Oculus Rift head-mounted display finds funding from developers

Carmack, Newell among prominent backers for Kickstarter effort.

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[Deleted member 14629]

Very cool. I love to see that kind of dev interest for immersive display tech. I can't wait to see how it actually works out in production.

 

[Cadallin]

What I'd like to know, is when we get a merger of this sort of device, and Emotiv systems EPOC and develop it into a full brain computer interface that can worn, and not require flailing around.

When do we get Neuromancer style VR?

 

[arkhitekton]

I've been waiting for this kickstarter for months! I'm so excited that it's finally here and to see what developers will do with it. This is my next PC gaming setup.

 

[rolphus]

This is awesome, but I have one small concern and one killer that makes it a no-go for me.

Firstly, it's a comparatively low-resolution affair: 640x800 per eye with a 90 degree horizontal field of view seems quite low to me, and John Carmack has said in the comments:

The perceived resolution is therefore much lower than even previous generation consumer HMDs. If you are looking for high resolution, this isn't for you."

That would be kind of okay, apart from something he says later:

The early prototype could not be worn with glasses. If you modify it to stand off far enough from the face to allow glasses, the fov will be reduced a lot. One reason it can be so light is that it has smallish lenses very close to your eyes. With the limited resolution, you don't really need 20/20 effective vision. I hope someone experiments with the kits and builds a variable focus version, but the standard system is fixed focus."

As I'm extremely short-sighted (-9.5 dioptres in both eyes), it's doubtful I'd be able to use it.

 

[iamaelephant]

Has there yet been a single major successful gaming-related Kickstarter? A single one? How are people still buying into these scams?

 

[jay_klmno]

This is from the wiki page of "Sega VR"...
just sayin even sega knew there were problems with VR hmds.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editori ... our-health

 

[Deleted member 14629]

Has there yet been a single major successful gaming-related Kickstarter? A single one? How are people still buying into these scams?

I don't know about video games, but there certainly have for board games.

 

[Deleted member 330960]

Has there yet been a single major successful gaming-related Kickstarter? A single one? How are people still buying into these scams?

Educate yourself. Have a look at who is involved. Read the article and links.

 

[Xavin]

Has there yet been a single major successful gaming-related Kickstarter? A single one? How are people still buying into these scams?

We're not at the point yet where games funded since Kickstarter "blew up" would be released, so no, but there haven't been any high profile failures yet either. I'm sure someone will eventually fail to deliver (Ouya is a good bet), but most of them are going to deliver exactly what they promise. Welcome to the future.

 

[alxx]

scams ?

has there been a major gaming kickstarter than was funded and didn't deliver ?

If you have Carmack , Epic games and Valve involved , I don't think its going to be a failure.
How often do you get those guys actively promoting new hardware ?

Note its not hi def
Head tracking: 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) ultra low latency
Field of view: 110 degrees diagonal / 90 degrees horizontal
Resolution: 1280x800 (640x800 per eye)
Inputs: DVI/HDMI and USB
Platforms: PC and mobile
Weight: ~0.22 kilograms

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/152 ... o-the-game
"What I've got now, is, I honestly think the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen"
John Carmack, id Software

"Needless to say, I'm a believer... We're extremely excited here at Epic Games to get the Unreal Engine integrated with Oculus"
Cliff Bleszinski, Design Director Epic Games

"I think this will be the coolest way to experience games in the future. Simply that... that big"
David Helgason, CEO Unity

"I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to program with it and see what we can do.”
Michael Abrash, Valve

"It looks incredibly exciting, if anybody’s going to tackle this set of hard problems, we think that Palmer’s going to do it. So we’d strongly encourage you to support this Kickstarter.”
Gabe Newell, President and Owner Valve

 

[FatAndrew]

I wonder what sort of advantage/disadvantage this will provide. I'm pretty sure I can turn the camera of a FPS faster with my mouse than I'll be able to do with my head. Also, I can slide my hands around on a desktop for longer hours and with less muscle strain than I can madly spin my head around.

 

[Twit]

I don’t understand how you can have all those big names and their companies on board, have already demoed at E3, be generally pretty well advanced with the whole product and yet require $250K of Kickstarter funding in order to get it out. Isn’t this just using Kickstarter now as a marketing exercise and to flog some pre-orders rather than a means to fund projects that might otherwise never eventuate?

I think that’s a problem with these trendy sorts of tech product - the more likely it is to actually succeed, the less likely it is to require Kickstarter in the first place (IMO).

 

[noops]

I'm going to agree with Twit here. I am not sold on kickstarter and I find it amazing that people just donate money like that. Like Ouya I'm not buying that 'Oh we have this great product and with just a meager 1 million dollars we could make it happen!'

Kickstarter would make sense to me if you were buying shares or had some kind of profit sharing.

 

[alxx]

How easy to get is venture capital at the moment in the US?

Just because a big name is onboard doesn't mean they are providing funding

Funds from kickstarter mean you don't need to sign the rights to your first born away
and you own the IP not the vc's.

 

[baba264]

The fact that this can's be used with glasses is quite the issue for me. Too bad, I admit I retain quite a fascination with VR sets since I tested a few back in the mid 90's.

 

[mikecarlack]

VR is happening faster than anticipated..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxptk8P15TI

 

[Hast]

This is awesome, but I have one small concern and one killer that makes it a no-go for me.

...

As I'm extremely short-sighted (-9.5 dioptres in both eyes), it's doubtful I'd be able to use it.

I have asked Palmer Luckey (the guy behind the project) about that before and he's said that you can adjust the dioptres of the lenses pretty much as much as you want. This is a dev kit after all and the idea is that you should be able to take it apart and tinker with it. So I don't think it will be a problem.

I know he was going to add something about that in the Kickstarter but I think he forgot in the rush to get everything out. Seems like good information to add in the FAQ on the Kickstarter.

 

[Hast]

How easy to get is venture capital at the moment in the US?

Just because a big name is onboard doesn't mean they are providing funding

Funds from kickstarter mean you don't need to sign the rights to your first born away
and you own the IP not the vc's.

The thing is, if you take VC money you also have to give them something in return. Typically a stake in the company. And that's when you start to loose control of your own creation.

It also seems (to me) like what Palmer is doing here is more out of genuine passion for making VR come true and less about making a bunch of money. That's something VCs are not very interested in. They want results and fast, which could very well kill a project like if it expands faster than it should.

For something like like VR to take off we need both hardware and software support. The Oculus can give us the basic hardware to get going, but unless developers take an interest in it there won't be any games to actually play on it. (And that would not make the hardware worth owning.) So in this case I think it's very wise to make the Kickstarter where you can help fund development kits.

 

[Hast]

I wonder what sort of advantage/disadvantage this will provide. I'm pretty sure I can turn the camera of a FPS faster with my mouse than I'll be able to do with my head. Also, I can slide my hands around on a desktop for longer hours and with less muscle strain than I can madly spin my head around.

I think that primarily this is good if you want to be more immersed in the game world. It might not be the best fit for high paced twitch shooters. (In fact, I'd say it's most certainly not good for that.)

There are a few games out there which support independent head and weapon tracking. (ArmA II springs to mind.) In some games like that, particularly when they are more "sim like" I think you could have a very real advantage in multi player situations. Eg In ArnA you can lie down on the ground and aim at a specific building. While you are waiting for your target you can look around you to maintain awareness of what is going on around you, and since the in game model is only moving it's head it's a lot harder for other people to spot the movement than if the entire character is moving around. I've also seen Youtube clips where people are running alongside a building and are using head tracking to look diagonally away from the building. So you get better awareness if someone is trying to flank you.

 

[Hast]

Duplicate... Seems like this forum sometimes creates them when you edit?

 

[Hast]

This is from the wiki page of "Sega VR"...
just sayin even sega knew there were problems with VR hmds.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editori ... our-health

Yeah... That came up in the Oculus Rift thread on MTBS3D forum as well. I'll just copy in what I found at that time:

Seems like that's from the same source, Mark Pesce. Reading the comments there (and the Wikipedia article for the term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_dysphoria) suggest that this is pretty much something only Mark Pesce is concerned about. Importantly there seem to be no peer reviewed evidence of the condition. (So there is not only no evidence that it can be permanantly damaging, there is no evidence that it actually happens at all.)

In fact, Googling around a bit more there is a post from 94 on Wired (again by Mark Pesce) that claims that the effect exists and references a study performed by a Californian think tank called SRI on behalf of Sega. But no results were ever published and Sega has not released any information. People at SRI which were contacted then did not want to comment further than to say that there were "unresolved problems" which could mean anything.

This does of course not mean that there can be problems with it. But if no effects have been found in the last 20 years it seems reasonable that they are at least not as obvious as what Mark Pesce claims.

Link to the page on the forum where it took place: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... &start=240

 

[Hast]

And just to finish off my spamming of this thread I'd just like to clarify that I'm not in any way affiliated with the Kickstarter or Palmer Luckey. I've just been following this project intensely for the last few months (since the Verge posted an interview and video back in May).

And yes, I have pledged to the Kickstarter.

 

[rolphus]

As I'm extremely short-sighted (-9.5 dioptres in both eyes), it's doubtful I'd be able to use it.

I have asked Palmer Luckey (the guy behind the project) about that before and he's said that you can adjust the dioptres of the lenses pretty much as much as you want. This is a dev kit after all and the idea is that you should be able to take it apart and tinker with it. So I don't think it will be a problem.

I know he was going to add something about that in the Kickstarter but I think he forgot in the rush to get everything out. Seems like good information to add in the FAQ on the Kickstarter.

Thank you - great info! I'm keeping a close eye on the project. There's an FAQ up on the Kickstarter page that mentions glasses but not short (or long) sight - hopefully more updates will be forthcoming.

 

[KT421]

I don’t understand how you can have all those big names and their companies on board, have already demoed at E3, be generally pretty well advanced with the whole product and yet require $250K of Kickstarter funding in order to get it out. Isn’t this just using Kickstarter now as a marketing exercise and to flog some pre-orders rather than a means to fund projects that might otherwise never eventuate?

I think that’s a problem with these trendy sorts of tech product - the more likely it is to actually succeed, the less likely it is to require Kickstarter in the first place (IMO).

It actually looks from the video that their goal is not to get funding, per say. It's to distribute dev kits to potential devs and to get publicity.

If those are their goals, then they have succeeded.

 

[oluseyi]

Has there yet been a single major successful gaming-related Kickstarter? A single one? How are people still buying into these scams?

Kickstarter projects are not scams. They are micro patronage - you know, the same economic model that gave us hundreds of Renaissance art works, but with funding sourced from an open-ended number of parties rather than a single wealthy patron.

Some Kickstarter projects will fail to deliver - some Renaissance artists failed to deliver. The risk of failure is what each pledgor must weigh against the amount of the pledge and the promised reward.

I'm going to agree with Twit here. I am not sold on kickstarter and I find it amazing that people just donate money like that. Like Ouya I'm not buying that 'Oh we have this great product and with just a meager 1 million dollars we could make it happen!'

Kickstarter would make sense to me if you were buying shares or had some kind of profit sharing.

I pledged to support the Elevation Dock. My glass bead blasted, billeted aluminum dock is sitting right in front of me on my desk, and I'm more than satisfied with the value returned from my $80 pledge.

I didn't back Glif or Cosmonaut, being cautious about Kickstarter at the time, but I subsequently purchased a Cosmonaut direct from Studio Neat.

I also didn't back TikTok + Lunatik, not being an iPod nano owner or inclined to buy one, but it was the first project that I followed with keen interest and proved to me the potential of the model. I've backed the Daisy Kutter Reprint Project, and look forward to receiving my book in the mail in a few months.

Again, Kickstarter is micropatronage. You must evaluate the project founder (can he/she/they accomplish the task set out?), the product (is this something I want or care about?) and the funding target (is that enough money for this backer to deliver this product?) to decide if the potential reward outweighs the risk. Risk is amortized across a much larger number of backers, and you also gain some security from the fact that you are only charged if the project reaches its funding goal - if enough other people are convinced the combination of backer, product and target are feasible. It's not a walk in the park, it's not a preorder, it's not an investment. It is patronage, and it works pretty damn well overall.

Of course, my tastes run toward industrial engineering exercises and art; I've never backed a gaming-related Kickstarter and honestly probably never will - I'm not much of a gamer. I think OUYA will fail in the market, even though I think it will deliver on its Kickstarter; I think the same of CLANG. To me, neither of those projects is worth backing, but to others they are - they may have different definitions of "success," or simply different tastes.

There's a massive amount of upfront disclosure, so I think the "scam" rhetoric needs to die down. Kickstarter (and by the same metric other micropatronage or microfunding sites like IndieGoGo, etc) is a good thing.

 

[helel ben shachar]

I hope it plays better than Dactyl Nightmare. <dates self>

 

[Nwambe]

Did they really need to name it the same as a stage in Diablo 3?

 

[c741535]

Pledged on the spot. I've been looking for something like this for years and wondered why we have 3D TV's and nothing far more immersive for gaming when the component tech required looks ripe for it. I bought a 3DFX card for my Pentium 1/66 in the 90's and never looked back. It was a game changer, I think Oculus has a chance to be of a similar pedigree.

I get that the KS for this could be purely marketing, it could be slightly more sophisticated than a webpoll to gauge consumer interest, it might not go anywhere (despite the industry mavens who appear to be seeing the potential and are apparently onboard), I understand why ppl might be cynical. Frankly I don't care, I've been waiting for something like this since I first put 20 cents into a Space Invaders machine in 1979. Surround me in game, now.

Basically they can have my cash and fail, if it pushes consumer VR forward.

I'll love my Oculus prototype, gathering dust on the shelf under yet another set of motherboard manuals, since I can't use it with anything but Doom3 (the wider game support will only be available on the retail version, no backward compat. for early adopters) ;-).

 

[Hast]

I'll love my Oculus prototype, gathering dust on the shelf under yet another set of motherboard manuals, since I can't use it with anything but Doom3 (the wider game support will only be available on the retail version, no backward compat. for early adopters) ;-).

The Developer SDK shipping with the developer prototype will have support for Unreal and Unity engines. So I think it's quite likely that even the developer prototypes will be compatible with upcoming games. Assuming it takes off.

 

[craigc]

Slightly tangential topic: Anyone ever read "The Unincorporated Man"? It's set in a society where VR had become so good, it was indistinguishable from reality.

It was so good that it became like a drug. Nobody did anything else and the world's economy collapsed. It's not hard to imagine. Which would you rather do, visit today's Greece as yourself, or visit Greece 2000 years ago as a dragon-riding bacon-conjuring viking?

 

[Endrick]

If they can pull off drivers the way Nvidia 3D vision does, where it works for most games, then this is going to become my next monitor replacing the 3D projector and giving me back a wall in my office.

 

[Endrick]

Which would you rather do, visit today's Greece as yourself, or visit Greece 2000 years ago as a dragon-riding bacon-conjuring viking?

This

Except my dragon riding viking would conjure spam spam spam spam.

 

[matthewslyman]

They're planning an 800×600 px screen resolution per eye (½ megapixel per eye). That's bad enough with present technology, but if you stretch that out to a 110° diagonal field of vision (let's say, 75° horizontal field), and you're only covering the fovea with < 1k px². OUCH!

If this thing ever gets made, it will be another five-minute novelty. The only "cool" thing about it will be the name. I think it's just going to be vapour-ware, personally... Just like "3D" technology in general... It's a total waste of time and money to try to do this on commercial scales, for mass-market gaming etc., with the technology available in 2012. This technology won't be any good for at least another 15–20 years...
http://www.slyman.org/blog/2011/02/is-3 ... od-enough/

 

[aardarf]

Slightly tangential topic: Anyone ever read "The Unincorporated Man"? It's set in a society where VR had become so good, it was indistinguishable from reality.

It was so good that it became like a drug. Nobody did anything else and the world's economy collapsed. It's not hard to imagine. Which would you rather do, visit today's Greece as yourself, or visit Greece 2000 years ago as a dragon-riding bacon-conjuring viking?

Hells yeah.
I've been wondering for some time now if current gaming has contributed to the current economy slowdown. Why would I buy a $50,000 car - that I can use to get stuck in traffic or to get a speeding ticket - when I can buy a $20 game with dozens of cars that I can drive at high speed and flip through the air... Same argument for guns, travel, any business involving meeting with people when you can just interact with them via Facebook games or Battlefield. And the games industry has continued to grow while so many other industries stagnate.

 

[masterbinky]

They're planning an 800×600 px screen resolution per eye (½ megapixel per eye). That's bad enough with present technology, but if you stretch that out to a 110° diagonal field of vision (let's say, 75° horizontal field), and you're only covering the fovea with < 1k px². OUCH!

If this thing ever gets made, it will be another five-minute novelty. The only "cool" thing about it will be the name. I think it's just going to be vapour-ware, personally... Just like "3D" technology in general... It's a total waste of time and money to try to do this on commercial scales, for mass-market gaming etc., with the technology available in 2012. This technology won't be any good for at least another 15–20 years...
http://www.slyman.org/blog/2011/02/is-3 ... od-enough/

There is no reason that you cannot have 1280x800 per eye by the time the consumer version is ready for release. The pixel density of the screen in the consumer version is going to be a function of cost and manufacturing capability. In 1-2 years it should be possible for them to source OLED* micro displays of 1920x1080(1200) which are presently being prototyped by a couple companies I know of. This is also dependent on any companies being willing to manufacture the micro displays for another company instead of sell a HMD on their own.

*There are other types of micro displays but OLED generating it's own light makes them great of HMDs compared to anything that needs a separate light source.

 

[helel ben shachar]

Which would you rather do, visit today's Greece as yourself, or visit Greece 2000 years ago as a dragon-riding bacon-conjuring viking?

This

Except my dragon riding viking would conjure spam spam spam spam.

Queue choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!

 

[Hast]

They're planning an 800×600 px screen resolution per eye (½ megapixel per eye). That's bad enough with present technology, but if you stretch that out to a 110° diagonal field of vision (let's say, 75° horizontal field), and you're only covering the fovea with < 1k px². OUCH!

They are using fish-eye lenses so you have higher visual acuity in the center and then less over to the edges. The idea is to give you some peripheral vision but still have more detail where you're probably looking (straight ahead). You can naturally rotate your eyes and look "sideways" into your peripheral vision but that's not very "normal" behavior and the natural thing is to rotate your head.

But the resolution is low, and that's because they are still waiting on high performance, high resolution screens.

If this thing ever gets made, it will be another five-minute novelty. The only "cool" thing about it will be the name. I think it's just going to be vapour-ware, personally... Just like "3D" technology in general... It's a total waste of time and money to try to do this on commercial scales, for mass-market gaming etc., with the technology available in 2012. This technology won't be any good for at least another 15–20 years...

It's possible. But that's also why they are going with a Kickstarter of a dev kit as well. Insurmountable problems or "5 minutes of fame" type problems should become quite apparent in that time frame and then they don't have to make a final commercial product.

Personally I think it's very interesting and I'm more in the category of people who consider this to be similar to when 3DFX launched their first cards. Back then there were not much use for 3D accelerated gaming, but today you can't have a serious gaming machine without a powerful graphics processor. And it might be worth noting that John Carmack was very early on that train as well, with the GLQuake port.

I haven't tried the Rift (yet) but I did try an arcade machine in Tokyo which has a large parabolic screen which makes the image cover your peripheral vision. I can tell you that even a rather dull Gundam game was very immersive in that device. (It's pretty much the same as the BattleTech pods in the US apparently.) I can definitely see something like that in goggles form become the "next big thing" for gamers.

 

[Hast]

There is no reason that you cannot have 1280x800 per eye by the time the consumer version is ready for release. The pixel density of the screen in the consumer version is going to be a function of cost and manufacturing capability. In 1-2 years it should be possible for them to source OLED* micro displays of 1920x1080(1200) which are presently being prototyped by a couple companies I know of. This is also dependent on any companies being willing to manufacture the micro displays for another company instead of sell a HMD on their own.

From what I've read about the Rift micro displays wouldn't work. The reason is that it is using the large display (about 6") to create the fish-eye effect which gives you a large FOV. You can do that with a micro-display as well, but that requires a lot more complex optics which makes the device heavier and more expensive.

On the flip side the large displays means that they can possibly use the push for larger mobile phones or small tablets to get cheaper screens. And the goal is definitely to get higher resolution displays on the consumer devices.

 

[oluseyi]

I've been wondering for some time now if current gaming has contributed to the current economy slowdown. Why would I buy a $50,000 car - that I can use to get stuck in traffic or to get a speeding ticket - when I can buy a $20 game with dozens of cars that I can drive at high speed and flip through the air...

Because you can't feel lateral G through a force feedback steering wheel, or even in a sophisticated home driving simulator setup? The $20 game is only a substitute as long as you don't know what real driving feels like - or if you can't actually afford the real thing.

A better question is, "why would I buy a $50,000 car whose power I can't use 99% of the time when I could get a $15,000 hot hatch - or even a $6,000 beater - and enjoy every drive vastly more?"

Same argument for guns, travel, any business involving meeting with people when you c an just interact with them via Facebook games or Battlefield. And the games industry has continued to grow while so many other industries stagnate.

The video game is no real substitute if you have the opportunity to experience the real thing. The economic argument is vastly overstated; people are opting for games because they can afford games, not foregoing real-world experiences because games are nearly as good.