This year’s CES saw the Oculus Rift project chasing after some new ideas, with more detailed head and motion tracking, courtesy of a polka dot array of little infrared LEDs being tracked by a stationary camera.
Labelled as the Crystal Cove prototype, it combined this decidedly PS Move-like style of tracking with a higher resolution OLED screen and greatly reduced latency. This makes it a much more advanced prototype than the one that developers have been using, and even than the one I used at Eurogamer Expo.
But part of the driving force behind these improvements was actually the hardware team at Valve, who have been rumoured to be working on their own VR tech for a couple of years now. Recognising the momentum of Oculus’ work, they’ve decided to back them rather than to release a competing device, as Valve’s Michael Abrash explained during a presentation at the first Steam Dev Days.
Of course, there’s still a lot of work still to be done, and Oculus’ prototypes are still a long, long way from being in a marketable form. Abrash also stated the need to continue to iterate and improve upon head tracking, further increase the resolution of the screens (up to 100x), drop the latency down even closer to zero, ditch the cable, and find some solutions to haptic feedback and control input. However, a marketable device for 2015 might not necessarily reach this ideal.
With more and more people getting involved with this, VR technology is progressing at a rapid rate. John Carmack joining the team will have had some effect on the software side of things, and Oculus have also just released a 39-page guidebook to creating VR games for their device which don’t make players suffer from motion sickness. Simple guidelines like having a 3D body for the player to be able to look down and see, having a rock steady frame rate, minimising the effects of aliasing and dealing with camera control.
This is still all a long way off in the future for most people, but if you have a VR headset of your own, you can always try out Steam’s VR interface which was added to a Steam beta in the last few days.
Sources: Engadget (1, 2, 3), Ars Technica (1, 2), Steam. Images collated at SteamDB from @DaveOshry and @DaFox.
bunimomike
I assume the 39-page guide book is simply one page with:
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Make it work but without the silly fu**ing headset.
Repeated 39 times.
Stefan L
I don’t think you actually live in reality. Everyone would love a holodeck, I’m sure, but the tech we have at our disposal is decades away from that.
Plonker.
bunimomike
Ah, but the very REAL reality is that people don’t want headsets. Research has constantly shown that people don’t want 3D glasses let alone full-on headsets. :-)
Don’t get me wrong, I love to see technology striving to better itself. Sadly, there are times when we see things that simply won’t be accepted by consumers at large. Hell, 90% of CES shows us that.
However, my initial post was a bit of pokey-pokey fun. To be honest, if you’re this serious I don’t want to play Saints Row IV with you this weekend.
*pulls hissy fit* :-P
ron_mcphatty
I’d love a holodeck! But I’d settle for something more like ski goggles. Mike, you’ll need to fork out for oculus implants, which sound intrusive at first but then think of all the sheep on cliffs screensavers you could secretly enjoy…
baggyg
VR debate: part 2….
Is having a headset really that much better from having a huge black room with orange lines everywhere? How are you going to justify that to the missus?
I challenge you to try the Consumer version when it comes out with EVE: Valkrie and not be blown away. I have a dev kit. Its far from perfect but an amazing experience. The last thing on my mind is how I look.
bunimomike
My mate has a VR headset and also the original kickstarter Rift that went out to investors. He knows it’s not going to catch on like wild fire and I’m not even interested in going over to try it out. However, that doesn’t stop it being wonderful or full of promise. It’s just that there’s a gulf of difference between something being awesome and something selling well.
baggyg
A fair point. Apart from the enthusiasm from indies / early adopters / investment in Oculus there is not much to say this will sell anywhere near the millions. However I just don’t think the difference between selling well and being awesome is whether it is in headset form or not.
The challenge is bringing it to the non-PC crowd who sit on a couch rather than a work station and just like to turn on and play. Talk of latency and 60fps etc will just be a distraction. Needs to just work out of the box.
bunimomike
An even bigger hurdle, fella. Not just people who game on PC but console gamers too. Yep… this is tricky.
Not that we’re there yet but fascinating to see Google creating the contact lens that measures sugar levels in the liquid that coats the eye. Staggering stuff. We’ll get “there” with the whole VR thing… one day. It’ll be interesting to see what finally tips the consumer balance too.
Anyway, I’m off to game… 2D style-ee!
Severn2j
@baggyg, I don’t think they need to appeal a non-pc crowd, 65 million steam users is a pretty big market on its own and the consoles are a closed environment anyway. Any console based VR system is going to be made by Sony and Microsoft, not a third party like Occulus.
However, I’m sure both parties are watching OR closely to see how it takes off. Personally, I think it’s going to be a huge hit, I can’t wait for the consumer version, coupled with Elite: Dangerous it’s looking like a great time to be a PC gamer.
XIII_WarMachine
I don’t know how I feel about this…I don’t like change!!
boeboe
I anticipate the Oculus vs Sony VR by digital foundry. Yet more disappointment for those comparing PC’s and next-gen consoles.