Anybody considering picking up an Oculus Rift..?


Curiouser and curiouser..


New details on Samsung's foray into VR:

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/30/samsung-oculus-partnership/


* It's in partnership with Oculus


* It's not a headset per se but a device to use their next gen handsets as a combined VR headset display/computer - the headset element has an array of motion sensors.


* The partnership gives Oculus access to Samsung's new OLED screen tech, assumed to be 1440p


* The phone's rear-facing camera (cameras? 3D cameras in mobiles incoming?) allows wearer to see through to outside world (existing devs say latency not good enough for AR though).

The folks we spoke with who have dev kits are still running the headset on Galaxy S4 phones, and we're told it's a shockingly good experience.
Click to expand...
 
My first VR experience was sometime in the 80s, with a headset mated to a Silicon Graphics computer. Astonishing how long it is taking for something decent to be developed.
 
I had one of the DK1 versions, but unfortunately I couldn't get a lense that didn't heavily strain my eyes.  It was so bad that I couldn't use the headset for more than 10 minutes at a time, so I ended up selling it.  I've never heard of this problem before, so this likely will not affect anyone here, but I just figured that I'd share in case someone finds it useful.
 
tl;dr future reader edition: Oculus put a lot of research into minimizing eye strain and you should have no problem unless you wear really high prescription glasses or your eyes are set apart very differently from average.

ryz0z said:
I've never heard of this problem before, so this likely will not affect anyone here, but I just figured that I'd share in case someone finds it useful.
Click to expand...
That is very strange. A lot of the research that went into the OR was figuring out the optics so that when you are using it your eyes are focused exactly the same as they would be on a real object: when you look at a 3D object 10 feet away in virtual space it is supposed to be setup in such a way that your eyes do real world focusing 10 feet in front of you. It's not a perfect system, of course, because everyone's eyes are different: a couple mm wider and your focus is a little bit off, but 10 minutes is a much shorter time than it should be.There's a few reasons you may be experiencing eye strain. The first one that we can honestly hope is that it's all in your head: you expect there to be eye strain so your brain manufactures it. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with you if that's the case, it's well documented about how awesome our brains are at creating artificial sensations to match our expectations, and you are certainly not alone. This is the best hope if you want to use the OR because it means there isn't actually anything wrong with your eyes or the OR, you just need to remind yourself that there isn't any eye strain, and eventually your brain will figure it out. Brains are awesome like that. Also delicious.

The second possibility is that you wear a really high prescription of vision correcting glasses. Something with the optics that they couldn't adjust for in the standard edition but I think I remember reading that they'll produce special lenses for people that require thick glasses. That'd also be a good thing, just wait for them to make these lenses.

The third possibility I can think of is that your eyes are set much farther apart or closer together than average: a little bit off average and you won't feel much difference, but 2 or 3 cm difference and your eyes aren't looking into the lenses right and it is completely screwing up the feeling. I don't think there's anything to be done in this case. Get a smaller head.

Of course, if you don't actually care that the OR is causing you eye strain then there's no point in worrying about it at all: ignore me. This is mostly for someone who may accidentally stumble across this thread with a question about the OR and eye strain.
 
It really seems hard to get the right screens those days. ;) I'm sure Oculus only did this partnership to get the screens they need. Now the question is, will it be portrait or landscape screens? ^^
 
It could make trying out VR a very attractive proposition more quickly - if your (contract subsidised) smartphone has an optional adapter that's probably very inexpensive itself, yet offers an experience from the same stable as the Rift... who wouldn't be curious enough? Doubly so if they provide something in the handset that makes it a 'useful' (Stereoscopic camera! Want!) addition.


It'd probably be worth it just to be able to take

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z_JkrU2kxag?feature=oembed with you wherever you go!
 
WizardStan said:
tl;dr future reader edition: Oculus put a lot of research into minimizing eye strain and you should have no problem unless you wear really high prescription glasses or your eyes are set apart very differently from average.

ryz0z said:
I've never heard of this problem before, so this likely will not affect anyone here, but I just figured that I'd share in case someone finds it useful.
Click to expand...
That is very strange. A lot of the research that went into the OR was figuring out the optics so that when you are using it your eyes are focused exactly the same as they would be on a real object: when you look at a 3D object 10 feet away in virtual space it is supposed to be setup in such a way that your eyes do real world focusing 10 feet in front of you. It's not a perfect system, of course, because everyone's eyes are different: a couple mm wider and your focus is a little bit off, but 10 minutes is a much shorter time than it should be.
Click to expand...
I do wonder about something: The lenses in OR are static, in the sense they won't change in response to changing 3D objects. Meaning that the eye's lenses will need to focus at some virtual screen some distance away.


But the parallax is dynamic, different objects will have different parallax which can change over time. The eyes will need to converge on each 3D object and this is what allows the depth perception.

The problem is that these two eye adjustments are connected in one's brain. As the eyes converge on a distant object, they also change to focus that distant object as well. In real life this is nice because it means eyes can focus faster on real objects. But when using OR the focus will always be the same, no matter if the eyes need to converge on a near object or a distant object.

This sort of confusion can be a source of strain. No there's no technology (present or to be developed) which can compensate for the above. That would require some kind of dynamically adaptable optics, which to my knowledge doesn't exist yet (or for the forseeable future).

People will simply need to adjust to it. But there will probably some strain during the adjustment period, and then more strain to adjust back to seeing real objects.

TL DR; if you cover one of your eyes you still can tell real objects at different distances apart, but if you turn off one side of the OR you won't be able to tell object distances (OR turns into a flat virtual screen).
 
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More head candy, in the same vein as being able to explore game worlds that only previously existed in flat 2D (e.g. Zelda VR), here comes somebody on a mission to fully recreate scenes from Studio Ghibli animations -

http://redofpaw.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/my-neighbour-totoro-vr-bus-stop-scene-complete/


Built in Unity, they have several all done and ready to download, this latest one from 'My Neighbour Totoro' should be up shortly, but you can see someone give a slightly unfinished version a spin here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tjrwcKa6rxM?feature=oembed

Now, who's up for recreating complete Looney Tunes in VR? What about Tom & Jerry beating the crap out of each other all around you? Maybe you want the big musical numbers from Disney stuff. How about Toy Story... VR edition...
 
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Watching real 3D movies (filmed with stereo cameras/rendered in stereo) with this without some virtual cinema room may be sweet.
 
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Klumpen said:
Watching real 3D movies (filmed with stereo cameras/rendered in stereo) with this without some virtual cinema room may be sweet
Click to expand...
It'd be a whole new paradigm in movie making. Frequently angle shots are important, keep you from seeing something until just the right moment or whatever. If the viewer is completely free to just walk around the scene there's nothing to stop them from seeing some crucial piece of evidence. Movie makers would need to come up with new techniques for mood setting that doesn't involve camera angles.
 
Asmo said:
More head candy, in the same vein as being able to explore game worlds that only previously existed in flat 2D (e.g. Zelda VR), here comes somebody on a mission to fully recreate scenes from Studio Ghibli animations -

http://redofpaw.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/my-neighbour-totoro-vr-bus-stop-scene-complete/


Built in Unity, they have several all done and ready to download, this latest one from 'My Neighbour Totoro' should be up shortly, but you can see someone give a slightly unfinished version a spin here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tjrwcKa6rxM?feature=oembed
Click to expand...
Very impressive. I also like this short "Spirited Away" boiler room scene, imagine the entire bathing house from the movie in 3D. :)
 
VR extras on 4k Blu Rays in the form of 360 degree stereo videos would be a step in that direction - watch the movie in Imax 3D on your Rift, then dip into selected 360 degree extras on the disc - think, for example, being in the passenger seat of Steve McQueen's Mustang in Bullitt for it's famous chase, or getting the driverless SUV tour of Jurassic park. Situations engineered to give you limited freedom (except that of looking all around you)! Maybe you could even set the playback up so 360 degree scenes replace the normal 3D ones. I remember the 1983 movie

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AwoOcRVMIVQ?feature=oembed
 
I'd love to see a few music videos done that way..
 
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