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John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- citricsquid 13y agoAlternative URL: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts/562211 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-s...
- twidlit 13y agoWow. this is a big win for the team. Carmack can go deep and can also look at the controls on an instinctive level since he made Doom and Quake.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoWow, what a coup! Instant and absolute legitimacy. They are in for the long haul. This is going to be real stuff. As a fanatic of 360 photography and video, this is simply fantastic to see. The oculus has the potential to challenge what we have known as TV for half a century.
- patrickk 13y agoI would have my doubts about 3D revolutionising TV, as TV makers and content creators don't seem to be getting the reaction they'd hoped for from consumers. A lot of 3D movies are gimmicky, and some heavyweight directors like Christopher Nolan and Michael Scorsese have said it doesn't add anything to the storytelling nature of movies (unlike say IMAX). Gaming, on the other hand, will be simply amazing on the Rift, especially first person shooters. That's one of the reasons it's so exciting to see Carmack working on the project.
- wcarss 13y agoAs someone with a rift, I've experienced something really cool: Youtube videos in rift format. It's a way different experience than watching a 3D TV is, where you just get that fun little bit of pop. Just like when playing a rift game, you feel as though you're physically present in the world, and it's incredible. The thing they're missing is the ability to move your head around in the video -- it's a little bit disorienting to have to look where the recorder looked. I'm aware of a few ways to marry traditional video entertainment and videogames with rift support (there may be more): 1 - 360 degree video with free head movement 2 - Extremely linear, story-driven games without cut-scenes 3 - Re-living movies or TV shows by being placed within them (a la in Ready Player One) We're very close to having 2, and 3 is very similar to that but it's in the distance still. 1 is something we're not really doing yet, but I think it'll be a pretty big deal when it hits. Videogame replays and streaming are already a big deal, and they're growing fast. Being placed within them and given the ability to look around will be fantastic.
- corysama 13y agoAs a big fan of the movie Strange Days, the effectiveness of plain-old-mpegs to deliver recorded first-person experiences that are replayable through the Rift was a wonderful surprise for me. Here's my list of favorites so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByvt8he58U&t=1m10s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByvt8he58U&t=1m10s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXaxVLNMIxU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXaxVLNMIxU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zaYrd0LvI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zaYrd0LvI http://vimeo.com/64769947 http://vimeo.com/64769947 NSFW
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoSomething like Half Life or Assassin's Creed basically works for (2). No real cutscenes, playable from a first-person POV, biiiig game worlds.
- ZiadHilal 13y agoIncredible! Virtual reality just got that much more serious.
- angersock 13y agoSo, let me say this much: Fuck. Yes. Quake 3 had stereoscopic rendering in the source back before anybody really cared, and Carmack has had long involvement both in consumer 3D graphics as well as vendor relations. Long-short is that if you look at the code the dude has shipped, he really cares about things being both technically correct and worth hacking on. This is a really good move, and if they end up picking Mike Abrash I'll be unsurprised.
- mistercow 13y agoFrom his blog, Abrash seems to be much more interested in AR than VR, and seems to lean toward VR being a parallel (but mutually supportive) path to AR, rather than a step along the way. Also, I think Newell might offer Abrash the entire company before he lets him slip away from Valve.
- angersock 13y agoHah, perhaps he would, at that--as I recall, it took a long time to finally cajole him over.
- themstheones 13y agoWhat's AR?
- dangoldin 13y agoAugmented Reality (AR) vs Virtual Reality (VR).
- angersock 13y agoAugmented Reality.
- daraul 13y agoAugmented Reality. For a good example of current projects representing each field: Virtual Reality - Oculus Rift Augmented Reality - Google Glass AR sits on top of/alongside the real world, where VR tries to replace it.
- yankcrime 13y agoLooks like his first job as CTO should be to fix the website's scalability ;)
- eterm 13y agoThis makes me want one. This is huge news for Oculus and I wish the team the best. I had a first glimpse of an Oculus watching someone use one on a Twitch stream the other day. He was just watching a tech demo thing of a rollercoaster ride but it was clear the tech was at or around that tipping point of interesting vs actually fun.
- ig1 13y agoThe difference between watching someone using it and using it is huge, using it is literally unbelievable. One of the few things that shifted my perception of what is actually possible with technology.
- sp332 13y ago"Please be careful when playing this demo," Lipowitz warned players on the Oculus developer forums, "lots of people try to support themselves on the crates when they try to stand up or when leaning up against a column, but find there is nothing there." http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4595062/new-oculus-rift-cover-shooter-fps-ulta-realistic http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4595062/new-oculus-rift-cov... (The original forum is down right now)
- incision 13y agoI have a Rift. I'd say it's there. I haven't seen a truly "killer app" just yet, but if I wasn't totally sold on the concept when I backed the project, I certainly was the first time I strapped the Rift on.
- ssafejava 13y agoIt is certainly most of the way there now - the sensors are fantastic - and will be absolutely revolutionary with a higher-resolution screen and the addition of some yet-to-be-invented control schemes.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoActually, who says you need complicated control schemes and traditional video games? Bizarre idea: strap on a Rift headset, instead of a treadmill you've now got some kind of thingamabob rigged to tilt and turn an exercise bike. The exercise bike has a few simple buttons for game input on it. You now play something simple that can really take advantage of immersion and graphics quality like Pokemon Snap, while riding the exercise bike. I mean, sure, you could make this game with the treadmill version and walk down the safari trails, but that wouldn't be a very good workout.
- pearle 13y agoWait, is he leaving id? Didn't see that clarified in the article.
- petercooper 13y agoHe doesn't necessarily have to. When Alicia Keys joined Blackberry as their Creative Director, she still kept touring ;-) (More seriously, Matz joined Heroku but I think is still at Rakuten as well?) He will be "in the office" though: John will be working from the new Oculus Dallas office that we’re opening soon. .. so the likelihood of him spending a lot less time at id, if he stays on there, seems high to me.
- justin66 13y agoHe talked in his Quakecon keynote about being too uninvolved in Armadillo because he was working at id/Bethesda. Splitting his time three ways would only seem to exacerbate the problem. It's been four years since id was purchased. Maybe he's just moving on.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoArmadillo is in "hibernation mode", nothing is really going on there at the moment.
- throwit1979 13y agoSplitting his time three ways would only seem to exacerbate the problem. Four ways. The man has a wife and two children in whose lives he's quite active. I strongly suspect he's managed to obviate the need for sleep.
- nawitus 13y agoHe is not. "Although Carmack will take on a new role with Oculus, the game designer will remain with id. "John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project," reads a statement from video game publisher Bethesda Softworks, whose parent company ZeniMax acquired id Software in 2009. "The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected." [1] 1. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/08/07/john-carmack-oculus/2627585/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/08/07/john-ca...
- WhitneyLand 13y agoWhat's your guess on how much equity they had to give him? I would have been inclined to be generous.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoas much as he wants.
- sbarre 13y agoI don't think John Carmack is doing what he does for the money at this stage.. That said, he did say during his Quakecon keynote that he needs more "crazy money" to put into Armadillo Aerospace, so perhaps this is his play for that funding..
- wsc981 13y agoI don't think it is. From what I understand, John Carmack has decided to put all developments with Armadillo Aerospace on hold, until he can get more investors (besides himself) to support this company.
- gaplus 13y agoHe's already an investor with a considerable equity stake.
- mikeevans 13y agoGoogle cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.oculusvr.com%2Fblog%2Fjohn-carmack-joins-oculus-as-cto%2F&oq=cache%3Awww.oculusvr.com%2Fblog%2Fjohn-carmack-joins-oculus-as-cto%2F https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww....
- fmax30 13y agoThe best news I have heard all day.Carmack was one of the reasons I choose computer Science .Now I will start taking Oculus rift seriously ,I always thought of it as a niche product. Carmack will put some of his awesome in Rift to make it more awesome.
- taternuts 13y agoWow - now I'm _really_ interested in the Oculus and it's potential.
- tanepiper 13y agoAlso seems to be confirmed he's leaving id: http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/oculus-rift-john-carmack-cto/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/oculus-rift-john-carmack-...
- cobrausn 13y agoFrom the link: Update: Bethesda Softworks (parent company to id Software) responded with the following statement to today's news: "John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected." We've followed up for clarification as to what that means for Carmack's efforts at id. In the note from Oculus, Carmack is said to be heading up and working out of newly created Dallas offices for Oculus.
- runevault 13y agoThey've updated it, now looks like he's supposedly still involved with Bethesda/Zenimax. Which at least to me seems weird, since last I knew he did at least a LOT of the work on any new engines himself. Hard to do that if he's busy with being CTO of another company working on the Rift.
- flogic 13y agoIt's worth remembering that John also did Armadillo Aerospace on the side too.
- AdrianRossouw 13y agohe's done the dual executive thing for many many years. he used to be id first, armadillo airpspace second. now he's occulus first, id second. it'll only preclude him from doing much programming.
- nknighthb 13y agoCarmack is a workaholic of legendary productivity. If there are truly 10x programmers out there, he is undoubtedly one. Another important point is that it's not games he develops, it's game engines. Other people do most of the game logic and design. Working on a 3d display for those engines doesn't seem so far removed from that, and of potential value to future id/ZeniMax work.
- tehwalrus 13y agoThis news gives me the shivers. (I recently read "masters of doom" after a HN recommendation, so a couple of months ago I'd have been like "what? who?".)
- adambratt 13y agoI think I read it based off the same recommendation. After reading that book I don't think there's any way you can come away without seeing him as one of the top 25 programmers in the world. Mad genius for sure.
- angersock 13y agoNot so much genius as just an absurdly hardcore work-ethic, and a refusal to ship code that is sloppy where it would matter.
- kayoone 13y agoWell the things he has worked on and pioneered arent a result of just hard work, as computer graphics is one of the most complex fields in our industry. There is no doubt that he is a super smart guy with an unparalleled work ethic.
- astrodust 13y agoThis stands in stark contrast to the "other John" from iD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero) that went on to flame out in the most spectacular manner because he'd waffle between not shipping at all, or shipping half-baked games.
- jayrobin 13y agoMasters of Doom is an absolutely brilliant book that rekindled my interest in game development. I'd heard of Carmack before reading it, but this news is so much more impactful knowing just how integral he was to making gaming what it is today.
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- rcarmo 13y agoCarmack has been edging towards this for a while now (not Oculus, but the concept), and I foresee great things. OTOH, considering I played all of id's games up to Doom 3 (which I found a tad too creepy), I hope they strike a good balance between display smoothness and sheer unmitigated fun. I miss a good Q3A CTF.
- nickstinemates 13y agoCan you imagine Q3 CTF but in VR? That thought alone makes me fear for my future productivity.
- rcarmo 13y agoNothing beats that moment when, late in the evening, you hear someone shout "GET THE FLAG!!!" across an open plan office.
- adambratt 13y agoShit just got real.
- prawn 13y agoIs the level of immersion likely coming with the Rift going to really challenge parts of our interest in the 'real world'? Get Thalmic's MYO to the stage where two of them are enough to replace a typical game controller, and virtual worlds might be possible that reel us in tight with few physical reminders that it's all not real. As it is, games, gambling and social networks are sticky enough. I had to drag myself away from Minecraft after trying it, thinking about how I was building a virtual house and garden in a captivating world, while a load of household projects went unfinished in my actual backyard. Story- or world-driven games like Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire could be incredible.
- aaronblohowiak 13y agoread Infinite Jest by DFW. or watch the TNG episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Pursuits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Pursuits
- prawn 13y agoInfinite Jest sounds interesting - I've put it on my To Read list. Thanks!
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoTwo responses: Cynical response: not until the fabled teledildonics is working. Even more cynical response: that won't stop gaming companies who already attempt to deliberately addict players to subscription gaming from building highly immersive addictive games.
- obilgic 13y agoError establishing a database connection
- LandoCalrissian 13y agoJohn Carmack believes in the tech, and I believe in John Carmack, so I will be getting one. He has basically been with them since the beginning in some capacity, here is a video of him demoing a unit at E3 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-DlWwlXHo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-DlWwlXHo You can see that one is still a very early prototype held together with duct tape. It's not specifically stated, but it sounds like he will be leaving id for this. I'm fine with that since there is only so much you can do in the game engine world these days. Seeing him try to advance gaming and immersion in a different way seems like it will fit him very well. Congrats to everyone at Oculus.
- aaronblohowiak 13y agoThe dev kit is not yet consumer ready, but it does show a glimpse of the future. The (low) resolution of the screen on the dev kit is really distracting, but more importantly we are still learning about the control schemes. Right now, it is very hard/disorienting to play FPSs on the rift (IMNSHO).
- swax 13y agoI've done work to translate familiar 2d fps aim views to 3d and it feels very natural. I had tons of people at QuakeCon jumping right in a fragging just as well as they do in 2d. If you have a rift you can try it - https://github.com/swax/Quakespasm-Rift https://github.com/swax/Quakespasm-Rift
- frio 13y agoThanks for this; I look forward to giving it a go tonight!
- thenomad 13y agoThe solutions to this problem might be really odd. Personally, I've been testing the Wii Balance Board as a useful input device for the Rift - and it's showing some promise. One tester did describe my test game as "Dungeon Segway Challenge", but we're getting there slowly...
- kayoone 13y agoOh well, probably the best CTO you can get on this planet for a company like this, very exciting news and makes me even more pumped for the product!
- InclinedPlane 13y agoI was actually just thinking recently that John Carmack was past his prime. Or, more accurately, that he was no longer sitting in the right sweet spot in the industry that he once was. But with this move it looks like that may change. He's a one of a kind genius, and if there's anywhere that could see his skills used to effect more I can't think of it.
- adventured 13y agoYeah the sweet spot (or interesting spot at least) was clearly moving. Gaming has been stagnating for the last few game cycles (oh look, Gears of War 7). Obviously the lack of new console hardware was holding back a jump forward in various aspects, but that's just evolution rather than a technology inflection. VR of course is the inflection. Carmack will add a lot of fuel to the fire. It's truly appropriate that he have a ground floor role in pushing this all forward. So much better than his abilities being used for Quake N.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoMaybe he can start by helping with their website database...
- zemo 13y agoweb programming is not the entirety of programming. They're making virtual reality actually happen, and you're effectively complaining that a poster fell down.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoMea culpa. I was just trying to make a joke.
- deletes 13y agoLooks like the http://www.oculusvr.com/careers/ http://www.oculusvr.com/careers/ is offline. It seems a lot of people want to work with John.
- agentultra 13y agoOf course they would... smart people tend to want to be around people smarter than they are.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MrGando 13y agoOmg omg omg, lovin' it.
- Kurtz79 13y agoFirst time I hear of the Oculus... somehow I can't stop thinking about the Virtual Boy :) Congrats, it must not be easy signing up a programming icon like Carmack.
- 83457 13y agoIf first time hearing about it then that thought may make sense. However Carmack is the person who launched Oculus into the media spotlight with his demo of the Rift at E3 last year. He was following a 3d hacker/enthusiasts forum, saw posts about a prototype Palmer Lucky created, asked if he could get a prototype and was sent one (apparently the only one), adjusted Doom3 for it, demoed it to media at E3 and it took off from there. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=carmack+e3+oculus+rift+2012 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=carmack+e3+oculu...
- AndrewDucker 13y agoI've played with an Oculus VR, and I think they're amazing. But I'm not convinced that they're ready for the mass market yet. Not because of any failing on their part, but because I think that they need games, and controllers, specifically designed to work with VR. You can't use mouse/keyboard well if you can't see the mouse/keyboard. UIs that float at the bottom of the screen feel very odd when you move your head around and they stay at the bottom of your vision. We're going to need a year or two of people producing iterations of new interfaces before we have something that feels really smooth to the average user. (In the meantime they're great fun to play with.)
- btbuildem 13y agoLeap Motion?
- mlbmlb 13y agoOmni would be even better.
- pixie_ 13y agoOmni is smell-o-vision. Neat, but a bit too gimmicky.
- Nobedy 13y agoAgreed. http://www.virtusphere.com/ http://www.virtusphere.com/ This is more like it, but they've totally failed to get on the recent hype train and they don't even seem to realise it needs to be powered. It needs to start the instant you lean forward and stop on a dime to work properly. Plus, you need to be fully portable with the entire computer on your back to reduce latency.
- sp332 13y agoRazer's Hydra project, which you have to hold onto but gives you a much larger play area, is already being used in some Rift games.
- Nogwater 13y agoThis is good news for Oculus, but I worry about them having two locations at such an early stage. They're going to have to work very hard to keep everyone on the same page. Hopefully they're not going to split hardware and software development.
- wesley 13y agoI guess they could do some virtual reality meetings.
- kayoone 13y agohaha, good one!
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoWhat do you mean, "good one"? Add in some AR tech for bringing stuff from your office, and this is going to be an enterprise application.
- vonmoltke 13y agoHonestly, I think they would be better off doing their hardware development here in Dallas.[1] This area is much less expensive than Irvine, already has a strong hardware development presence with supporting companies, and a decent second-tier university whose EE department has a strong semiconductor/telecom/signal processing focus. [1] I say this out of enlightened self-interest. :)
- dynjo 13y agoI own an Oculus and even before I read this I knew it was the next big step in gaming, now it is beyond question.
- julianpye 13y agoAs a big 3D and VR fan, this is the best news I have heard in a long time!
- drstrangevibes 13y agoi think the future just arrived while i was on lunchbreak
- thenomad 13y agoFor anyone who isn't familiar with the current state of progress on the Rift, I'd recommend a look at http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus Lots of cool stuff happening.
- tchock23 13y agoThis is awesome news. I received my Oculus in the first batch and have had a ton of fun playing around with it (save the occasional nausea, but that's really game-specific). Agree with some comments here that the Rift needs more VR-specific content, but it's still early and with news like this I'm confident that great VR/Oculus-specific content will emerge soon.
- ciferkey 13y agoWhen I was watching Carmack's talk from Quake Con this year all I could think was "how does this man have the time to do all of this?" The email today from Oculus both excited and worried me though. I really hope Carmack is given the chance to dedicate himself to the project. His tweet today was reassuring though: "My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!"
- 10098 13y agoI only hope that his work at Oculus will benefit id software. I really want them to produce more successful games.
- bluedino 13y agoSaddens me to suggest that Carmack has finally 'jumped the shark'. Childhood hero of mine and all, but id hasn't been doing much lately. He's cutting back on funding Armadillo. Maybe he plans on retiring and taking it easy pretty soon? He's had to have an exhausting last 20 years. No matter how cool this Oculus product is, VR headsets are just not going to catch on.
- teach 13y ago> "VR headsets are just not going to catch on." There are a lot of very smart people who seem to disagree with you.
- bluedino 13y agoThey're bulky, heavy, hold heat, and you look like a dork wearing them. Maybe some sort of light plastic glasses like you wear for a 3D movie, if the technology was there to put an HD image in the lenses. But nothing in it's current state.
- csbrooks 13y agoTechnology tends to get miniaturized over time.
- jordanthoms 13y agoAnd thinking about it, a VR headset is a lot less bulky than a few 30" screens or a TV, which it could replace once the technology is good enough.
- captaintrips 13y agoSounds like someone who has yet to try the Oculus Rift, lol.
- pekk 13y agoAnd you look so cool playing video games right now? Come on, that was never the point.
- doubledub 13y agoHoping Oculus and EMOTIV Insight (http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_br...) consider a joint project connecting their 2 ground breakers. That space puppy would make the technology of written language the equivalent of banging rocks together. The possibilities of creation & control without the limitations of writing, typing, and even learning means we could create, build, view, and modify ideas with just thoughts... so rad it's scary.
- mhartl 13y agoWow, talk about a hiring coup. Bravo!
- jdavid 13y agoI think this is more evidence of how much the Oculus team owes to Andrew Scott Reisse, the developer who was killed during a hit and run. It might be that John Carmack was trying to help out an amazing team who lost an amazing and talented developer. I know the Hawken forums have been amiss with talk that more that one game is behind schedule since they lost the integration help from Andrew. I guess there is some there is something to say when a company needs to replace your absence with John Carmack. Thank you Andrew for getting VR this far.
- josh33 13y agoReady Player One! - If you haven't read this, I highly recommend it.
- andyidsinga 13y agoholy shit!
- DigitalSea 13y agoIf there is one man in this world that can bring 3D virtual reality gaming to the mainstream and do it right, it's John Carmack. We are talking about a guy here with proven interest and knowledge of 3D gaming, this is massive news. I guess given the amount of support John has given to the project, joining the project officially makes sense to me. Now lets see what his next move is. The gauntlet has been thrown down, lets battle.
- altharaz 13y agoWhen I see the name of "John Carmack", it means to me "deep optimization". I still remember of this trick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root. I heard that Oculus Rift had some minor delay issues. With Carmack as C.T.O., I do believe that everything will be solved pretty quick. Kudos, Oculus!
- alx 13y agoOculus is not HD yet in its dev version, if you want HD (like Carmack prototype on this page), you should try Open Dive: http://www.durovis.com/index.html http://www.durovis.com/index.html
- lispython 13y agoMaybe it's really a good news for Oculus, but if anyone here feel a litter melancholy? Armadillo Aerospace run out of money and hibernate (2013), id Software had been acquired by ZeniMax Media (2009), id software President Todd Hollenshead has quit after 17 years of service (2013) and there's a long time without really big new Game. Now John Carmack some kind of working for another company…