Tag Archives: Oculus

Oculus Rift in the News

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There is nothing really new in the UK paper The Telegraph, but that the article appears in the Telegraph is interesting. It is a good article for the non-techies of the world well explaining why this is such an important step forward in computer technology.

 

Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift

Check out Tim Martins article: The Oculus Rift: virtual reality is no longer a joke.

One of the interesting points in the article is how game development is driving military technology. They point out that many military research budgets are nothing when compared to some the research budgets for game technology. Continue reading →

Second Life 2013 in Review

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I’ve found it interesting to look back to see what has happened in Second Life™ during the past year. In 2012 I did that and published: Looking Back at Second Life 2012. A much shorter version of that is: 2012 – The Short List.

In the sidebar I have an Archive selector. You can select any month to find articles within a specific month. I also try to make use of WordPress categories and tags. Each article has a section that shows published date, categories, and tags. Use category and tags links to find more articles on a specific subject.

This article is about 9,000 words long. If I have time I’ll make the TL:DR version like I did last year. But, don’t count on it.

Index

Continue reading →

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Breaking Oculus news

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VoidPointer Linden is telling us Oculus Rift support is now feature complete. We should see it release Linden ‘soon’. Apparently he is one of the ones working on Oculus and the Viewer.

If you are not using Oculus then there is no apparent change to the viewer.

When asked Void answered things look ‘really’ cool. He also mentioned he was using Oculus during the meeting. If you have seen Void’s avatar, you can imagine that it would be pretty awesome.

Apparently no one has tossed their cookies in testing.

Void says he has a pretty hot machine, but he is getting close to his normal FPS. So, it may not be that much of an additional load. But, it will be another machine by machine thing.

Void is keeping it a secret what they have done with the viewer control panels. We have to wait for the release and official notice. The same with what he is using for a controller, mouse, LEAP, something else… no word.

Watch for the official announcement. It is hard to predict when that might be. I am guessing not before January.

PS: it works with shutter  glasses.

 

 

VR Update

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Numerous people are working on Virtual Reality projects. Here is an example of where one team is.

[youtube B_JpcmSEGzw]

They might have gotten further ahead if they had used Second Life. The world would definitely have looked better.

CtrlAltStudio Viewer Alpha 5

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Another update to the CtrlAltStudio Viewer is out. See: Alpha 5: Configurable Walk Speed and Kinect Control.

This is the viewer that offers normal, stereoscopic 3D, and Oculus Rift viewer modes. Now it offers an interface for Kinect. Also added is a walking speed adjustment. All of these are neat additions to the basic Firestorm Viewer that turns it into the CtrlAltStudio Viewer.

This is the viewer for those using shutter glasses and Oculus. Features have been added to make use of the Oculus and Kinect more pleasant.

 

Oculus Rift & Cyan Worlds

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If you have never played a Cyan Worlds made game you have missed out. They do highly immersive games with incredible graphics. When they made the hit game Myst, it pushed people to buy CD drives, which I understand were a ‘new thing’ at the time. People were blown away by the high quality graphics. Looking at the near twenty-year old graphics the game looks a bit dated.

Claire Humme Concept Art for Obduction

Claire Humme Concept Art for Obduction

Even Uru (Myst Online: Uru Live) is looking dated. But, it is great fun to play.

Cyan Worlds has their Kickstarter for a their new game: Obduction. They have just added a new incentive for people to support the project. If they go over the target by $200,000, they will add Oculus Rift support.

Considering they are using the Unreal Engine for the game, the Oculus should provide an awesome immersive experience.

I think supporting Obduction will indirectly provide support for the Oculus. If you feel this would be a fun thing, join in here: Obduction.

Quoting from the project regarding the image above:

So this fellow looks like he’s taken the long way around. He seems fairly at home in some vaguely familiar clothing, but also appears to have picked up a few trinkets along the way. Many of which were probably not standard-Earth-issue. (Like those boots… source unknown!)

castAR – Oculus Competition?

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Check out the castAR VR system. This is now a funded, but still open, Kickstarter project.

[youtube RmHHGOBOUWA]

This is the one-ups-manship that the free market creates. This combines Oculus, Google Glasses, and shutter glasses.

I’m not sure about the claim of no motion sickness. I think that is likely true in the AR mode. When one changes over to the full VR lenses I would think they have the same problem as Oculus.

Also, I can’t really tell what resolution the glasses are providing.

Oculus Rift and Cloud Party

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Inara and Hamlet have just written about Cloud Party and Oculus. I am happy to see that Cloud Party is thinking Oculus Rift. But… really!?! In a web browser?

If you saw my previous post you know that browser-makers are dropping plugins. Right now they can’t drop all of them because the replacement, HTML5, is not advanced enough to be able to provide the same functionality and performance. So, adding Oculus Rift support doesn’t seem practical to me. After all the system has to render twice as many frames to create 3D display for Oculus. Browser based 3D rendering is just barely performing at acceptable 2D display levels now. And that is with many rendering features dropped to keep performance acceptable.

If you try to use shutter glasses you soon learn that you must have a monitor and video card capable of generating 120 FPS. Sixty frames for the left eye and sixty for the right. The same sort of thing is true for Oculus.

But, there is a huge push to get Oculus to mobile devices. The movers and shakers in the game field think it is possible and that the large money is in mobile. I have my doubts, but lots of money is being thrown at the problem. So, we are likely to see some type of solution emerge. A big question is: ‘When?”

See: Cloud Party Becomes First Virtual World to Officially Support the Oculus Rift; Ex-Linden Cyn Skyberg: “We Are Getting Very Close to the Original Concept of VR”

See: Cloud Party: Oculus Rift support and more.

And with Oculus, I hear performance is everything. Poor performance often results in simulator sickness. May be I could market sim-sickness bag attachments for the Oculus… Money Mouth

Ha Ha