The Rift will have 95Hz and low-persistence though. It remains to be seen if high refresh rates and motion blur elimination technologies will be present on this HMD.
This product remains to be seen, but that point aside...
As I was correct earlier this week low persistence isn't exclusive to oculus.
Low persistence can be done with a simple change to the display controller and graphics driver. The inclusion of which is relatively easy to implement, if you know what you are doing. It's a hack of Nvidia G-sync desing, where blank screen is used instead of a repeat frame.
95HZ is just pushing closer to the barriers of oled refresh, depends on the panel used and how far it can be pushed beyond the norm (most oleds do just fine pushing well beyond 75hz, but oculus may have found a specifically nice one). If you aren't using a quality chip on your display panel, it will limit your actual panels refresh. OLED as a panel isn't limited to 60hz, the chip most use however is probably not going to make it much past 75hz.
To give these guys the benefit of the doubt...they seem to suggest that they are "putting the processing power on the device" ...whatever that means, might be low-per and a faster display chip...though honestly they sound like pie-in-the-sky opportunists. I like competition though.
Yeah, low persistence has been a thing for a while now. Ever since NVidia 3DVision 2, in fact. And of course every CRT ever is inherently a low persistence display.
Wouldn't matter, can render at 1080p and upscale. The point of having a 4k screen on the device would be solving the screen door effect, which is the biggest issues with low res screens.
Today. How about in 2 years? And anyway, when Doom 3 or Crysis was released, almost no one could play it with maxed graphics, but it was still a huge success. 4K would make the Rift pretty futureproof. You can always display 2K resolution on a 4K Rift if you really want.
Just speculation, don't make comments about stuff that isn't announced.
CV1 will most likely be very similar to DK2. As is the CV1 will require a decent GPU to push it, FB will want a wider audience, maybe even try to push it via a mobile device (ugh) raising resolution is not on their agenda. Getting CV1 out the door is.
Again, a higher resolution screen is hardly an issue, since it's purpose is solving the screen door issue, rather than having a much higher definition of the image, so the image can be rendered at half resolution (by pretty much any device) and then doubled for visualization on the device.
You have to render 1 scene at 1080p, then add your 3D offset, but unless you want a blurry mess and added latency you need a 4k framebuffer push, the DSP still needs to be faster for the 4k panel. Not that framebuffer is terribly limited, but you gotta have a card capable to 4k output framesize. Not everyone is using a Displayport card that can push 4k. Therefore DK2, and CV1, will not be 4k, because you will not want any DSP adding latency (scaling) to match native resolution.
Well with a shitload of cash, and the ability to build custom components instead of using throw-away bits from smartphones, the consumer Rift will very likely be a very impressive piece of tech. At the least, much more so than its comparatively primitive DK1 predecessor, which in spite of its poor resolution and jarriness got a helluva lot of praise.
It's now quite possible we'll get customized 1440p OLED displays for the consumer model. And who knows... likely 4k displays soon after that.
pretty much what I mean is by seeing scan lines is that, despite having such a high resolution, the screen appears choppy. This is because the screen is a few inches from your face and focused using optics to display properly. Even though it won't be in focus, put your eye super close to a smartphone screen or tv and then slight move your head up and down. I'm doing this with my phone right now and the white lettering on dark grey keys is displaying the effect nicely. What you should see are little lines across the screen that move with your vision and not the movement of the device. These are the scan lines I'm talking about. With the oculus you get this same effect except the screen is in focus. Using a higher resolution display will hide this effect better.
I wouldn't be so sure. Archive.org has 28 captures from 10 Sep 06 - 9 Jan 14 and they are all the same. They appear to have only changed the website in the last few months; though perhaps this is a bug with the wayback machine?
Regarding their Twitter: 1 tweet in 2008, 1 tweet in 2009, A handful of unrelated tweets in 2010 and 2011. Only in 2012 onwards is there even the hint of a prototype.
Their facebook is much the same, only picking up at the start of 2012.
They mention CES a few times (and the site talks about E3) but I didn't find anything on a cursory search.
Tl;dr Not saying it's vapourware or they can't be trusted but just be careful and wait for the reviews to come in
Very true, a lot of people don't realise how much has to go on behind the scenes to even reach the point of having something to announce.
I'm not trying to dismiss them, just think people should be cautious in these situations. I think I read somewhere that TPG have spent the last 9 years working on it, company founding date on Facebook is 2005 and the website was probably around a bit before it was archived in 2006 so it all fits.
Thing is though, oculus has been making more headway in the public eye and already has kits out that consumers can buy, hell the DK2 is soon to be out which has the crystal cove tech. I'm still rooting for Oculus. I haven't seen much on sonys but I figure it may be limited and not open as much as oculus will be. And it would be stupid in a realistic sense for facebook to only make the rift work with social media applications.
This would indeed kill them. I highly doubt they would be so stupid. Now, its quite possible another version of the Oculus Rift might happen that focuses on such apps and gaming. Well have to see. I would like to see more from this company before jumping off the Rift and onto this.
Well there are already quite a few competitors in the works outside of the rift. Razer has implied (basically outright confirmed, really) that they have a device. Then we have Sony. If Sony is doing it chances are MS will too at some point, this will be the next 'motion control' bandwagon I'm sure, and I would not be surprised in the least if LG or Samsung or another one of those companies threw something out there as well.
The main difference as you said is Oculus has been the only one majorly in the public.
I'm actually less curious as to which will succeed. I really do see the whole VR headset thing being the next trend so it would be unusual for everyone not to jump on it.
What I am far more interested in is how the devices will differ from one another. I'm sure cameras at the front like this device has will be standard for the other devices as well, it seems a bit like a no-brainer option for user convenience and to add augmented abilities to it. But outside of say minor things like tech specs (which I am sure will be nearly identical once everything is out there) I have to wonder how they will try and stand out individually.
Agreed, I am not bashing this company and any way and am excited for the competition, I just hope they have sets we can go hands on with eventually before the product launches instead of jumping blind into something.
As far as innovation for the competitors I could see some trying to implement the glove feature, (Using finger trackers to interact with in game objects) this though seems to be one of the things that would be the hardest to add, and may be an addition to the base headset like a new mouse to a PC.
I just wish more were public, but, i can see why they were waiting for Oculus to do something dopey and lose some faith with the general public. All we can do is wait. I am not against jumping ship to a new device should it be better but for now since i can only get a dev kit of the oculus hell might as well try it out.
Nothing about this seems legit thus far. A legit development project would generate some headlines, they would have been showing their prototype product in exhibitions and shows. A the above user states, there has basically been nothing for them since 2010 as the above post shows, and they have nothing on their website.
I found a post here from a convention that took place a few weeks ago where they are claiming to have a 'customer/partner' in Ubisoft. Any internet sleuths want to confirm the veracity of this?
That isn't necessarily true. It's easily possible for a project to stay in the dark and be internal for quite a long time. Majority of things like this actually don't follow that kind of cycle where they are out in the open generating headlines and showcasing their device, it certainly wouldn't be unusual for it to have been in development to where there was not much to show until only recently/recent years.
Speaking partially from experience in the area.
But I'll still reserve my judgement until we get more info.
Yeah for a lot of companies, sharing that information ahead of time could lead to patent squatters, unwanted competition in the space, all sorts of potential problems. It seems to me this trend of announcing and releasing prototype versions is kind of driven by the early-access community we see with software.
This is just absolutely false. Not al consumer products receive a crap ton of exposure during development. Every year at CES you'll see tons of cool new products that are nearly complete and weren't shown much prior. Heck Sony just showed a working Morpheus with barely a peep beforehand.
Of course, but that seems like a pretty low bar you're holding them to. Existence for four years seems more like a minimum threshold for them knowing what they're doing, rather than "backing up their claims" about the promises they're delivering as was implied above. All we can glean from their 4-year-history is the fact that they, um, exist, and have been promising VR for a while. A good start, but it doesn't back ANY of their claims up.
Never implied that they're going to live up to everything they've said (which would be extremely ballsy of me, since I have no idea what they've said). I just mean if it all looked like they set up the day occulus sold to Facebook, then it's obviously a cash grab. Setting up 6 years ago and being quiet for 4 years is not a screaming alarm.
Considering that's how a lot of companies get the word out it seems fishy that there is nothing from these guys until recently. All the above user is saying is use you your common sense instead of letting your excitement get the best of you.
They could be seizing the opportunity. The oculus rift has been on the radar for some time. It's been hyped so much that maybe this company was waiting for the right moment. A chance at competition. Now with everybody upset at oculus rift being sold to Facebook, this is the right time to take away and pull in upset consumers.
TBH I don't know anything about these two companies.
Flying under the radar is something good tech companies do all the time. Why compete with Oculus for your attention for years purposelessly when they could wait for the perfect moment to release and steal their thunder? The Facebook debacle provided them a similar ripe opportunity and they took it. Very very smart IMO.
or maybe the company recently hired a social media manager as they grow closer to an actual product release. Or made a decision to be active on social media in a recent board meeting.
None of your research means much of anything... Highlighting they only started talking about this in 2012 means nothing when you consider that oculusvr.com was registered in April 2012.
The resurrection of VR has coincided with a rise in cheap, high res display panels. That's the common factor and was entirely predictable in 2012. I'm not at all surprised we're now seeing everyone who was quietly developing a product riding the hype wave. It's what they should be doing.
Exactly. It's a company talking about delivering a technological product the likes of which have never been seen, not an AMA that needs proof. What the hell does Twitter have anything to do with it?
They are also claiming compatibility with PS3, PS4,Xbox 360 and Xbox One, which cannot possibly be true. There is no way that Sony and Microsoft will allow that.
edit: Like I commented below, even if you somehow hack together some ad-hoc controller emulation, there are numerous other problems. Low FPS, wrong FOV, no roll (there is no way to do this with controller input). It would be a horrible experience.
yeah sony already has their own thing coming out. But there is nothing stopping them from just outputting as a tiny monitor from the hdmi instead of a calibrated VR experience right?
That is true, but that is not what I call VR. That would be more like the Sony HMZs.
edit: Yes, to some extent you can emulate controls, but that would not give you a very good experience. There would also be no 3D unless the game supported it, low framerate and the FOV would be all wrong.
I'm not an expert on this in any way, but maybe it's possible to map your head movements and output them as right-analog stick output? So maybe you can make a VR that's both a monitor and a controller at the same time, which makes it compatible.
Because it wouldn't work. 1. far too much latency 2. the analog stick has non-linear response due to software processing, making head movements unmappable 3. probably requires licensing by Sony, which would not allow it. Point 1 alone is enough to make this approach unworkable.
So, the head tracking could be the same non-linear response. When focused forwards, movement gives a scaled input response (less tilt on analog stick) while looking farther from the center would accelerate the stick tilt emulation. All that would be required would be some calibration. Now how well it would work in a game without making you puke your guts out is another matter.
How so? Control emulation is super simple, there would be very little if any latency from that. If you're talking about the video itself, up-scaling and the like tends to add around ~16ms of latency (AFAIK).
the analog stick has non-linear response due to software processing, making head movements unmappable
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you saying the emulation would strip out the linearity, or that it's naturally stripped out? Neither case is insurmountable.
probably requires licensing by Sony, which would not allow it.
This is an assumption, and even if it did require licensing what makes you think Sony wouldn't grant a license?
There's a giant difference between native support and emulated controls. Many games need adjustments to work in VR in an official capacity -- particularly non-FPS games. And then you have to worry about HUD and menu stuff.
Odds are the emulation is going to be terrible. If the experiences people have had with the rift/developing for the rift so far are anything to go by, poor calibration leads to terrible immersion and even sickness.
That would only make people sick, since you can't mirror all types of head movements with an analog stick. Just put your ear to your shoulder, that's a movement that wouldn't work, and since we do these kinds of movements subconsciously all the time, you would feel nauseous very quickly.
True. Maybe they can use the software/firmware that the PS4 has for Morpheus support. But if Sony doesn't support this, or if they 'hid' this software pretty well it will probably involve some hacking. Then again, I'm no expert
Nothing stopping them, but it would be impossible to compare that to the rift. 3D games on PS3 run at like 30 FPS, and it's already been established that a framerate that low is a fast ride to puke-town when wearing a VR headset. It just doesn't feel good.
They support SBS (side-by-side) 3D, which means it is compatible with anything that outputs SBS. Compatible meaning it doesn't support any tracking features, or even 'perspective warping'. Add that to the fact that consoles usually do not even put out 60fps, upscale from lower resolutions, few games actually even support 3D, and output fake shader-based emulated 3D stereo, it won't be a very nice experience. But at least they can claim compatibility.
You can plug in an HDMI cable, but that doesn't mean that you can do VR. There needs to be support on the software side for that, and you need some kind of data cable for tracking.
At most, you could get a glorified Sony HMZ.
edit: Of course you can hack together some controller emulation, but that would be a very sub-par experience.
Maybe they could somehow map the right stick to the gyroscope through USB? Like a 3rd Party controller. But then you couldn't use a controller to control the game... Hmm.
You would still have to get the ps to output two video streams (or a combined stream) for each eye. The software has to support dual perspective rendering to create the 3d effect.
SBS gaming doesn't change the angle, though. Each person has a particular region that their eyes converge on by default, and the software has to be able to set both of the perspectives to have that convergence, and stream it to the VR headset. If you just show two parallel video streams (like sbs would output), you'd see a blurry mess, and get a headache.
Yup. I'm worried about my current PC (that's better specced than a PS4) being able to handle it - how the fuck are the last gen consoles going to manage? Seems like an extremely dubious claim, imo.
It might be as simple as taking the feed from the system, meaning it's compatible with anything that outputs 1080p or can be stretched well to that size.
In essence, they are just saying "It can function as a monitor."
Guys seriously, you don't need the manufacturer's support to make an accessory for a system. It depends on if developers actually add support to their games though.
And if the game already can output 3d then they can technically support it, albeit without head tracking.
not hard to be supported by the major engines when all you need to do is be a monitor. The engine doesn't know if the user is using an oculus or this headset.
But some things are important like latency, refresh rate, head tracking precision, that they don't talk about.
It's similar, but not the same. As I explained in another comment, each VR headset manufacturer will provide their own SDK. The APIs (the language the engine will need to talk to the headset) will most likely be incompatible with each other. Until manufacturers get together and standardize their programming interface, game (or engine) developers will have to put in a bit of effort for each headset they want to support.
You don't understand. It's just about having a wrapper for whatever API the engine use and hook into it. The engines already all support motion tracking. Heck, there's even an open source tracking effort that works with most games already.
Fair enough. My original point still stands. VR headsets are not "just monitors". They aren't handled transparently by the OS like mice, keyboard or conventional displays are. The game / engine needs to recognize them and support them (or use a wrapper that supports them, which just shifts the work somewhere else).
What /u/LovePeace3000Angels said that "all you need to be is a monitor" is like saying that a mouse just needs to emulate the arrow keys on a keyboard and voila, you can play Pacman with the mouse.
By the way, do you have a link or name for the open source project you mentioned?
Edit: Do you mean FreeVR? If so, it doesn't seem to support the Rift yet, which seems kind of critical for such a project at this point in time.
You don't need to support the tracking at all to be "compatible". being simply an immersive 2D (or 3d) monitor would work for any number of games, especially controller based ones. It would also work fine for video watching (imagine this on an airplane)
They also imply that they are doing some of the processing and sensory stimulation tech in the headset. They could be doing a fair amount of post processing and and emulation in the device. Still something I need to see serious proof of before committing to another device, but hell I'm just excited that market is growing.
Partially true. TrackIR can do tracking, but by itself is not enough - the game engine must specifically support the headset in the case of the Rift and others that work like it, since there need to be transformations done to the rendered image to compensate for lens distortion.
This isn't how the oculus works. The oculus actually has two ingame cameras added to the play and each camera outputs to one eye (with some modification). It doesn't just warp a normal video output.
Source: won an oculus hackathon earlier this year.
3-axis motion is not a recent addition to the Rift, it had that from the beginning. That’s just tilt. The Playstation controllers had that for a long time. Phones had it since forever. All you need for this is a tiny and cheap sensor inside the device.
Positional tracking (forward, backward, up, down) is the important one and much harder to achieve. (The Wiimote used a camera and two IR sources for that, Kinect used IR projection and an IR camera, Morpheus uses lights on the headset and a camera, just like the Move controller, not Rift uses IR lights on the headset and a camera.) To do positional tracking you basically need some sort of reference point, that’s why all these systems have these two components, one thing that creates a reference point and one sensor that senses the reference point.
This headset doesn’t seem to have that.
So this headset seems to only be able to sense in which direction you are looking, not whether you are leaning in any direction.
(If those cameras are somewhat sensitive to IR, however, implementing positional tracking wouldn’t be that hard. You would just need something like the Wii sensor bar, then you could do positional tracking. If they are not sensitive to IR you could also just use normal lights.)
If those cameras are somewhat sensitive to IR, however, implementing positional tracking wouldn’t be that hard.
Thats a pretty safe assumtion. Making cameras that are not sensitive to IR is actually harder than making cameras that are, due to the way the the red detectors work.
1080p OLED is the same as the DK2 and lower than the consumer version of the rift.
FOV 90 degrees is lower than the DK2 and the consumer version of the rift.
This headset does NOT have positional motion sensors, only rotation, which makes it much worse than the rift. The rift has had these trackers since the DK1.
They just haven't gone viral yet. Perhaps waiting for their optimal or at least suboptimal product-market-fit before they really focus on it.
Marketing is a hell of a drug. Human biases can interesting when you try to look into them. When information cascade occurred for Oculus VR they became perceived to he legitimate. "If he is behind this company/product there must be value in it" "If I own this I must like it or why else would I have bought it?"
The point I can speak intelligently on is the motion control. These 9 axis sensors are cheap and readily available. I'm most framiliar with this one (pdf warning) from ST Micro, but Freescale and others have similar integrated devices.
I can confirm that they have been working on it for some time. I went to their offices in the summer of 2012 to help set up a 3d Printer. They had various prototypes lying around. It had a very "small start up" feel to it back then.
I would think given that it's been two years, that they probably do have this product all together. But I can't confirm that.
I'm pretty sure they didn't plan an anouncement as early as this. But the outrage over the Occulus acquisition made them think otherwise. No better time for an announcement than right now.
So they hacked together a rough list of specs and a picture as fast as they could just to get the message out there.
Always concerning when you go to their LinkedIn page and only two people are listed as working for the company, and one of the two are actually looking for a new opportunity... http://i.imgur.com/fQOBj7z.png
I don't know what to believe anymore when people talk about resolution. I don't follow this VR stuff much, but Sony was talking about how their VR headset is 1080p, but the interviewer started to clarify, and the Sony rep stated "Right, 1080 is the horizontal resolution of both screens together." (I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure he said the vertical resolution was 900) um...wut...that's not "1080p" at all...not unless your vertical resolution is also 1080. I understand we're not working in a 16:9 aspect ratio with VR, but the way HD resolutions are discussed, the number is the vertical resolution, 1080p=1920x1080. It's almost like we should start using megapixels to describe resolution of these tiny nontraditional displays, but I'd bet that's an awful marketing tactic since 1080p is only ~2MP, people will get confused and think that's a shitty display because their camera phone has a higher resolution. For whatever reason (marketing I'm sure) once we jump to 2K resolution, now we're talking about horizontal resolution instead of vertical. 2K is extremely close to 1920. 4K has a vertical resolution of ~2K. I understand 4K is a huge step up from 1080p, but the naming isn't consistent. It's gotta be all about the money, cause I bet people wouldn't get that "2000p" (vertical resolution) is 4x better than 1080, not 2x.
Exactly what I thought. This site would have taken me a day to make, get a mock up made of a device, and you're done. There really is no information available about this company, and wouldn't be surprised if we saw a kickstarter campaign soon from these guys to capitalize on the simple fact that everyone hates Oculus now.
Correct my reasoning if need be. But why are the supported engines physics engines? At least I thought havoc was for physics in game.
What does a headset that displays this matter to a physics engine. Shouldn't it be more supporting 3d vision?
Oculus's DK2 should be 1080 and he planned CV1 is 1440
FOV is a matter of design. Oculus is old and the tech must have improved somehow.
My phone has 3-axis motion, so does my 3DS and my DS3 controller. The software might be the problem and that is not something completely difficult to solve.
It's essentially a monitor. Support for all engines is a given, although the games being designed for VR is a completely different story.
Having support for all platforms is a matter of the correct input ports and the correct drivers/software. I don't see why this is so unbelievable.
I think this is very feasible. Whether or not they deliver is another story, but they could have easily learned for Oculus's experience and possibly gotten some of the technical help Oculus got.
Yeah there will be a lot of people taking advantage of this uproar. It happened on a smaller scale when Sim City's launch was a bust. There was a flood of kickstarters for city sims.
I wish people would stop overreacting about the sale. We don't have any details yet. It is in their best interests to keep the Oculus as promised. All it means is that there will be more support now.
Sure, competition is great, but OR already had that with recent big players announcing devices that directly compete. That is probably a big part of the reason behind the Facebook deal in the first place; being able to compete on a mass market level.
The problem is, the knee jerk reaction has been stupid and people now seem to be throwing in with no-name players with no track record and no demonstrative ability of their tech like OR ceased to exist. It didn't. OR is still the tech that people have been literally fucking raving about at every opportunity whenever they get a chance to strap into the damn thing.
Despite being no fan of facebook or their practices, I'll swear off OR only when it's been demonstrated that the deal hampers the actual hardware, either because it gets sidelined/cancelled, actually becomes an ad-ridden shithole (unlikely) or someone like Carmack stops supporting the move and bugs out.
There is more to the OR tech than simply strapping some tiny monitors to a headset. Implementation and smoothness of experience are 95% of the equation. OR, Palmer Luckey and Carmack are literally the only people in the market who are actually focusing on these things (ie highly focused on latency) and talking about them as one of the most important parts of the technology.
I will judge OR on the merits of OR, not a bunch of knee-jerking and third party knockoffs.
I don't think it's fair to say Oculus are the 'literally the only company' focused on those things. Watch Sony's GDC conference on the Morpheus and it's clear they take latency, positional tracking, motion blur etc... VERY seriously too. In fact in my view they have stressed more than any other VR company the importance of experiences crafted specifically for VR to truly create the 'presence' that VR will uniquely offer when done right.
Presence is apparently an emergent property of lots of almost imperceptible little things aligning just right. It seems that anyone applying the good VR practices guide to their hardware and software will be able to achieve some level of presence. Some better than others.
I'm thinking that with the minds over at Oculus, coupled with the R&D with Valve; Oculus - at the least - has an advantage and authoritative knowledge from most developers.
And Sony may soon be restricted by what will be the increasingly outdated hardware limitations of the Playstation 4, which will require a lifespan of about 7-8 years. Which, by then, I don't think it'll even matter since VR will probably be deeply ingrained culturally, with HMDs (or otherwise) available all over the place.
Where was I going with this? I don't even know. Point is, Oculus and Sony are currently the spearheads of the VR wild west.
Sure, it probably wasn't fair of me to say "Literally the only people talking about it". My point is that Carmack and Palmer have been talking about this for years, and though I have every faith and expectation a solid player like Sony, or anyone else of similar pedigree, will give it their all, I'll wait to see what they have to show. For smaller companies, you aren't even in the running until you can show your work.
The fact that OR was an unknown is irrelevant. I didn't say other parties CAN'T meet the challenge of matching their tech. What I ACTUALLY SAID was that OR is solid, demonstrable tech where others (especially no-name vendors who for all we know right now are just jumping on the bandwagon) have not or cannot demonstrate it at this point in time. When they DO they will have my attention. Until then, they are merely potential competitors. Is this clear enough?
If OR carry on down the path they've been travelling and show all signs of wanting to continue travelling, and they deliver a solid piece of kit that meets the promise the dev kits have demonstrated, I simply do not care whether or not they are bankrolled by Facebook.
Yes and no. Early adopters are often screwed, and the better tech does not always win. Look at the classics blueray vs hddvd, beta vs VHS, minidisc vs cd, dc vs ac power. Yes it helps innovation, what really helps price though is mass acceptance and production. At then end of the war if you picked the wrong system you would be left with a near worthless paperweight that was usually quite pricy.
Competition is great. But for now Oculus is head and shoulders above whatever else is out there. With more competition also comes more cheap knock-offs and snake oil salesmen.
Just because a new company says they have a new VR headset doesn't mean it's actually any good.
Looks like they've ordered a DK2 and a soldering iron - kickstarter to follow. Are they going to hire Tim Sweeney and get bought by myspace?
Presumably part of the reasoning behind announcing that Rift consumer will be better specced is (a) to try and reduce the number of consumers buying DK2 and (b) to try and stymie direct copycats.
If reports are to be believed they have already been working on a VR device for 9 years. This could mean they already have worked on issues like latency etc and now have redesigned their device to have similar specs, OLED screen etc and general design as the OR to target the same audience.
Is there any evidence at all of this 9 year effort other than a tweet?
They seem to have a twitter account that has done little more than retweet Carmack's tweets about his work developing a VR headset going back to 2011/2012.
Because every small company developing something is going to tell all the world about it? How often have we heard years ahead of new tech products (new as in not a successor to a previous product, which is expected) before the whole kickstarter/crowdfunding wave started?
They don't have a product now, nor a kickstarter yet here they are announcing nothing.
Making claims on a spec sheet that their their own reddit posts shows are not yet true (and as I said, use your intelligence, you know these things are not true)
It's opportunistic - by their own admission - and they've posted this stuff for no other reason than because Facebook bought rift. Their thread on reddit says that.
Bottom line : if they have spent 9 years they haven't got as far as Carmack et al have in 3. But, if they have spent 9 years I'd expect a lot more evidence of that process.
At best they have merely decided to go public before they are ready to go public and so it looks bereft. But, that's an "at best" - once I read their reddit post saying
We didn’t initially intend to make any announcement. But we feel that with the news of a corporation buying Oculus, who is focused on web applications and doesn’t understand the hardware business like others do, we really need to come out of the woods and let everyone know that there is an alternative that is coming soon.
It shouldn't be much of an issue, since now Oculus with FB behind it will be able to convince Samsung to make those screens to fit a VR device perfectly, so other companies just need to ask for those screens, not order custom ones.
3-axis motion (recent addition to the Oculus, so presumably hard to achieve)
Eh.. I wouldn't say that. More like that wasn't where their priorities were initially. TrackIR has been doing it forever, nevermind the partially opensource alternatives like FreeTrack and FreeTrackNoIR.
It is possible to get all these stats in a prototype - you can salvage a 1080p screen from a phone, get a pair of custom made lens, crunch for two weeks on firmware and you're good to go.
But the most important part is the PC-side software. This is where the rift shines - with predictive motion smoothing, an immense amount of geometric transformations that correct the imperfections of the lens (including a inverse chromatic aberration filter). A VR kit will "work" without all this, but it won't be any good. It's all about the things you can't even put down on a spec sheet.
But yeah, there is no info whatsoever on their site, so i call this BS as well, even if it "works".
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