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Comment by jasonwatkinspdx | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

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