Oculus Rift - Cape Town Devs?

edited in Projects

Ok so my Rift finally arrived and its awesome. Is there anyone else out there with one? Id like to discuss ideas around it. Some things are awesome with it, while others not so much. Movement really makes me motion sick, but the potential is massive. Everyone who has had a go has commented its cool, and amazing and just wow! From games, to training, to virtual travel, to Architecture etc. its huge.

If anyone is interested in helping me develop for it , give me a shout too. After sorting through my ideas pre rift, i will compose a new list of post rif ideas :) The dungeon master one is feasible, but its just too big of a project right now to tackle. Small impressive demos/games are what is needed now.
There are a limited number of demos out there, and while some are impressive, there is room for improvement. I think it would be great to get in early, before the rush, and it will also open up a number of opportunities for 3d Artists like myself. As well as programmers , musicians etc :)

If anyway is interested in helping towards a small demo/game even if you have an idea, give me a shout. You get to test the demo/game in the Rift as well :)

If anyone has any questions you can ask me as well about the Rift.
Thanked by 2EvanGreenwood hanli

Comments

  • Just a few points: GOOD: No latency with head tracking, real world scale, Real 3d.

    Some Wow moments: (Horror game is ultra creepy, and made me jump) Awesome scale with planets. Dungeon feel really claustrophobic. Roller coaster is a rush. Deep sea dive was scary when i went too deep and was eaten by a shark.

    BAD: (everything should be fixed by consumer version though) Low Res, Motion sickness
  • There is a Quake 1 mod that allows you to play with occulus, you should check it out! I am really keen to get one but I'm still torn between getting a devkit now or waiting for retail...
  • If you want to get into development id say get it right away. If a really keen interest, id also recommend getting one. If casual interest id say wait! :)
  • Low res - how are they fixing it, with new hardware?
    Motion sickness - how are they fixing that??

    Sounds really awesome, I'm of course still skeptical about the consumer potential of the Rift, in the same way Ouya I'm skeptical of Ouya compared to the big consoles, but of course if they manage to pull it off it'll be amazing... The question is how? It's good that niche adoption rates are typically higher than broad market (eg 3D tv isn't really doing all that well, but is being pushed, while OUYA and co are getting relatively good support probably because its not a mass appeal item), but it's gotta have support... 3rd party support, like how the big 3 secures games for their platform.
  • Tuism said:
    Motion sickness - how are they fixing that??
    I'd imagine it's a FOV/display frequency issue?
  • well the new hardware will be HD at least 1920 x 1080 as opposed to the 1280 x 800 now.
    Motion sickness - better head tracking and other tricks they are learning now i guess. Also people just have to get use to it, im reading everywhere you need to get your VR legs! :P

    Good points, but i see the Rift as a stepping stone, even if its not the be all and end all of VR, its going to push in new directions. The tech is here to stay this time i feel. And also thats why they have released the dev kits so the community is coming up with awesome stuff....This is the first time that VR has become available at a reasonable cost.

    When you put the headset on for the first time, and have been involved in game design, you will see the potential. Even just walking around is amazing. There is a oppurtunity for a whole new bunch of genres to be developed as opposed to the Ouya which is just another console.

  • I think the appeal could come in from things like Training, Virtual Travel, Simulations and the new gaming or virtual experiences. Virtual Reality Skype chat? Another ideas is full 3d movies, where you can walk around the "set". Perhaps there are 10 different stories or things that are happening at the same time, and you can rewatch the movie over and over again, having a different experience at each viewing depending on where you are and which direction you are facing. Mystery movies, where you could pick up clues. Or perhaps you could influence the movie depending on you actions. This is just 1 idea.

    I have to admit i dont want to play the Rift the entire time, it will be just as it is now, you feel like a casual game on your ipod, or a FPS gaming session with your friends , or a nice dose of RTS with SC2 on your PC, or Dance central on your Xbox.

    If they keep it at under 300 dollars or so, i dont see why someone wouldnt want to get it. It probably does need that one killer app/game that everyone will want to buy the Rift for though.

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    Soooooon.....

    And thanks for the offer of help/advice... once I join the Oculus club I may take you up on that : )
  • Don't get me wrong, I wish I was nearly advanced enough to get into Rift dev. I'm still struggling with AI with my first just-past-the-initial-prototype game in GameMaker :) baby steps!

    Speaking of which, how much is it to get into the dev kit?
  • It was 300 dollars, + 100 dollars for shipping and then 580 Rand bonus for SARS..

    Is there a club? Looks like only me so far! :)
  • If you're a 3D artist then can I interest you in a collaboration on Toward The Light? Don't know why I didn't think of it before, but Oculus would be a perfect fit for it. Currently working on version 2 for #7Dfps. Right now I stand about zero chance of making by the deadline tomorrow, but it's coming along really nicely so definitely keen to take it a bit further.
    Thanked by 2Tuism EvanGreenwood
  • Let me check it out... yes it could work , send me a private message. What are you developing in? Sorry will read through your thread now! :)
  • And yes im a 3d artist, with my own license of 3ds max.
  • So more funny questions about the rift, cos I really am curious/interested :)

    I've seen those funny screenshots for the rift - how does dev work for the Rift? Are there specific language/s that you need to use to dev for it? (unity? something else? Does, for example, Unity need to release specific support packages before being able to dev for the Rift?) Does it take 3D info and split it into what it needs to display 3D? Or is that done "manually" by development?

    Such exciting possibilities :)
  • Unity and UDK, and then have modules which plug in, pretty simple to set up. If its in unity already for example, it just attaches a few more scripts, like OR camera etc, and you are good to go. You can compile and view your world instantly, like any other unity game. The OR works on just splitting the screen in 2, 1 for left eye and 1 for right eye, its pretty simple, but really effective.
  • @Tuism: The Rift is essentially an HD screen with a bunch of lenses between it and your eyes. You know the two-distorted-images-side-by-side you keep seeing running on PCs that are attached to a Rift? As long as you can output images like that, you're good to go. There's a bunch of SDKs and/or plugins for most development environments/systems that let you do that and do the head-tracking that Rift has as well. It's really not too complicated :)
  • That's soooooo dammmn cooool :D

    One of my ideas for a prototype was to make a 3D game for iPad... that involves outputting magic-eye-like images and playing the game squinting past the screen for the lolz :P

    Guess that's not as needed now :P haha
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • and @TheFuntastic I played Alone in the Rift and that scared the ***** out of me, the last scene in the wood shed its crazy. If you game is getting that reaction on a flat 2d screen, with the rift it could be the next awesome horror game! :)
  • I have some interesting ideas for the Rift and I love to try one out. Is there any chance we can get one to one of the community meetups?
  • I guess I could bring mine at some point, or better, if there is a small group we could arrange to meet up. I think its better if there are 2-3 people rather than 70, also it just takes a while to get the correct setup etc for each person. But yeah, we can. I guess there is no one else out there with a Rift?
  • Thought it might be note worthy (for those who did not know) Star Citizen (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/)

    It will support OR from the get go. Seeing that it is a space sim, I think it is one of those games that will just naturally go with the Rift.

    Take a look, the game seems to be next level **** and they are making a few interesting choices in-terms of visual and game play wise.
  • Just a note (I'm only allowed to confirm it when the program is released) but Rouan van der Ende will be running a a two morning workshop on the Oculus rift for Amaze. It should be fun :)
  • I've been putting savings aside to order one!
  • Rouan, that's the guy with the FluentArt studio? Man that guy's damn multi-talented.
  • edited
    IceBladeMush said:
    I guess there is no one else out there with a Rift?
    I know @MrNexy ordered one in February http://makegamessa.com/discussion/comment/8438

    The next batch of arrivals starts in September... We're pretty keen to get our 7DFPS entry working on Oculus.

    @iceblademushiceblademush I'm super stoked that Towards the Light 2 might go to Oculus! If you and Funtastic team up I hope it is an epically fortuitous collaboration.
  • edited
    Mr Nexy is in Abu Dhabi! :P

    and yes i want to meet Funtastic, Hopefully next week soon!
  • edited
    Indeed I am in Abu Dhabi :)
    Got my Rift and have been eagerly demoing it to folks :) The time for the next pre-alpha release is soon :3
    @iceblademush I am excited to see how things progress with your projects and I'm excited to see where the SA indie community goes with this device !

    Btw Sixense is going to be doing a kickstarter this month for their STEM system , essentially a wireless version of the Razer Hydra with support for up to 5 tracking units and with much improved range and accuracy.Getting that absolute positional tracking down is going to be as key to getting VR to the next step as a higher pd display is :)
  • I just met with @iceblademush and seeing as the oculus is super new I'll share my unfiltered thoughts:

    - Horror games are going to be a truly awful and terrifying experience. Jump scares take on new meaning when it's strapped to your face and you can't get away...
    - Several new genres of game are going to emerge to suit the control surface, much like touch spawned several things like endless runners. In particular I enjoyed the extreme sport simulators. An exciting space to be in as a designer
    - Motion sickness: I don't know what they are talking about, I'm absolutely totall-HOLY BATMAN THERE IT IS!
    Yeah, understanding the challenges in this control space are going to be absolutely critical. Unlike touch where bad controls simply feel awkward, bad controls in rift will make you physically sick. If there are enough games that get this wrong i think it's the biggest threat to rift's future and could sink the platform entirely.
    - hardware is still very much alpha level. The potential is clearly there, but consumer viable is still a very long way off. All the technical challenges Carmack talks about like high frame rate need to be sorted. Puts a burden on developers and on your pc to run at 120 fps. Think it's going to be many years before we see a mainstream AAA game develop on the true potential of VR. Much like where only now seeing the AAA industry take touch seriously. I think it will take just as many generations with the rift. I do however have faith the right people are working on it and the hardware will get there sooner or later
    - oculus porn. It's going to be a thing. It's going to be huge. It has the power to send the oculus mainstream in a very big way, much the same as it did for VHS.

    So yeah, looking forward to getting toward the light integrated a seeing what happens. Not sure if its actually going to be a perfect match. Razor hydras start looking like some extra critical accessories for certain kinds of games. Interesting times...
    Thanked by 1iceblademush
  • Hm, is motion sickness related to controls, or is it related to hardware refresh rates or whatever?

    And yeah, pretty much anything that has visuals (or not visuals lol) has pron :) Apparently Blu-ray is also hitting it big in that arena... In Japan. And 3D tv. It's gonna be... unreal.
  • I think you need to keep at leaast to 60FPS for starters so frame rate keeps up with the headtracking. I speak for myself, if i move the mouse and the Rift (Head Tracking) at the same time, i feel really sick. Especially if the mouse has vertical movement. Some demos are fine, others affect me more.
  • In my case it was the one game with very responsive head tracking and mouse movement. As soon as i did both it was like flicking a vom switch. Interesting to note a lot of the games so far are pretty unresponsive to turn down the side effects ( I presume). Also sitting in a chair you tend to want to keep your head still, not look around everywhere. Even something simple like looking behind you feels really awkward while sitting...though not in a sickness kind of way, just that you have turn your head all the way around like an owl.
  • Hope no one mind if I share my experience with the Rift here :)

    On the topic of motion sickness :
    The first day it took all of 5 minutes to feel a bit dizzy , this dissipated in a couple hours and I gave it another go.
    The second day I overdid it in my excitement to demo the unit to my mother , I downloaded the whole list of Oculus Demos and spent a couple hours testing demos. This left me feeling a little dizzy for a day or two but nothing horrible , now I don't get motion sick at all no matter how much I try and how bad the demo :)

    The hydra is a must have and it really does make a world of difference , demos using kinematic full body awareness like Crashland are really quite intense :D I'd give it another generation or two , if they can nail down positional tracking using visual odometry then I think we'll be ready for some crazy experiences :D
    Thanked by 1iceblademush
  • Just playing around in Unity, found this ATAT walker model. Wow, the scale is really impressive. Things like this you can only experience with VR. With it animated and full sound it would be really intimidating. Ill post my other findings and experiences here as I discover them :)
    ATAT-test.jpg
    1280 x 800 - 141K
  • Another interesting point - mostly for 3d artists, it an excellent way to test scale and texture mapping. If for example i have a brick texture on a wall in normal 3d, there is no real way of judging the size of the texture, unless you measure it or have some other point of reference. But bring that same scene into the Rift, you can immediately tell that the texture is correct or incorrect. The best example as i mentioned there was the brick wall, my bricks were too big by about 150%. And they looked find in the standard 3d.

    And of course scale of real objects as well. For example i had a barrel in my scene as well, now i found out it was a little too small. Definitely has potential to change the way 3d artists can work as well.
  • Anybody out there still out on the Oculus? Im a dev from cape Town, looking to explore the integration with Unity
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