to take a loan/investment later, since you already have the pitch ready, why not do the Kickstarter too?

a1k0n 14y ago

Wow. I've never seen a more impressive set of testimonials in a commercial in my life: John Carmack, CliffyB, Michael Abrash, Gabe Newell.

ben0x539 14y ago

I'll be surprised if notch doesn't drop a few thousand on this before it's over.

druidsbane 14y ago
He's already a backer...

Lewisham 14y ago

The video sets off all sorts of alarm bells. Something about this is very, very wrong. Why would all these game developers agree to be in a video endorsing the product, but not actually front money for it? iD/Zenimax, Epic and Valve would all see the hoped for $250 000 as chump change for a dev kit. Split between the three and it's essentially nothing. My guess is Microsoft or Sony would love nothing more than to tie up an exclusive peripheral for their next-gen consoles, and buy the company outright (as MS did with Kinect). This would be a true differentiator. That they're looking to Kickstarter to sell $300 dev kits makes me think something very bad is going unsaid. My wild guess is that they still give people headaches as with previous VR attempts, and no-one is willing to put money in the pot with the expectation that it is unsolvable. People putting money into this are as crazy as those who put money into the OUYA.

chimi 14y ago
So why does OUYA keep getting on the front page of HN day after day? If its likelihood of success is so low, why do we keep talking about it? And might the fact that we keep talking about it indicate that maybe those people who put money into it aren't so crazy after all? I don't have an opinion either way.
- Lewisham 14y ago
  The OUYA is a self-perpetuating media machine that is built on a very shaky foundation in reality. It's driven on the dreams of those who would love, in essence, the Steam Box: a console that is not controlled in the same way Microsoft and Sony do. The problem is the reality of that dream is already here, and it's not working. Steam doesn't exist on Linux (yet). The Xbox Live Arcade Indie Games store is a cesspool. Android games, by and large, are not near parity with iOS games. There's a very real threat of piracy on an openly hackable device that will scare away anyone who actually needs to make money to live. The dream of indie is, right now, tied to Steam and the PC platform. It's the only place it has worked. There is no reason to believe that the OUYA, which does not exist, is in any place to change that. For more, check out Kuchera's article on it, which I agree with wholeheartedly: http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality-of-the-ouya-console-doesnt-match-the-hype-why-you-should-be-ske http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality...

evo 14y ago

I've been hacking on an intercept driver layer to retrofit existing games for this platform. http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15086 http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15086 It'll be great to actually get some hardware to play with.

Sottilde 14y ago
This is great, thanks for posting! I would love to see a generalized driver, either from the OSS community or even AMD/NV (we can dream). It's a little more complicated than existing 3D implementations, as you know, but if the Rift becomes popular enough, anything's possible.

stevejabs 14y ago

This is quite possibly one of the most exciting projects I've seen on Kickstarter. Despite my absolute desire to click that Back This Project button, I'm gonna hold off. I've never really been into game development (love playing games) so I'm gonna save the money and wait. I will be putting up my first $1 back though just to watch the show! Can't wait for this.

pwny 14y ago

There is something to be done here by combining this with a Kinect or by by finding a way to point a camera at where the user is looking and going the Augmented Reality way. I have to admit I'm a little turned off by the way those big players are only symbolically endorsing it but might very well get myself a dev kit anyways.

cubicle 14y ago
http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/ http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/

cubicle 14y ago

The reward structure is kinda odd. The standard model of kickstarter is "take money now, for a consumer product in the future". Consumer product, not dev kit. It'd make more sense for the ladder to be "$300 for a dev kit as soon as we can make them, $250 for the finished product, to be released in two or three years" or whatever the actual timeframe is.

Apocryphon 14y ago

Imagine this as a future game system package: an OUYA console library with graphics tailor-made for the Oculus and CLANG integration- brought to you by Kickstarter.

mtgx 14y ago

If Sony is smart, they would get this to compete with Kinect, and use it as a default accessory for PS4. The Gaikai guy seemed to like it, and Sony bought Gaikai recently, so I assume they've already heard about it. I also think Sony was already working on VR headsets, but it probably didn't work as well, and cost like $700 or more.

spiffistan 14y ago

Holy crap, I started watching the video at $188,000. Before I finished it had incremented to $190,000...$192,300..$195,490. This has some serious momentum right now.

sillysaurus 14y ago
Historical note: this kickstarter has now achieved $360,000 in less than two hours after your comment.

JVIDEL 14y ago

I been to the forum of this project, and it's nothing like the ouya. Why? because the Oculus exists, there are prototypes running Doom3 since E3. Granted, those units are held together by duct tape which is not exactly consumer-grade, but.it.works, and that's what matters here. Valve and Epic support probably (I hope) means they are going to use the Oculus SDK so that most Source and Unreal-based PC games could be patched and thus used with the Oculus. Now consoles, the problem with MSFT/Sony using this for the Durango/PS4 is that they would have to include one with each console sold, else you have the chicken and the egg situation where developers don't support it because it lacks an installed base and gamers don't buy it because it only has a few games. The Wiimote for example was meant to be an accessory for the Gamecube, but Nintendo knew that was a possibility so they decided to wait and launch it with the Wii instead.

gnarbarian 14y ago

I've been a big proponent of stereo 3d gaming for about 10 years. ever since I got a pair of the eDimensional shutter glasses. The first time I played quake 3 in 3d it instantly made me twice as good. I was actually able to see the vectors of the rockets flying through the air and gauge exactly when and where they would hit. I was able to hit people in mid air with rockets and grenades way more. Sadly Nvidia stopped including 3d support in the drivers for their new cards beyond the 7900. LCD monitors also became popular and didn't support the higher refresh rates needed for shutter glasses to work. so my glasses went into a box and eventually broke. I am extremely excited about the Oculus Rift. I pledged $335 and anticipate including support for a space combat game I've been working on for the past few years. I'm also super stoked that the biggest rock stars of game dev are pledging their support in upcoming games.

derekja 14y ago

This plus the leap motion could be really amazing. Imagine wearing the headset and having it track where you look while the leap tracks your hand holding the gun.

natep 14y ago
I've been thinking about this ever since reading Snow Crash. But then how would your character walk if both hands are occupied by holding a gun? Some sort of 360-degree treadmill? And then how would the game provide physical feedback (say, your character runs into a wall)?
- sbierwagen 14y ago
  A grid of trackballs that you walk on, essentially, with slightly higher rolling resistance so there's some ground friction. The "wall problem" is mostly intractable, barring utility fog.
- gnarbarian 14y ago
  you could simply put the controls on the gun like in the Cabelas dangerous hunts game. They managed to cram an entire Xbox 360 controller on to their gun periphial. I've longed to use this with other games and the kinect. http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cabelas-Gun.jpg http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cab...
- gojomo 14y ago
  Perhaps by leaning, as with a Segway?

scrumper 14y ago

A lot of people here are talking about how $250,000 is 'chump change' to companies like Valve, Epic etc. The fact is, it's not. It's a quarter of a million dollars: rent for a satellite office for half a year, two junior dev's salaries and benefits, the art budget for a bit of DLC. Yes, it's small in the context of these companies' overall revenues, but it's a significant piece of cash. Then there's the structure of the deal with a Kickstarter. A Kickstarter campaign is emphatically not a crowd-sourced angel investment: it's a busker's hat, with basically the same responsibilities and obligations that a street musician has to her audience of sidewalk quarter-droppers. Palmer Luckey clearly wants this money with the minimum of fuss. Why would iD effectively donate 250k to a tiny hardware company? Short answer: they wouldn't. Companies spend their money only in the expectation of a return. There is absolutely no possibility of a return for any one of these companies, because the money is given in exchange for nothing. There is no equity stake, there's no debt, there's no guarantee of future exclusive rights to the headsets. It's just a gift. So let's say these firms consider investing 250,000 with Palmer to build his headset. That kind of decision is not made lightly nor is it made by any one person. All of these industry figureheads are responsible to their board of directors and their (private) shareholders. They don't have complete freedom of access to their companies' bank accounts. Such an investment would come with equity stakes and strings attached: strings which would likely not benefit Palmer, since competitors are usually unwilling to co-operate, even on something as cool as this. Then, Palmer himself may not want to sell of pieces of his fledgling company until he's in a stronger position. They (Carmack etc.) might well be tempted to make a personal angel investment with Oculus and indeed they may even have done so. Those deals will be highly secret, not least to protect Palmer's interests. All in all, the Kickstarter is a perfect way for Palmer Luckey to gain both a pile of risk-free, no-strings-attached cash and a great deal of exposure, without any of the dilution, influence or responsibilities of external investment.

jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
Kickstarter is also a great way to validate that customers are interested in an idea. Even if the bulk of your project is funded traditionally, a nice showing on kickstarter will be convincing to investors as well as developers.
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JabavuAdams 14y ago

Is there any SDK information available now? I want to start hacking now so I have some software by the time I get my unit.

Reltair 14y ago

How well would this work for people who wear glasses? I'm assuming I would have to wear contacts to use the devkit version at least.

epaik 14y ago
From Carmack's post in the comments of the Kickstarter: The early prototype could not be worn with glasses. If you modify it to stand off far enough from the face to allow glasses, the fov will be reduced a lot. One reason it can be so light is that it has smallish lenses very close to your eyes. With the limited resolution, you don't really need 20/20 effective vision. I hope someone experiments with the kits and builds a variable focus version, but the standard system is fixed focus.

JonoW 14y ago

I think something like this in combination with Kinect/Leap would be an incredibly immersive experience.

canttestthis 14y ago

I'm not really interested in gaming, but I'm really looking forward to other applications of this headset. Like multiple screens. Having multiple virtual screens around you to simulate a multi-monitor setup would be awesome. Same productivity, in a fraction of the space required. EDIT: It doesn't look like it will be possible with this though. The resolution is very limited.

eavc 14y ago
That's a neat idea I hadn't considered before.
eostyx 14y ago
Don't worry dreamer! I bet in a year or two (if this is mainstream that is) we will be seeing Super HD coming in. Imagine Retina HMD. All in good time we will be transcend the confines of our mere monitors and reach for the realm of <insert dream>.

maayank 14y ago

John Carmack answers comments on their kickstarter page - how cool is that? He gives more technical information: "Technical comments based on the prototype unit I have been using and conversations with Palmer: The display is a single 1280x800 panel; each eye only sees a 640x800 image stretched across the huge field of view. The perceived resolution is therefore much lower than even previous generation consumer HMDs. If you are looking for high resolution, this isn't for you. For immersion, the high FOV is much, much more important, though. It is not wireless. The prototype was analog VGA, but I think the kickstarter versions are DVI. Everyone commented on how light the prototype was, especially compared to the Sony HMD. The early prototype could not be worn with glasses. If you modify it to stand off far enough from the face to allow glasses, the fov will be reduced a lot. One reason it can be so light is that it has smallish lenses very close to your eyes. With the limited resolution, you don't really need 20/20 effective vision. I hope someone experiments with the kits and builds a variable focus version, but the standard system is fixed focus."

brennenHN 14y ago
How far away from the eyes are the screens going to be? Would glasses really be necessary at that distance?
- _frog 14y ago
  Glasses aren't just for distance vision, hence why many DSLR cameras have adjustable focus on the viewfinder.
- wccrawford 14y ago
  It depends on how good your eyes are. Mine are bad enough that I expect to have trouble seeing it. Most people's glasses aren't nearly as strong as mine.
  - maayank 14y ago
    what number of you consider as a cutoff?

baggachipz 14y ago

I don't get it. Why do people want to pay for a dev kit? They should be paying developers to take it and use it. "I've been thinking of buying a new car. Pledge to give me $500 to help me buy my car and I'll send you a t-shirt with my car's picture on it."

scott_s 14y ago
If developers believe this technology will be important in gaming, then they will want a dev kit as soon as possible to remain competitive. Note that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo sometimes charge for their dev kits.
rufus_t 14y ago
The dev kit isn't just an SDK - like console dev kits, it includes the hardware. Giving them away to anyone who says "yeah, I'll totally make software for that" doesn't sound like a brilliant business plan.
- wccrawford 14y ago
  Actually, that is a valid tactic, if you are having trouble getting your hardware to gain mindshare. For this, though... Well, it's already over 3x its initial goal and shows no signs of slowing. They absolutely made the right decision to charge for the devkits. At least, to the plebs, like me. Higher level developers (i.e. famous names) probably will get a kit or 2 for free still. If Carmack wasn't already part of it, he'd be one of the names I'd expect to get a free kit.

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tripzilch 14y ago

You put on the videohelmet, and you quickly realize that this is not just another videogame ... Your entire field of vision fills with another worldly scene--You're in the game! One day will come as you enter the cyberspace and you never ever want to get out because reality is shit and cyberspace is gone: DELETE YOURSELF, you've got no chance to win! ;-)