Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World | Hacker News Reader

Oculus Rift Will Change Your Gaming World

tomshardware.com

190 pointsmtgx90 comments

There is a really sort of chilling feeling when you get really good head tracking and high DPI visual input, it fools your brain enough to move your sense of place.

The absolute creepiest thing I've experienced with this was put the goggles on and have the screens showing the view of a pair of cameras mounted on a telepresence robot in the same room. Then slowly pull the telepresence robot back so that I could see myself sitting there with the goggles on looking around in real time. It literally gave me the shivers.

But creepy out of body experience aside, the challenge then was control. Moving through space with a game controller with full view control can make you feel like you're a quadraplegic in the virtual world. Something that will really be awesome will be these goggles and a Leap Motion controller, so that you gesture around your world. You still don't get to walk (were are those 2D treadmills when you need them? [1]) but its more flexible than a thumbstick and a d-pad.

[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-softwar...

The sense of place is the vital element and it's really hard to communicate how significant it is.

If you're sceptical about Oculus Rift, here's an experiment for you. Download Doom and play it back-to-back with a modern FPS. What you'll probably notice most isn't the low resolution or the weird cardboard-cutout objects, but the absence of freelook. You'll find yourself jarring as you try to look up at ledges or peek down through windows, feeling peculiarly constrained, almost as if you're wearing a neck brace. The Rift is at least as big a difference.

HMDs with accurate head tracking are an absolute revelation, because they truly immerse you in the environment. You don't realise how much your natural vision relies upon your ability to take quick glances at odd angles - a look down at your feet to spot the last step, a peek over your shoulder before you merge into traffic and so on.

I guess then the next stage would be eye-tracking, so you can glance around without even moving your neck.

Which might also lower the computational requirements as the level of detail only needs to be high where you are looking.

The latency would have to be very low though.

Actually, this would be best handled by simple having a display that takes up significantly more than your field of view.

not necessarily true, depth and focus become an issue. Even with a bigger screen, you still need to know exactly where the eye is looking to provide proper focus on the screens.

If you've been following what John Carmack has been doing with these types of things, that seems to be the conclusion he has come to.

Your solution is certainly simple and cheaper to implement, but isnt anywhere near as effective, immersive, or cool. Eye tracking is defiantly needed to take this to the next level.

If you embed the optics in a contact lens (such as the one that is being readied by iOptik, then you dont need a HMD with embedded optics and can indeed have a large flexible display covering your entire Field of View.

> Something that will really be awesome will be these goggles and a Leap Motion controller, so that you gesture around your world.

I preordered an Oculus rift devkit, and the first thing I'll be doing (after spending hours ooh-ing and ah-ing in whatever 3D demo comes with it, hopefully) will be to hook it up with a kinect.

I believe you're looking for the omnidirectional treadmill[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnidirectional_treadmill

I can see lots of possibilities for new-age arcades with this in mind. Something like a real-world holodeck could feasibly come together with some investment.

Option 1: Just an omnidirectional treadmill with kneepad and wrist sensors. This is cool but immersion breaks trying to interact with obstacles or walls.

Option 2: Build different arena like a laser tag arena or paintball arena or a tennis court with obstacles and different types of gun controllers littered around the arena, then have the Occulus overlay a virtual simulation of the arena and different weapons depots, and add kneepad sensors connected to the Occulus so it can simulate motion. This allows you to solve the immersion problem of simulating and experiencing obstacles/walls.

Bonus: Some sort of suit that can use ems to be able to simulate muscle resistance to add weight to virtual collisions. Like this: http://www.cct.lsu.edu/~fharhad/ganbatte/siggraph2007/CD1/co...

I wonder about trauma from "dying" in a game that is so immersive it "tricks" your brain into thinking it is real -- example from the article about him sticking out his tongue to try and catch snow without thinking about it.

I wonder if we will start seeing more people in therapy for PTSD from gaming.

DFW predicted the rise of an entertainment so engrossing that people lost interest in doing anything else[1]. From bookworms to couch potatoes to video game addiction[2], we have seen ever-enriched simulations develop over the last few hundred years. People are already dying from neglecting their "meatspace" selves[3]; this will only increase in popularity. This does give some hint as to what people will "do" post-singularity[4].

1: Infinite Jest

2: Videgame Addiction was rejected from the next DSM, but I believe that we will see a form of it added within our lifetimes.

3: This has been happening for almost ten years: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

I think "The Entertainment" from Infinite Jest was an exaggeration rather than a direct prediction. I mean, a single glance at the screen would freeze someone in place and make one willing to cut off the fingers of another in order to continue watching. "The Entertainment" was also entirely non-interactive and non-social, whereas Starcraft and MMOs have strong interactive elements.

Far more interesting was the bit about the rise and fall of video chat, where people became so self-conscious about their appearance they eventually altered or covered them up before returning to audio-only. Kottke brought this up in relation to Facetime[1].

http://kottke.org/10/06/david-foster-wallace-on-iphone-4s-fa...

I am speaking more of direct sensory based shock, at "dying" or fear (horror genre), as apposed to "neglecting meatspace concerns".

Like it or not, that may be the future, where we're always "plugged in". We already do that with the Internet. We may even feel physical pain from not being able to access the Internet for a few days, and dearly "miss" it. I imagine this sort of feeling will only become more powerful as technology becomes more advanced, more connected, and more realistic.

But I don't think it's all bad. I think it will help with so many things we aren't even foreseeing yet.

The first solid MMORPG for this will be worth billions.

Brainstorm: A team of scientists invents "the Hat", a brain/computer interface that allows sensations to be recorded from a person's brain and converted to tape so that others can experience them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)

Also: Strange Days, Total Recall and Blade Runner.

and Final Cut, and a whole host of made-for-TV movies, depending on how much you're willing to relax the theme.

awesome movies!

Except for the remake of total recall... That sucked!

In response to your parent, there's also the movie by Wim Wenders "Until the end of the world"

Where IIRC a scientist creates a device that can record dreams and his wife becomes totally addicted to the experience and just can't stop playing and re-playing her dreams.

I think it's in Until the end of the world but cannot swear it ; )

Good movie anyway...

And then there's the movie which is a reflection on immersive videogame as the main plot: David Cronenberg's Existenz. Existenz is considered a flop by many, but an underrated movie by quite some people too.

I can imagine it being weird to walk around a 3D world while standing still in real-life (using keyboard or some sort of controller). But the Oculus Rift should be awesome right out of the box for any flight simulator. For a flight simulator the Rift makes so much sense.

Out of body experience? I imagine the future will be more like Avatar or Surrogates [1].

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_h9RaL0es

Fun fact: the "happy ending" in Surrogates would likely result in total collapse of global economy and death of billions of people.

Sometimes filmmakers don't understand large-scale real-world consequences of the plot choices they make.

I imagine the real issue with a setup like that would be how quickly and smoothly the robotic camera could match your head movement. Did you experience any difficulty to that effect?

I've tried many controllers throughout my life. There's still nothing better than keyboard (WASD) plus mouse.

> It may come down to the team adding a small camera on the outside – along with a possible push button – that allows the user to pause the game and see the feed without forcing the user to take the goggles completely off their head.

The idea of a camera to let you see the actual world is pretty nifty. It even comes pre-built with philosophical questions (which is the actual world?).

On the other hand, I can't help but think that the camera could also be used to prevent people from smacking their head into real, physical objects.

Stick a few distance sensors and overlay portions of the camera when an object is too close? It would interrupt the game, sure, but less so than you headbutting your monitor or a wall. Just a thought.

I'm very much hoping that people take the Oculus Rift, add webcam sensors, and have decent augmented reality.

And of course the first thing that will happen is a redefinition of cybersex as we know it.

That has already started check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics

Also, http://www.slashdong.org/

You're still tethered to the computer by the video and power cables, so unless you're being interrupted to do other things at your desk a lot I don't think this would help. Most of the time if I'm interrupted in a game it's for something that I can either do on my phone, or so something I have to do away from my computer.

That said, it would be an interesting experience to try wearing a VR headset for a long period with a couple of cameras giving a very wide view. I'm curious how well we'd be able to adapt to having 360° vision.

Anecdote time.

The last time I played with a set of VR goggles was a few years back, and the technology was certainly not up to this pace. That said, the head tracking was pretty good, particularly for the FPS we were playing.

The problem wasn't in the head tracking... it was that the head tracking was pointless. Since you couldn't realistically look around more than ~120 degrees, you still needed a way to turn around and move. The result is that while the head mounted VR goggles were neat, they were just a trick.

After 30 minutes of play, I found that my head had lolled down to rest on my chest (in part due to the weight of the headset), and I wasn't using the goggles for anything more than I would use a monitor for.

Given that, despite the advances in technology, you'll still have a practical limit on how much your head can turn (and thus still requiring a mouse/joystick for real movement), I have a hard time seeing the niche these will successfully fill.

If you were set on using the head tracking for movement, you'd have to set it up like a controller's thumbsticks (which also have a fairly limited angle of motion). There's a dead spot in the middle, but going outside it makes you turn. Speed increasing the farther out you go.

Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii (and possibly other games) used a similar control system based on the wiimote pointer. It had an adjustment period when you first picked it up, but worked very well. Whether the same holds true with head tracking, I can't say.

Gods below, I don't want to imagine the vertigo that would cause. Like being on a merry-go-round without the sensation of moving from your inner ear.

It's a decent control idea, but I can't imagine being able to use it, personally.

Then the Rift in general might not work for you. Any time you turn it's going to be like being on a merry-go-round without the sensation of moving, whether the command to turn was based on the direction you were looking or on moving your mouse.

I'd be willing to bet good money the Rift is considerably lighter than the HMD you describe using!

If you really cant see the potential of VR finally being technically possible then I feel bad for you son :(

I'm not trying to say that VR is impossible, it's that the oculus by itself isn't going to revolutionize gaming today. You'll still need a mouse, you'll still need a keyboard.

Someday, we'll be able to walk in a "hamster" ball and interact with haptic gloves, and I'm looking forward to that. A head mounted display, however, is not that.

I think this has a 120degree FOV but actually changes when you move your head, so it's much more natural.

I was actually speaking about how far you could comfortably twist your head while sitting.

Apart from gaming, there's other interesting things this could do especially with a higher resolution display and fast connectivity.

For example , virtual tourism. Take a safari by streaming a 4K video via a mounted camera on a pivot on top of a truck.

Of course latency induced motion sickness could be a serious issue there but you may be able to get around this by streaming feeds from multiple cameras.

I fully expect the future of video to be 4D camera orbs that record a 360 degree view and let viewers look around inside the recording as it plays, using head-mounted displays. Just imagine revisiting your last holiday and seeing stuff you didn't even see when you were there the first time, being able to explore the living surroundings again and again.

Interesting, but there's something eerie about deciding to strap on a helmet to re-visit a past holiday. Especially "again and again" :)

How often to we even browse our photos of old events, let alone 4D camera orb footage? Hey who knows, maybe that's how we'll be spending our twilight years.

Oculus Rift might also be the first thing to truly disrupt the cinema industry, if it works that well for movies, too (although you obviously lose the ability to move in a movie, but maybe that can change in the future). I guess the cinemas could buy them en-masse before everyone has them at home though, and before they got to experience it for themselves, just like with current 3D glasses, but I think the difference will be minimal from what you can experience at home, and what you can experience in the cinema with such goggles.

There's also potential for stress, depression therapy, etc.

Interesting you mention this -- one side project I wanted to work on was using the oculus rift to control a quadrocopter and simulate the feeling of flight. :)

I think a more compelling idea for having a camera on the outside is to allow for hand tracking within the game. Imaging if Leap-like functionality were added to the Rift. Flying through space in your star ship, you could reach out and actually interact with the controls in your cockpit. I think that could be a lot more compelling than what we are seeing with games on Kinect today.

Actually I think just having the head tracking for your view, while sitting in a fixed cockpit with your hands on static controls (HOTAS), will make this a killer application for flight sims and similar simulations. There's already head tracking for flight sims that lets you move your view around (TrackIR, Freetrack) and having relatively static controls like a HOTAS means you don't have to worry too much about looking at your hands. I ordered one of these dev kits and am looking forward to trying it out like this.

That would be quite tricky, since both the camera (attached to your head) and your hands could be moving in different directions at the same time.

A stationary, secondary observer (like a Kinect) would be several orders of magnitude more reliable. All that's left is for someone to make a game that actually utilizes that idea.

Lack of tactile feedback will always be an obstacle to that. Still, I share your optimism. Sounds like a great idea in principle, and we're closer to it than ever now.

Maybe even closer than you think. We've already done simulated tactile feedback in monkeys! http://io9.com/5846275/biotech-breakthrough-monkeys-can-feel...

I think the real future of this is some sort of spinal substitution where you can override the nerve response for the entire body.

Isn't there a history of VR headsets directly causing brain and eye injury? (Sony, Nintendo Virtual Boy, eye desynchronization) Does anyone know if I am misremembering this, or if not, how the Rift avoids the earlier issues?

EDIT: Nope, I was not making this up... it was Sega VR causing strabismus.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/warning-3d-video-...

http://www.strabismus.org/all_about_strabismus.html

I highly suggest everyone go watch the first season (or even first few episodes) of an anime called Sword Art Online. It's about what will likely be a future iteration of this hardware applied to an MMO. Addiction to being plugged in, death within the game, and which is the true reality are all themes covered.

I never thought I'd suggest watching anime on Hacker News, but this topic proved to be the exception.

I would also suggest reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. With people talking about not being able to take the goggles off this could be where we are headed.

The movie GAMER with Gerard Butler also has this theme. Its pretty horrible though :)

Relevant:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-n...

with HN comments:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985100

More, it turns out that Valve ported Team Fortress 2 to VR (presumably the Rift) as an experiment, and they'll be discussing what they learned at GDC 2013: http://www.gdconf.com/news/valve_to_talk_head-mounted_dis.ht...

All I really want out of this is a Snow Crash game. And maybe for someone to re-license Neuromancer for a game.

I can see this working wonders in the medical field. Imagine doctors able to do pinhole surgery with a 360 camera on a stick and the Oculus.

They already do this with robotic surgery.

http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/davinci_surgical_s...

Here's a video:

http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/davinci_surgical_s...

I got a demo of the Oculus Rift at this past Gamescom and I was completely blown away. From the second I put it on I knew this thing was gonna rock the gaming world. The realism and "awe" factor is off the charts.

My only complaint in their demo (and something they knew they had to figure out) was separating aiming from looking. In almost every FPS game, where you look = where you aim. With the Oculus rift, this now doesn't make 100% sense. You should be able to look around but still control your aim separately (just like how you do it now with a mouse or control stick).

A lot of people I talk to think the Oculus Rift isn't high enough resolution to be successful. I can see that complaint because on paper it does look low resolution compared to what we're used to now on traditional monitors. But in practice, the low resolution of the Oculus Rift did not bother me one bit. More pixels would have been nice but not necessary at all.

Bring on the Oculus Rift! I can't wait to see this thing come out and see what games people make for it.

Two key points I feel I should make:

1. Decoupled aiming with a Razer hydra or something is the first thing pretty much everyone who pre-ordered a Rift devkit plans to implement.

2. While the resolution is low, it is still an early prototype. Top of the feature list for the commercial version is; higher resolution screen.

I'm wondering if this could be see for programming? Infinite screen of data/code, just turn your head.

That's the first thing I thought of too, maybe combined with something like code bubbles http://www.andrewbragdon.com/codebubbles_site.asp

I have long been a proponent of stereoscopic 3d, but there are still two major problems. One is that is our current realtime rendering methods rely heavily on screen-space operations (blurring, many shadow types, SSAO, bloom, refraction, post-process fx), which confuse the brain when rendered in stereo (I.e. will make things float when the should not). The other problem is focus. In the real world, your eyes move to focus at different distances. Without eye tracking, the system is forced to focus at a given distance (the convergence point for right/left eye images). Still...can't wait for my rift to ship!

I totally agree with the second part. Focus is a major problem of 3D today. As you said, without eye tracking the system chooses where our eyes should focus sometimes giving that 'paper pop-up book' feeling to movies and games.

For real 3D movies we need something like Lytro (https://www.lytro.com/), but for movie recording.

The oculus rift has optics that allow the eyes to focus at infinity, not the convergence point of the eyes.

Do you think that will help?

Why does doing things in screen space muck with stereoscopic 3d? That makes little to no sense IMO

Every time I see these referenced I think of Ready Player One and the start of OASIS

Exactly what I was thinking as well, I could see people plugging into these and not wanting to leave. It's already what some people who have tried it have said they felt like.

It's the first thing I think of too.

I ordered my dev kit a while back and I CANNOT wait to play Doom 3 BFG. I'm not sure if I'll even be brave enough to make it through the whole game. :)

... only if game developers fully embrace it.

They're handing integration with Unity and UDK, so that's a lot of devs who will be able to use it with minimal effort. Whether they do also depends on enough consumers owning them that devs feel it's worth the time.

Bit of a chicken and egg problem; I hope they can pull it off. The 8000 units sold on Kickstarter suggest there's enough demand to make it work.

Also, since the dev kits come with Doom3, I assume Id Tech 4

They did, but don't any more. Only the kickstarter and 1000 first kits sold after release were bundled with Doom 3. But your point is correct. Just wanted to throw that small note in.

They will. It already has support from a lot of the big names in gaming. Carmack and valve being the largest.

Something this unique will be embraced by enough developers to build up some momentum. Apart from draconian restrictions that figuratively drive developers far away, there's little Oculus could do wrong besides not shipping or shipping at a ridiculous price point.

The Kickstarter response is indicative that this product has huge potential. I don't think these are still the days when a few big gaming houses controlled the fate of a locked up console.

These days there are so many developers and companies on the Internet know how to reach out to them.

It could work without the developers embracing it, the same way as almost any DirectX game works with NVIDIA 3D VISION, because it's doing the stereoscopic rendering in the video driver without the need of special code in the games. Of course a few games has visual bugs in 3D but most of these are fixed in newer video drivers.

This plus body tracking could revitalize arcade gaming.

Head tracking is already available with commercial products like the TrackIR or open source projects like FreeTrack.

It does make a huge difference in immersion, especially for things like flight or driving sims.

My big concern with the Occulus is that the screens are relatively low resolution; I'm sure that will change over time, but the first generation hardware's screens are a bit lower resolution than I'd like, personally.

Technically this is still not the "first generation".

Oculus is releasing a dev kit, and they have stated that the initial retail version will have higher-resolution screens.

There have already been several 1080p phones announced that have screens of the right size. 4k TVs are coming out now which will drive down the price of the control chips required. And OLED can scale to extremely high DPI.

The first thing I'm going to do when it arrives is figure out how to strap a Kinect to my head.

How well would this work for a desktop environment, in combination with a Leap?

Motion sensors with true accuracy are probably still a few years away before they are more than just gimmicks in games, but it would be interesting if you could "interact" with the game with your hands, too, while seeing the virtual weapon that you have through Oculus, in your hands, and using it would be so accurate that it wouldn't feel disconnected from that "real" virtual reality you're in through Oculus. You'd actually feel as if you're fighting with a sword and killing that monster in front of you with it, even though you wouldn't have anything in your hand in the real world.

When is this scheduled to come out for retail???

Those details are not yet released.

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