John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO | Hacker News Reader

John Carmack joins Oculus as CTO

oculusvr.com

993 pointssalgernon204 comments

So, 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.

From 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.

I think he is focusing on VR. Though he prefers AR, he does not consider it as productive a way to spend one's efforts in the near term.

"So my personal opinion (which is not necessarily Valve’s) is that it makes sense to do VR now, and push it forward as quickly as possible, but at the same time to continue research into the problems unique to AR, with an eye to tilting more and more toward AR over time as it matures. As I said, it’s not the definitive answer we’d all like, but it’s where my thinking has led me. However, I’ve encountered intelligent opinions from one end of the spectrum to the other, and I look forward to continuing the discussion in the comments."

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-int...

If you look at some of the recent demos with the Oculus you'll see that AR is not necessarily mutually exclusive with a full field of vision headset. Some of the most exciting demos in my opinion involve moving around in a real physical space while wearing the headset. The headset shows a digital re-creation of the physical space along with anything else that the developer wants to overlay onto to the scene. You're basically using the physical world as a skeleton on which you can hang the digital meat. Check out this kickstarter for example: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/62367895/atlas-virtual-r...

Wow, even with what it can do now I can imagine using it for AR/VR games of laser tag or paint ball. The only thing missing would be feedback on your body for hits you've taking.

At the right price, this might even turn out to be cheaper than proper paintball arena's. You can charge more, and there's no cleanup involved. You could even host these 'games' in real-world environments (with permission or otherwise). Imagine hosting counter-strike style games in empty buildings!

That's what I'm saying. After I sell my company for over a billion dollars I'm starting a VR theme park :)

Didn't Valve recently ditch their AR-related work when they fired Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson?

I thought they were shifting focus away from that for now..

FWIW their AR stuff was really weird. It looked stupid when I saw it at a convention. I would have dumped them too.

If they had been doing Oculus Rift type stuff I'm sure they'd still be at Valve.

I was actually pretty impressed by CastAR. It's certainly the most compelling AR-esque experience I've tried.

It opens up a different set of game possibilities than a VR headset like the Rift. Think augmented multiplayer tabletop games rather than immersive worlds.

The market for those types of games is slim.

The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low.

AR tabletop games would have an even smaller market and also be more expensive to produce.

>The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low.

It's bigger than ever and steadily rising.

Blocks for building dungeons made 2 million on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-for...

I can see a single mind-blowing tabletop demo selling pretty damn well. The audience isn't huge and mass market, but it's decent sized, and willing to drop very high amounts of money on cool stuff.

I'm not sure the market is that slim (a lot of people in my social circles are playing them these days, certainly more than 5 years ago), and these board and card games are sold at rather expensive prices (€80 for a boardgame is not rare).

That said though, when I play a boardgame, I'm just playing it on a table with some friends. I don't want the games to get any more complicated, and I certainly don't want to put on headgear or glasses and involve technology for some gimmick AR feature. You'd have to make the game concepts that require such a setup very compelling for me to consider them.

but dude, the possibilities[1]

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWV4Hemfio

Yes

What's AR?

Augmented 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.

I'm not sure I'd call Google Glass "AR".

It's just a small screen in your vision, it doesn't analyze or enhance your existing viewpoint in any way (unless I am mistaken).

Cast AR is a better example:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/18/cast-ar-hands-on-with-jer...

A smartphone is a better AR platform than Google Glass because you can hold it up directly in front of your field of vision and use AR apps.

Google Glass is wearable, but the display position is fixed relative to your head. You have to look up to see the screen, so unless you tilt your head down in some awkward manner to point to what you want the AR overlay on, it won't work. Not a very good AR experience.

AR is any augmentation of senses, so a wristwatch is AR for your sense of time for instance. Google glass doesn't do predator-vision, but it can augment stuff like memory or positional awareness.

AR integrates computer-generated sensory input realistically into reality.

A wristwatch and Google Glass are no more AR than a piece of paper with a map on it is.

Google Glass could be called a kind of "proto-AR". It could certainly be a first (significant) step toward real AR.

Not really. In terms of AR, Google Glass is doing absolutely nothing new, so it wouldn't be the first.

Google is putting "screen that overlays with your vision constantly", as a real thing that you can actually have, further into the public consciousness than it has ever been before. They even have a real shot at making it popular.

Without that initial step, it's hard to see any practical path to AR actually becoming a reality.

Without that initial step, it's hard to see any practical path to AR actually becoming a reality.

Only if you consider AR to be something that is 'always on'. There are a ton of applications that do not require that.

Nothing new by default, but its opening up a lot of hardware potential. Its not just a screen and camera that's at eye level, its also setting new social norms that make that acceptable. Even now, Glass isn't far from Bluetooth levels of socially okay, which is say annoying to most but acceptable. Once it reaches that point, I expect AR to be a focal point of development. It only makes sense.

A simple street view overlay + wikipedia filter would be basic AR, and that doesn't seem difficult at all. Google could monetize with virtual window ads that businesses would buy for glass+streetview users.

Your ad idea is stomach-turning. I see enough ads without having to subject myself to new streams of advertisement.

Conversely I'd happily install an app that put art over billboards. It would be nice to go to Times Square and feel like you're in the Louvre.

>Conversely I'd happily install an app that put art over billboards. It would be nice to go to Times Square and feel like you're in the Louvre.

That's not going to happen for the foreseeable future. See http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

For me it was worth reading the whole post to understand that your idea of "forseeable future", and Abrash's idea of "a while" are really different from mine:

> Eventually we’ll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it’ll take a while. I’d be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products.

Happily this app has already been made http://laughingsquid.com/augmented-reality-app-replaces-outd...

A simple street view overlay + wikipedia filter would be basic AR, and that doesn't seem difficult at all.

It would be extremely difficult. It would use a lot of processing power to examine the camera input and attempt to extrapolate positioning for overlayed elements. I'm not sure Glass has that power.

>It would use a lot of processing power to examine the camera input and attempt to extrapolate positioning for overlayed elements.

What camera input? Why go all in such a roundabout way, processing the image to determine the location?

What he proposes just needs the GPS/compass (if Google Glass has one, else it's trivial to add one). You get relevant wikipedia articles for your location (including the direction you're looking) using Glass's GPS, and the screen displays them.

Nope. GPS isn't anywhere near accurate enough for that- believe me, I've tried. It's usually accurate to a few meters, which is fine for an overhead map, but would be horribly jarring when used for AR.

>GPS isn't anywhere near accurate enough for that

For what? I remind you that we're talking about a Wikipedia filter. Wikipedia entries are so coarse grained with respect to position that you don't even need GPS-level accuracy. (Not to mention it can correct itself with the help of the built-in maps, e.g assume you walk in the sidewalk and not 4 meters across inside the buildings etc).

"That place is the Brooklyn Bridge, that thing down the road is the Katz delicatessen, further down is CBGB, stuff like that".

Where's the need for "more than a few meters accuracy"? If it can show me info of the nearby stuff (5-10-20 meters away) on my Glasses, it's perfectly good.

It doesn't have to super-impose it when I look at the specific building (that would be stupid anyway, cause it would necessitate me to keep looking straight at the building to see the info).

You need to use military grade GPS. It's much more accurate.

Even so, the latency on the compass and GPS is far too high for tracking convincingly.

Indeed. Military applications that require the type of precision in orientation measurements and derivatives that are being discussed here use high-rate precision Inertial Navigation Systems. INS measurements are made in a coordinate system fixed to the platform. All geometry calculations happen in this coordinate system. GPS and other sensors are used to translate positions in the platform coordinate system back to a "real world" system like lat-lon or ECEF.

This is actually a problem I have been thinking about a fair bit for the Rift. I'm not sure what the best way is to solve it in this package size. I'm thinking a first pass will need some sort of off-board reference.

It's already being done. Nokia has a nice one, but they weren't the first: http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/11/13/livesight-immersiv...

The 'new' part of Google Glass is likely to be 'being on your face most of the day'.

Sure. But that isn't really a significant development in AR technology. The Oculus Rift certainly won't be worn all the time.

I would argue that it is. I have AR apps on my phone which I never use because the startup requirements (pull phone out, turn on, unlock, start app, wait for GPS and fiddle about a bit with inaccurate accelerometer) are too high.

Reducing that requirement by having it on your face is a fantastic first step. We have no idea whether the next Glass iteration will be stereoscopic, or cover your field of vision or what. It's that market preparation I am excited to see.

>The Oculus Rift certainly won't be worn all the time.

Of course not, but "always on" is not a very useful feature for VR. It's an incredibly useful feature for AR. Oculus Rift is not a good candidate in any way for an AR platform, since camera pass through to VR is not an acceptable replacement for seeing the world with your actual eyes.

Exactly, and that's the reason it's a significant step.

Right now your phone is as much AR as the google glass. Now if Google starts letting us use the camera for face recognition we could see some proto AR stuff.

As someone with terrible face recognition ability, I was really disappointed Google disallowed the feature. Such a device could vastly improve my life. I hope there's some open alternative to Google glass soon.

Nintendo 3DS actually has basic demonstrations of AR as well. They use cards with images on it that can be replaced in real-time by simulated 3-D objects using the 3DS camera.

For one vision of an augmented reality (AR) future, see this music video (no need for sound if you don't like it):

The Toxic Avenger feat. Orelsan - N'importe Comment (French hip hop/electronic/dance) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEolW1x9O3k

Augmented Reality (AR) vs Virtual Reality (VR).

Augmented Reality.

Hah, perhaps he would, at that--as I recall, it took a long time to finally cajole him over.

> and if they end up picking Mike Abrash I'll be unsurprised.

Abrash is working at Valve on AR &VR, I'd say that's unlikely though not impossible.

Yep. Something is right in the world. The future is suddenly looking really good.

We're going to mass commerialize VR just in time to hide from the reality of the consequences of our police state. /s

John 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

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.

He's not leaving id. A recent tweet:

"My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!" https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/365126783290445824

The 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).

The 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...

Dungeon Segway Challenge sounds like it could become a "viral" hit just like QWOP and similar nonsense. Might be worth pursing if only for the publicity. Make videos of people falling over when you secretly slowly adjust the floor angle while they are leaning forward to drive. "You thought people on Segways looked silly but have you seen these nerd-goggled freaks on wii boards?"

Oh, believe me, we're pursuing it. I'm slightly distracted right now by the RiftJam (Oculus Rift gamejam), which doesn't allow external input devices like this, but in the long term, I Have A Plan...

Put a gun, sword into the hands of the player. Just think of the Neal Stephenson kickstarter with Rift VR.

That's waaaaaaaaay harder than it looks.

The big problem with swords in VR is physical feedback. If I strike at you with a saber, the saber will stop moving, sooner or later - either because you parry, or because the resistance of your bones and muscle eventually slows the thing down. Either way, it's a key component of a realistic swordfight.

And it's bloody difficult to do in VR. You're not just talking about force feedback, you're talking about enough force to stop a 3 foot long piece of metal being swung with intent by a 200lb man, with the same speed and solidity of collision with another piece of metal - without interfering with the movement of that metal at any other time, risking injuring the person moving the metal, or generally screwing up.

Guns, on the other hand, are much more doable.

Not a solution, but an alternative to stopping your hand: http://tacticalhaptics.com/

I've tried this a couple of times at the local VR meetups. It's hard to describe, but it works better than you'd think.

I very much want to try Tactical Haptics' stuff. Wonder if they'll be in Scotland any time soon?

Can you use gyroscopes to provide resistive force. Keep a heavy one running at low speed in the sword in a gimble. when you are about to hit something predictively rotate it to the correct orientation and accelerate it to high speed. Not totally sure this would work but if there is anything that can provide counteracting force without physical contact, a gyroscope is it.

You don't even have to make a heavy sword, the gyroscope itself could simulate the force required to overcome the momentum of a heavy broadsword.

Most swords aren't actually all that heavy - at least not ones designed for combat. My backsword feels about as light in the hand as a walking stick.

Good idea - I shall store that one away for future reference...

You'd have to apply a couple hundred newton metres of torque, which would probably require a 50kg gyroscope, (expensive, heavy!) and if you want it to be at all compact you'd have to make the reaction wheel out of tungsten. (even more expensive!)

This is what VRcade[1] is doing, but not for consumers since it costs too much. I've played their demo and it's very immersive.

[1]: http://www.vrcade.com/

I'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

Thanks for this; I look forward to giving it a go tonight!

While the control schemes can be a little jarring, I've not had a major issue with them. For me, it's games that have you accelerate at an incredible pace -- I tried playing HL2 Episode 1, for instance, and have found that to be the most jarring/motion-sickness inducing experience so far.

So much so that I went out and got a Razer Hydra to give myself manual control of the acceleration (well, this was a convenient excuse, anyway!).

I've had the chance to try an oculus dev kit at work and it is VERY impressive. It's so immersive that the only problem I can see with it are with people who suffer from motion sickness. I can also see pixels if I pay attention but that should be fixed in the 1080p version.

If you don't want to do any dev on it, I recommend you wait until there is a killer app that comes out to get one (so far there's half life 2, portal, etc.). By that time, the 1080p version will probably be out.

I plan to do some dev so I will be ordering one for personal use soon. It's some really awesome tech.

I seem to recall the US Air Force did a study that indicated that 20% of their pilots suffered from motion sickness, and that the level in the general population is higher... has anything changed, that would let the Rift have higher acceptance than the old VR stuff from the 90s?

Wow, 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.

I 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.

As 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.

As 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=oXaxVLNMIxU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zaYrd0LvI

http://vimeo.com/64769947 NSFW

Something like Half Life or Assassin's Creed basically works for (2). No real cutscenes, playable from a first-person POV, biiiig game worlds.

Oh 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!

I'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.)

> You can't use mouse/keyboard well if you can't see the mouse/keyboard.

Uh, what? Even if you don't touch-type, you shouldn't need to look at the keyboard and mouse to play a game. All the keys you need should be under your fingers or in easy reach, and a mouse especially should be easy to use without watching your hand and fingers.

I do agree with your comments about HUDs; VR games lose a lot of immersion if you have UI elements present (unless your character is supposed to have a HUD in-game). However, many games do fix that, by eliminating the HUD entirely.

Sure, but the instant you take your hands off the keys (or the mouse), you're groping and flailing wildly to find them again.

I didn't think it'd be an issue until I got my Rift, and it turned out it was :). I'm sure there'll eventually be a clever solution though.

Sounds like Rift needs a reverse version of Google Glasses inside of it! A camera on the front would show a small screen of what's in front of you IRL.

Try Minecraft with the mouse and keyboard, and the HUD off.

It's a spectacularly immersive experience with the Rift - the first "holy shit, I totally lost track of time there" experience I've had with the technology.

What makes you think Oculus are convinced they're ready for the mass market? They haven't even mentioned a vague release date and are still openly iterating and researching hardware and software ...

You can't use mouse/keyboard well if you can't see the mouse/keyboard.

I can't imagine being able to properly play PC games while also having to constantly look at your mouse/keyboard.

I can touchtype, so I don't need to see my hands or the keyboard. But when I play a game, I never ever ever look at my hands - my eyes are clearly glued to the screen. I know this is definitely the case when I play games on my laptop but with an external screen that is to the side of the laptop because I sit in a way that I look right at the screen and to see the keyboard would mean I'd have to look to the side. In many fast paced game (FPS, MOBA etc) glancing at the keyboard means death...

I can touchtype with my WASD hand, but not with my right hand.

The Razer Hydra is a great game controller for the Oculus Rift. An outstanding example of its usage can be seen in "The Gallery: Six Elements", which is currently under development and will take full advantage of the Rift used in conjunction with Hydra: https://www.thegallerygame.com/

> 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.

I haven't used an Oculus, but just thinking about it I suspect the solution is going to be to locate HUD elements in world space locked to the player's position.

That's what I've done to date in First Law and it works well - as I continue to need more traditional configuration/UI stuff I am finding it a bit of a struggle though. Like right now I'm trying to create a controller/flight stick configuration screen and the number of choices continue to expand. Lots of work to figure out what works well for complicated UI structures.

Awesome work on First Law, btw. Very much enjoyed the demo, and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

I'll probably be recommending it on http://www.oculusriftinfo.com tomorrow.

(For anyone else looking for Rift demos - First Law is a really excellent demonstration of the power of the Rift for cockpit-based games. )

Thanks! After getting slammed by my day job for a couple of months I'm hard at work on the next build -- been posting screens/videos over at my website http://rjevans.net if you haven't seen them already :)

That's what CCP did with the EVE-VR demo, and it makes sense in the context of a flight sim. It'll be interesting to see what developers come up with for FPSes.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/eve-vr-an-expe...

"Wrist-watches" with bullet and health readouts. Just look down at any point in the game and your virtual arm will come up, showing everything that you need to know on the back of it.

Well, hopefully not for health or ammo. The whole point of a heads up display is so that you can literally keep your head up. A "look down for info" mechanic might be neat for stats you'd normally put on a pause screen or things like your inventory, though.

For health it might not be best, but I think for ammo it would work well. I mean, in the real world you don't even get a HUD for ammo, unless you're in an airplane or tank I suppose. A HUD for health is necessary just because the game isn't real life, but the ammo HUD is just a convenience; you can be more creative with it.

Maybe gun models that give a visual indication of remaining ammo will become more popular.

Perhaps adding blur/color saturation filters to your entire field of view might take off as a primary indication of remaining health.

Amusing to consider due to the viewport, but virtual Glass-type goggles with HUD, rendered within the OR.

Otherwise, yes, watch, checking gun magazine or condition of a blade, or a PDA/map - gaming is going to take a monstrous step up.

Not to mention immersive story-telling as a new way of presenting films.

Yup, that's what Minecraft VR did - and it works well.

I had no trouble using the mouse+kb with the rift. Also, the Razer Hydra seems to be the controller people are converging on. I believe Carmack will have a huge impact on getting other developers to adopt the Oculus VR tech. It's one thing for Palmer Luckey to get the support of Valve, Carmack, and others, but it's a whole different world when Carmack can spend his productive time improving the product, getting other developers to adopt it, and bringing it to market.

I agree with you, but what I found really encouraging was how apparently easy it is to get your 3D game working on the Oculus. I play iRacing.com, and they released official support for the Oculus in their shipped product less than a month after receiving their devkit. That kind of turnaround is really impressive to me. I'm really excited to see what Oculus decides to release as their final product.

A better UI would be something like the Hydra. There was a cool hack where someone used one Hydra controller to track the user's body while the other was used as a gun: http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4595062/new-oculus-rift-cov...

It may be noted that one of my medium-term projects is a Rift word processor.

RenderToTexture and a webcam pointing at the keyboard is a lofi but possible way of solving the "can't see the keyboard" problem.

Leap Motion?

Razer'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.

Omni would be even better.

Omni is smell-o-vision. Neat, but a bit too gimmicky.

Agreed. 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.

This 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?".)

I 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.

Not so much genius as just an absurdly hardcore work-ethic, and a refusal to ship code that is sloppy where it would matter.

Well 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.

This stands in stark contrast to the "other John" from iD (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.

Masters 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.

It is one of the few titles that hits the sweet spot of things like Pirates of Silicon Valley or The Social Network. It tells a gripping story of a successful underdog in tech that is accessible and entertaining. Kushner did a great job, though I wonder how much artistic license he took with the D&D campaign stuff.

I would say Masters of Doom is one of the best startup related books anywhere. A team of incredibly passionate people that just wanted to make awesome shit and focused on that. Very inspiring.

I read the book last night. Pretty cosmic to wake up to this news the next morning. Earth shattering.

So did I, glad I understand how significant this news is for Oculus.

I 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.

Alternative URL: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-s...

Also seems to be confirmed he's leaving id: http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/oculus-rift-john-carmack-...

From 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.

“My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!” ~ @ID_AA_Carmack https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/365126783290445824

Don't make assumptions. He could still work at Id as a consultant or continue as a technical director with a diminished role.

EDIT: He still works at Id http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/16593/article/john-carmac...

Good to hear. I hope they will finish id Tech 6 some day. I've been sold on sparse voxel octrees since I first heard about them, and I think the super-scalable level of detail would be great for VR as well.

I think in his keynote or graphics talk this year he mentioned that he didn't think that was the way forward anymore.

Don't quote me on that though because a lot of those talks did go over my head.

They'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.

Carmack 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.

I remember reading his .plan files in the 90s; the amount of work he would do in a single day was utterly insane.

Lately it seems like this work has been more pre-engine research and crunch time follow-up, so I can't say I'm too worried for id.

He has made it pretty clear over the last few years that there really isn't a lot for him to do there, at least on interesting stuff. Writing rendering engines has become more incremental than revolutionary and I get the feeling that, for him, stuff like mega texture was about as interesting as writing a new zip program.

It's worth remembering that John also did Armadillo Aerospace on the side too.

he'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.

This 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.

"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-cov... (The original forum is down right now)

We've had one at our house for a few days now--even the relatively rough devkit delivers on the promise, in spades. The only thing it needs to is to be completely USB powered (probably not possible given the power envelope, or at least have a way of powering it from a battery pack for portability reasons).

People using it (we had a party recently, showed it off) do feel disorientation, mostly due to a lack of seeing where there real body is. Our hope is to integrate the point cloud from a kinect to help with that.

Oh, also, after a few drinks the impedance mismatch between what you're seeing and what you're doing is imperceptible. :)

Actually, someone modified the Rift to run exclusively off of USB with little effort. Google around for it.

Right, right, you can tie a second USB together and rig up something like they do with some external drives. It'd be nice if the next devkits shipped with something like that.

Should not be that hard given the expanding power rating in the USB 3.0 specification.

I 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.

It 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.

Actually, 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.

The 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.

For 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

Lots of cool stuff happening.

This 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.

Honestly, 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. :)

I guess they could do some virtual reality meetings.

haha, good one!

What 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.

I 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.

Yeah 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.

Carmack 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.

Can you imagine Q3 CTF but in VR? That thought alone makes me fear for my future productivity.

Nothing beats that moment when, late in the evening, you hear someone shout "GET THE FLAG!!!" across an open plan office.

What's your guess on how much equity they had to give him? I would have been inclined to be generous.

I 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..

I 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.

He's already an investor with a considerable equity stake.

as much as he wants.

Is 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.

read Infinite Jest by DFW. or watch the TNG episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Pursuits

Infinite Jest sounds interesting - I've put it on my To Read list. Thanks!

Two 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.

The 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.

Looks like the http://www.oculusvr.com/careers/ is offline. It seems a lot of people want to work with John.

Of course they would... smart people tend to want to be around people smarter than they are.

Shit just got real.

Wait, is he leaving id? Didn't see that clarified in the article.

He 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.

He 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.

Splitting 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.

Armadillo is in "hibernation mode", nothing is really going on there at the moment.

He 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-ca...

Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww....

Looks like his first job as CTO should be to fix the website's scalability ;)

Hoping Oculus and EMOTIV Insight (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.

If 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.

When 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!"

When 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.

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!

Wow. 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.

Maybe 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…

This 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.

I only hope that his work at Oculus will benefit id software. I really want them to produce more successful games.

I own an Oculus and even before I read this I knew it was the next big step in gaming, now it is beyond question.

Oculus 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

Wow - now I'm _really_ interested in the Oculus and it's potential.

As a big 3D and VR fan, this is the best news I have heard in a long time!

Incredible! Virtual reality just got that much more serious.

First 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.

If 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+oculu...

Ready Player One! - If you haven't read this, I highly recommend it.

Maybe he can start by helping with their website database...

web programming is not the entirety of programming. They're making virtual reality actually happen, and you're effectively complaining that a poster fell down.

Mea culpa. I was just trying to make a joke.

Wow, talk about a hiring coup. Bravo!

holy shit!

Omg omg omg, lovin' it.

Error establishing a database connection

Saddens 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.

> "VR headsets are just not going to catch on."

There are a lot of very smart people who seem to disagree with you.

They'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.

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

Technology tends to get miniaturized over time.

And 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.

And you look so cool playing video games right now? Come on, that was never the point.

Even so, the experience of having a reasonable-resolution virtual world all around you is viscerally awesome. And when I use that word, I literally mean that it causes awe.

Sounds like someone who has yet to try the Oculus Rift, lol.

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