Hardware

[mothmanspirit]

I've been reading a lot about head-mounted displays lately. I haven't had the chance to actually try one, but I plan on doing so as soon as possible.

The best one as of now seems to be the Sony HMZ-T1. It sounds like a pretty perfect setup for the 360 and PS3. The OLED screens are supposed to have color nearly as good as a CRT's. It also supports 3D, though I'm not sure how many games support that, and at any rate, for console games, you'd have to sacrifice special effects, anti-aliasing, etc., to get 3D. 1280 x 720 resolution.

For PC games, though, this other one, Oculus Rift sounds better. It's still in development. It's going to have a higher resolution, and people are saying it has VERY good head-tracking, which the HMZ-T1 doesn't have at all. There are a lot of cool guys like John Carmack and Clifford Blezinski saying that it's truly amazing technology.

[Somali Pirate]

Some cool videos on the Oculus Rift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJo12Hz_BVI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCB19lzAXS8 (he puts it on at 21 minutes)

[infernovia]

I am really excited about the Rift, I hope more companies follow suit.

Mike Abrash has a pretty great blog on virtual reality and augmented reality. These are some of the best articles I could find on the subject of head-mounted displays, and they detail what technical specs will be needed for a fully immersive experience.

On Resolution:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/w ... -relative/

Another way to think about resolution, however, is relative to the field of view the pixels are spread across. The total number of pixels matters, of course, but the density of the pixels matters as well, and it’s here that VR faces some unique issues. Let’s run some numbers on that.

My very first game ran on a monitor that I’d estimate to have a horizontal field of view of maybe 15 degrees at a normal viewing distance. At 160×72, that’s about 11 pixels per horizontal degree.

A 30” monitor at 2560×1600 has about a 50-degree field of view at a normal viewing distance. That’s roughly 50 pixels per horizontal degree, and approximately the same is true of a 20” monitor at 1600×1200.

The first consumer VR head-mounted displays should have fields of view that are no less than a 90 degrees, and I’d hope for more, because field of view is key to a truly immersive experience. At 960×1080 resolution, that yields slightly less than 11 pixels per horizontal degree – the same horizontal pixel density as the CP/M machine I wrote my first game for in 1980, and barely one-fifth of the horizontal pixel density we routinely use now.

And that’s only the horizontal pixel density. The vertical pixel density is the same, and in combination they mean that a first-generation consumer head-mounted display will have about one-twentieth of the two-dimensional pixel density of a desktop monitor. As another way to understand just how low a wide field of view drives pixel density, consider that the iPhone 5 is 640×1136 – two-thirds as many pixels as the upcoming head-mounted displays, packed into a vastly smaller field of view; at a normal viewing distance, I’d estimate the iPhone has roughly 100 pixels per degree, so overall pixel density could be close to one-hundred times that of upcoming VR head-mounted displays.

Given which, the obvious question is: how high does VR resolution need to go before it’s good enough? I don’t know what would be ideal, but getting to parity with monitors in terms of pixel density seems like a reasonable target. Given a 90-degree field of view in both directions, 4K-by-4K resolution would be close to achieving that, and 8K-by-8K would exceed it.

Note that the research displayed in this presentation by Tim Sweeney says that 4K-by 4K resolution for each eye is about the limit of what it can perceive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiQweemn2_A

On Latency:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/l ... ar-and-vr/

How much latency is too much? Less than you might think. For reference, games generally have latency from mouse movement to screen update of 50 ms or higher (sometimes much higher), although I’ve seen numbers as low as about 30 ms for graphically simple games running with tearing (that is, with vsync off). In contrast, I can tell you from personal experience that more than 20 ms is too much for VR and especially AR, but research indicates that 15 ms might be the threshold, or even 7 ms.

AR/VR is so much more latency-sensitive than normal games because, as described above, they’re expected to stay stable with respect to the real world as you move, while with normal games, your eye and brain know they’re looking at a picture. With AR/VR, all the processing power that originally served to detect anomalies that might indicate the approach of a predator or the availability of prey is brought to bear on bringing virtual images that are wrong by more than a tiny bit to your attention. That includes images that shift when you move, rather than staying where they’re supposed to be – and that’s exactly the effect that latency has.

[icycalm]

and they detail what technical specs will be needed for a fully immersive experience.

You really think that a mere headset could ever provide a "fully immersive" experience? After all you've read on this site?

Don't tell me that that's not what you meant. No one here gives a fuck what you meant -- we are not mind readers. We only care about what you said, and if what you said was stupid, we are going to naturally assume that that's what you are. So try to say what you mean and not some other third thing, please.

[infernovia]

First, I would like to clarify a mistake I made in quoting Tim Sweeney, he actually says that 8k-by-4k is the optimal resolution to be "good enough" to fool the human eye at 90 degrees field of view. So if you had one screen for each eye, you would be rendering 16000x4000 pixels, although he never mentions that you would have more than one screen.

You really think that a mere headset could ever provide a "fully immersive" experience?

Sorry, you are right. A headset alone will not be fully immersive. I should have said that these recommended specs would be good enough to visually immerse the player in the gameworld without perceived latency or resolution issues.

[icycalm]

To "visually immerse the player in the gameworld"? Who talks like that? And the resolution has very little to do with "visually immersing" anyone in anything. I've already explained that. You can render Pong at any resolution you want and it'll still look like shit.

Speak like a human being for christsake.

[icycalm]

"Yo check this out! I got a new 70 inch LCD screen that will help me visually immerse myself inside the gameworld!"

"Wat up G. These cool new cans will greatly help aurally immerse me inside the gameworld!"

[alastair]

Oculus VR @ GDC 2013: Virtual Reality - The Holy Grail of Gaming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29QdErw-7c4

Q&A with Palmer Luckey:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRdRc8CcGY

[El Chaos]

Here is Digital Foundry's hands-on with the Rift: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... culus-rift

[icycalm]

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/one ... improving/

One year later, Oculus Rift goes HD and prepares for release

There’s really only one way to accurately convey in text the experience of using an Oculus Rift: look around. Oculus VR’s virtual reality headset has come a significant distance since id Software’s John Carmack showed off a janky, stitched-together prototype behind closed doors at E3 2012. The tech went to Kickstarter, got funded by the crowd, shipped out to backers, and whipped the development world into a frenzy of excitement.

We sat down with the Oculus VR team at E3 2013 for a peek at how things are coming along, and were greeted with a surprise: a 1080p version of the devkit. There’s no plan – for now – to actually sell this model in the pre-consumer release period; it exists purely to prove that Oculus Rift can deliver HD visuals well.

The session started off with a look at the Unreal Engine 4 “Elemental” demo through the standard 720p devkit. Remember: even though 720p is technically HD, it’s split on the Rift between two lenses, so you’re essentially viewing everything at half resolution. The jump to 1080p is a huge improvement, as we soon learned.

With the demo concluded on the standard devkit, we switched over to “Elemental” on the HD model.

Wow.

This is a significant improvement, and it’s the target for the eventual consumer release. The quality is still less than what you’d see at the same resolution on an HDTV, and there’s a noticeable blurring effect when you move your head quickly, but the upgraded kit is still a prototype. What’s more, any VR headset – even the eventual consumer model – requires user-specific calibration for optimal performance, and the Oculus booth demos just didn’t afford any time for such a setup.

With “Elemental” finished, we moved on to VR Cinema, a fan-created app built on the standard devkit that also works with the HD one. VR Cinema is essentially a video player, only it drops you into a physical space that resembles a movie theater. You can sit in any seat that you like, watch reflected light play off the floor, adjust the size of the screen as you like, and even turn completely around to check out the projector against the back wall. The goal for a more polished version of this app would allow for a sort of social “multiplayer” setup in which you share the theater with connected friends.

Getting the headset running at an HD resolution is a big step forward for Oculus VR, and it’s just the beginning of what’s planned. The headset is viewed internally as a platform unto itself; now that the presentation is close to being nailed down, the team is working at coming up with cracking the problem of VR input. For now, most users are pairing the Rift with gamepads and mouse/keyboards, though some are also taking advantage of more unique control options, such as Razer’s Hydra.

All of this is part of the long-term planning. While it would be great if the input problem could be solved prior to the consumer launch, more realistic thinking sees a dedicated control scheme added to v2.0 or even v3.0 of the Rift. Much of this also depends on continued support from the development community. If more studios start building headset-only as CCP Games has with EVE VR, supply chains will have to be stepped up to accommodate the demand.

The fact remains: Oculus Rift is in a considerably stronger place than it was just one year ago when it debuted behind closed doors as a noteworthy gimmick. It continues to establish a presence as a serious contender in the gaming hardware space; we can only speculate at what the coming year’s advances might bring, but it’s hard not to put that thing on your head and feel like you’re touching upon the future of interactive entertainment.

[icycalm]

https://www.oculusvr.com/order/

oculus-development-kit.png (99.07 KiB) Viewed 39711 times

Order the Oculus Rift development kit and access to the Oculus SDK.

New orders are expected to ship November 2013.

Oculus Development Kit - 300.00 USD

I am thinking of ordering one. I wanted to wait for the HD version, but since there haven't been any news on it I might just go for the original now. But apparently there's a waiting list and some people who ordered for the August batch were hoping to get it from the October batch, and so on. If there are delays I'll be in trouble because I leave in December for France.

[infernovia]

Avegant's Virtual Retina Display:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/09/aveg ... lp00000601
http://reviews.cnet.com/wearable-tech/a ... ?ttag=fbwp

Tim_viewerdemo05_610x407.jpg (28.99 KiB) Viewed 39684 times

The most interesting aspect about this HMD is that it is using reflected light instead of a LCD, apparently it's much easier on the eyes so you can use it for a longer period of time. Ed Tang, the CEO of Avegant, mentions that they can get a high refresh rate (up to 240hz) and that the image looks more natural as well.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they are interested in competing with Oculus so the FOV will probably be similar to the HMZ-T1 and I don't know if it will come with headtracking. The lower FOV would explain why the perceived image quality is better than the Oculus HD Prototype, it's magnified to a lesser degree.

[infernovia]

Additional information about Virtual Retina Display by Doc-OK, a developer who has worked with many Virtual Reality systems:

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments ... ay/ccogggh

This is interesting for two reasons.

Micromirror displays (call them DLP or something else, doesn't matter) have extremely fast pixel switch times on the order of microseconds. Meaning there's no motion blur like on the Rift's LCD screens. I think micromirrors are even faster than OLED, but at that point the difference is probably irrelevant.

Second, pixel shape. In LCDs, each pixel is a small square with a black border around it, where the square is actually three (red, green, blue) thin rectangles next to each other. This leads to the screen door effect that we all so love. DLP pixels are also square, but they can be packed tighter, leading to less screen door, and the colors are projected sequentially, so each color goes onto the full square. Seen up close, a micromirror display would appear to have higher resolution than an LCD with the same number of pixels. It doesn't really, but the illusion is there. Compare an LCD and a DLP projector side-by-side, the difference is obvious. It is also possible to ever so slightly blur a DLP projector, so that adjacent pixels blow out and fill the remaining gap.

OLEDs have basically the same properties, but don't require mirrors and a separate light source, as each pixel is its own light source, so they might be lighter and more compact. Which technology is better in practice only side-by-side comparisons between actual products will tell.

[El Chaos]

Oculus working on 4K Rift headset: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... ft-headset

[icycalm]

Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey told PCGamer earlier this year that the company expected to double the resolution of the Rift displays within a year.

Would be nice to see the final thing some time before I die of old age.

I am starting to see how people feel about the way I am handling my book releases...

[icycalm]

The HD dev kit is finally coming!

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/18/ocul ... interview/

Oculus Rift's new Chief Technology Officer John Carmack says a new Oculus Rift dev kit is in the works and will arrive in developers' hands before the retail unit ships some time next year.

"But we expect that the next developer kit will have higher resolution and position tracking addressing some of these significant issues."

"Some time next year" may be too long for me though. I might end up buying both dev kits. And then the retail unit lol.

[icycalm]

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/v ... =26&t=4927

Play the OCULUS RIFT WAITING GAME!

The looong wait is hard, sure. But instead of throwing tantrums or threatening the moderators I thought it'd be more fun to come up with ways to prepare for your Rift's arrival.

So, how can we pass the weeks? How can we begin to acclimatize our body and mind for the brave new world of SDE and VR? I'm thinking...

1) Read a bajillion OR reviews of a product you've already paid for.

2) Strap an exercise weight to the front of your head and spend 30 minutes every day nodding like a bobblehead doll.

3) Play 90's FPS games and tell yourself the graphics are awesome.

4) Wear a fencing mask everywhere.

5) Click back to your order status page every hour, and wonder why Oculus isn't getting rich by putting pay-per-view ads on it.

6) Begin to evaluate Steam deals solely on the words "Oculus Compatible".

7) Lie on a table with your head sticking over the edge, look down and tell yourself you have no body.

8) Every night tell your kids "Christmas is tomorrow!" and every morning tell them "Ha! Psyche!"

9) Tape your phone to a scuba mask and watch rift videos.

10) Every morning eat 10 greasy eggs and then go out on a deep ocean fishing trawler.

11) Install a deadbolt lock on your home office door.

12) Wander around your local park at night, alone with a small flashlight. When its transient residents beat the crap out of you, laugh and say "This is NOTHING!"

13) Ride the nearest roller coaster.
For 20 minutes.
Without a harness.
Standing up.

14) Stare at the nearest chair and say "Whoa, that's AWESOME. It's, like, RIGHT THERE".

15) Go to the optometrist just to get an accurate IPD.

16) Swipe your baby's jolly jumper and attempt to enlarge the harness.

17) Walk into people's screen doors, commenting that you didn't notice it was there.

Keep it going! What are your ideas?

[icycalm]

So I ordered it. Next shipment is supposed to be coming in December, so we'll see. This is what I was asked to pay for delivery to Spain:

Subtotal: $ 300.00
Shipping: $ 45.00
Fees, Duties & Taxes: $ 72.45
Amount Due: $ 417.45

So they are doing the same thing with Amazon US and charging you for European taxes in advance. I hope the locals won't ask me for more, though I wouldn't put it past them.

[Tain]

First look at the new Rift prototype:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/01/oculus-rift

1080p, lower motion latency, positional tracking, and a low persistence mode to reduce motion blur.

Every time virtual-reality company Oculus brings a prototype of its Rift headset to a show, it takes another big step forward. And the prototype at this year’s CES may be the biggest leap yet.

Last January, Oculus arrived at its first CES with a degree of uncertainty. It hadn’t yet released the developer-only Rift headset it Kickstarted in the previous fall. In fact, few outside the company had even seen it. Programmer John Carmack had brought an early prototype to videogame show E3 that summer, but since then there’d been radio silence as Oculus’ bare-bones staff worked heads-down on the developer unit. Last year’s CES was in many ways Oculus’ coming-out party. As it turned out, plenty of people attended: the Rift snagged “Best of CES” awards from everyone and their mother (including WIRED, though our mothers weren’t involved in the voting).

Since then, Oculus has continually improved and refined the Rift en route to a consumer release later this year. The display has been kicked up to 1080p; the form factor has become sleeker. Perhaps most importantly for adoption, potential latency has been greatly reduced, alleviating much of the “simulator sickness” that can accompany wearing VR headsets. And now, with another CES upon us, others are getting in on the act; Sony announced a new head-mounted display for movie viewing and games. It should be noted, though, that this is unlikely to be a direct competitor to the Rift — Sony’s unit gives wearers a 45-degree field of vision, compared to the Rift’s staggering 110 degrees.

Oculus unveiled even more this morning. There’s a new demo, courtesy of Epic Games. There’s a new AMOLED screen. There’s low persistence, a display technology that mitigates motion blur and “smearing,” both of which can contribute to user discomfort. For the first time, Rift is capable of positional tracking, which allows users to lean and move within the game environment by simply moving their head. And there’s a new prototype — known as “Crystal Cove” — that incorporates it all, getting latency down to around 30 milliseconds (on its way to the sub-20 threshold that Oculus considers the holy grail).

The new demo is visually similar to a previous demo that Oculus used throughout 2013 to show off the Rift’s immersive 360-degree playspace. Both were designed by Epic Games, and both occur within the universe of “Elemental,” Epic’s Unreal 4 game engine demo. The new demo places the user inside the same stone cave, facing the same horned lava-god/monster being as in the previous demo (bear with us here). This time, users play a top-down tower-defense scenario while the horned lava-god/monster guy watches. Like the two previous demos, the visual effects are plentiful.

Unlike the two previous demos, however, it monitors the user’s head movements in real space, and it’s able to translate those movements into not just orientation changes — looking up, down, or behind you — but also as actual motion, which previously was possible only by using a game controller in conjunction with the Rift. It utilizes an “outside-in” system: an externally mounted camera tracks small LED lights on the prototype’s faceplate, adding three “degrees of freedom” (forward/backward, left/right, and up/down) to the Rift’s tracking ability. Up until now, developers and early Oculus adopters have only been able to accomplish this by taping a Razer Hydra motion controller to the side of their Rift headsets. Now, though, leaning down while playing the demo brings you closer to the tower-defense game, and lets you watch the armies you control firing turrets and launching minions. It’s the first look at an untethered VR experience.

“We’ll need some seat belts for people,” says Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe. “You want to stand up, you want to walk around.”

The demo also highlights the display’s low persistence. In previous prototypes, turning your head quickly caused your surroundings to blur, an effect caused by the device registering new movement before the frame had a chance to update. Iribe describes it as “the wrong image being stuck to your face.” That’s effectively gone now.

“In the past,” Iribe says, “people would have to stop moving to stare at something. With low persistence, you can continue to stare at an object or read text while you’re moving your head.”

A second demo allows users to play EVE: Valkyrie, a space dogfighting game that’s part of the EVE: Online universe. Oculus brought the demo to E3 last year on its non-HD prototypes, but the company has updated it with the new feature set and the 1080p screen.

Of course, Oculus being Oculus, how the Crystal Cove prototype accomplishes low persistence and 6-DOF tracking are subject to change.

“This is just a feature prototype,” Iribe says. “It’s not at all representative of the final consumer look and feel. Once we feel like something is good enough and we’re confident we’ll be able to ship it with the consumer product, we feel good about announcing it. We still may change how it’s done, but we feel great about the positional tracking system. It’s been a year in the works, we’ve tried multiple different approaches, and this delivered the experience we were looking for.”

Even the display is subject to change. That’s why Oculus won’t even cop to the vendor it’s using for the screen. “We first showed HD without committing to what exactly it would be,” Iribe says. “It’s at least going to be 1080p, but we don’t know what screen we’re going to use, what size. We didn’t even know the resolution.”

Someday, all of those questions will be answered. Until then, there’s CES.

[icycalm]

Well, I received my Rift finally, for an extra 38.74 euros in taxes on top of the $417.45 purchase cost as mentioned previously, so if you are ordering from Europe this is what to expect. The machine is now in stock at the Oculus store, so there are no more lengthy waiting times to endure, and I would encourage everyone who can afford it to get one before the new model is introduced. There will always be (older) games that will look better at a lower resolution, or newer games which your machine cannot run acceptably at the higher res of the new units, so I think that Rift v1.0 is a worthwhile investment if you are a stickler for visual fidelity and can afford it.

And now I finally need to get my PC and game room set up so I can try this thing out and write some articles about it.

[icycalm]

First Oculus-exclusive game announcement: EVE: Valkyrie
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=22407#p22407

So unless the exclusivity is a timed one, it won't work with PS4 and the PS4 headset, so we'll need at least two headsets.

Honestly, I have always been miffed at how every damn console needed its own exclusive arcade stick at $100 or so a pop. But buying multiple VR headsets at $300 or $400 a pop? Headsets which, like the arcade sticks, all do pretty much the same job?

Come on, dudes. There HAS to be a more productive way for the industry's audience to spend its money than this.

[icycalm]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... st99881000

Another suggestion of a possible 2015 release date for the CV is this response PL gave at a recent interview with USA today:

when will it be out?
"I wont tell you if its this year"
next year?
"if it hasn't come out by the end of next year then something's gone wrong."

(emphasis mine)

maybe the live steam today will shed some light.
http://www.twitch.tv/DICE

The situation with the Rift is ridiculous. The way they are going even Nintendo will have a headset out before them.

The fact of the matter is that the Rift is OUT NOW, and HAS been out for several months. I have one in its box sitting almost next to me as I type this. It has dozens, if not hundreds of games working for it already, and more are coming out (or getting patched to work with it) every month. Consoles used to launch with 5-6 games for christsake! And if you think that the hardware is unfinished, what about the fucking Game Boy whose screen and graphics were so shitty it was like going back from the Mega Drive to Game and Watch handhelds, or the Game Boy Advance which needed the lighting system of a modern airliner to be able to make out anything on screen.

It is stupid of them to not have released the "dev kit" to retail. They would have made millions, and then more millions with every hardware revision every 6 months. They would have cornered the market and dominated it as a brand, making the entry of other headsets harder. And it is also stupid of them to keep saying that we will only support PCs because "open bullshit" or something. Who do they have advising them on strategy, Derek Yu?

So anyway. VR is ALREADY HERE. Everyone is raving about the quality of the hardware, and as for games what's there to complain about when you have stuff like Half-Life 2? Whoever waits until "end of 2015" or some other stupid date like that is either retarded or too poor.

The real Revolution is already here. And not thanks to Nintendo. (If anyone still remembers what the term "Revolution" used to mean in the videogame world a few years ago, that is.)

Jump in.

[infernovia]

DK2 announced!

OculusDK2.jpg (36.06 KiB) Viewed 39380 times

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlXrjTh7vHc

http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/

Display
Resolution 960 x 1080 per eye
Refresh Rate 75 Hz, 72 Hz, 60 Hz
Persistence 2 ms, 3 ms, full

Viewing Optics
Viewing Optics 100° Field of View (nominal)

Interfaces
Cable 10' (detachable)
HDMI HDMI 1.4b
USB Device USB 2.0
USB Host USB 2.0 (requires DC Power Adapter)
Camera USB USB 2.0

Internal Tracking
Sensors Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Magnetometer
Update Rate 1000 Hz

Positional Tracking
Sensors Near Infrared CMOS Sensor

Update Rate
60 Hz

Weight
Weight 0.97 lbs (without cable)

Included Accessories
Included Accessories HDMI to DVI Adapter
DC Power Adapter
International Power Plugs
Nearsighted lens cups
Lens cleaning cloth

From the mailing list:

Announcing the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2)

Since the launch of the Oculus Kickstarter, we’ve been focused on building the best virtual reality platform. The original development kit was a strong starting point that showed the world a glimpse of presence, but its shortcomings prevented it from delivering great VR.

Almost exactly one year after shipping the original dev kit, we’re pleased to announce DK2, the second development kit for the Oculus Rift!

The second development kit features many of the key technical breakthroughs and core elements of the consumer Rift including a low-persistence, high-definition display and precise, low-latency positional head tracking.

DK2 isn’t identical to the consumer Rift, but the fundamental building blocks for great VR are there. All the content developed using DK2 will work with the consumer Rift. And while the overall experience still needs to improve before it’s consumer-ready, we’re getting closer everyday -- DK2 is not the Holodeck yet, but it’s a major step in the right direction.

Like the Crystal Cove prototype, DK2 uses a low persistence OLED display to eliminate motion blur and judder, two of the biggest contributors to simulator sickness. Low persistence also makes the scene appear more visually stable, increasing the potential for presence. The high-definition 960x1080 per-eye display reduces the screen-door effect and improves clarity, color, and contrast.

DK2 also integrates precise, low-latency positional head tracking using an external camera that allows you to move with 6-degrees-of-freedom and opens up all sorts of new gameplay opportunities like peering around corners, leaning in to get a closer look at objects in the world, and kicking back on a virtual beach.

Precise positional tracking is another key requirement for comfortable virtual reality; without it, an enormous amount of your real world movement is lost. We’re looking forward to seeing the new experiences the community creates now that positional head tracking is a core element of the platform.

We’ve also included updated orientation tracking, a built-in latency tester, an on-headset USB accessory port, new optics, elimination of the infamous control box, a redesigned SDK and further optimized Unity and Unreal Engine 4 integrations.

All in, DK2 delivers a massive leap forward in terms of the quality of the VR experiences you’re able to create and enjoy. The consumer Rift will be another major step beyond that, but in the meantime DK2 brings the world closer to great consumer virtual reality than ever before.

Even with all these changes, we’ve tried to keep the price as low as possible. DK2 will be $350 at launch and you can pre-order the hardware, reserving your spot in the queue, starting today at http://www.oculusvr.com/order. We expect to begin shipping the first batch of DK2s in July, and we’ll ramp up production based on interest.

We’re debuting the second development kit this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with EVE: Valkyrie by CCP, UE4 Elemental Defense by Epic, and a new demo, UE4 Couch Knight!

Couch Knight was built by the team at Epic Games to showcase the positional tracking and basic avatars in a setting with shared presence. The tech demo juxtaposes a realistic scene with two cartoon knights, controlled by the players, who burst to life and battle throughout the room on couches, shelves and even the players’ avatars.

The players’ head movements and position are actually mapped to the avatars using UE4’s inverse kinematic system, which makes for a taste of a social experience.

A huge thank you to the team at Epic for bringing Couch Knights to life! If you’re at the show this week, be sure to swing by the booth and check it out.

What’s Next?

We’re deep into development on the consumer Rift. We have a lot more planned, including improvements to comfort, resolution, tracking, software, ergonomics, optics, industrial design, and the overall experience.

Virtual reality is going to continue to evolve rapidly in the coming years. There’s no cutting corners or ‘good enough’ when it comes to VR; the consumer Rift needs to be perfect and we’re dedicated to getting it right. We’re moving as fast as possible and promise it’ll be worth the wait.

The passion of the VR community is what has made all this possible, from the Kickstarter campaign to the hundreds of games and experiences we've seen so far. And this is still just the beginning.

We truly believe virtual reality will change the world -- Thanks for being part of the journey with us.

-- The Oculus Team

[icycalm]

the consumer Rift needs to be perfect

Yeah, like the Nintendo Famicom was perfect all those years ago. That's why we never needed another console.

They seem to be retarded. I'll order one anyway, but I seriously hope there's someone out there who will put them out of business and teach them a fucking lesson.

I also HATE their adoption of that retarded term "presence". I need to write about that.

[Tain]

Oculus is being purchased by Facebook for $2 billion: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/03/fac ... re-oculus/

MENLO PARK, CALIF. – March 25, 2014 – Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR, Inc., the leader in immersive virtual reality technology, for a total of approximately $2 billion. This includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock (valued at $1.6 billion based on the average closing price of the 20 trading days preceding March 21, 2014 of $69.35 per share). The agreement also provides for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones.

Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company’s virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. While the applications for virtual reality technology beyond gaming are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend Oculus’ existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas. Given these broad potential applications, virtual reality technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform.

“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.”

“We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world,” said Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR. “We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it’s only just the beginning.”

Oculus will maintain its headquarters in Irvine, CA, and will continue development of the Oculus Rift, its ground-breaking virtual reality platform.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.

Zuckerberg's post on it: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/101 ... eam_ref=10

And one from Oculus: http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/oculus-joins-facebook/