davej

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Everything posted by davej

  1. The Big VR Thread

    Wireless/mobile positional tracking is very much an ongoing project at any of the large vendors you'd care to mention. It's just a very complicated problem that's very hard to optimise for mobile devices Oculus showed off a prototype wireless headset at OC3, Occipital have a hardware devkit for mobile vendors and, i'm sure, Apple and other large mobile vendors are working on the same problem.
  2. The Big VR Thread

    I wouldn't get too down heartened - this is a first production run on a brand new product. It was bound to be expensive. This is just the start and, from what i've seen of the commercial prototypes from Oculus, this is going to be a great out-of-the-box experience for people. It'll only get better and cheaper, and pretty quickly.
  3. The Big VR Thread

    I'm stoked for the release of all 3 major, high-end, HMDs in the next 6 months or so - I think the price could put off the general consumer to start with though. I'd guess that Oculus might go $500 to begin with though, if Facebook subsidised some of the device on initial launch they'd struggle to sell it for more later.
  4. The Big VR Thread

    As Lu notes, it's not quite the space that you can have with the Lighthouse/Laser technology from the Valve ref (and the HTC Vive) technology but it's big enough for /most/ people I'd wager, it's surprising how much you can do in a reasonably small space.
  5. The Big VR Thread

    Both of these statements are untrue in some cases. If you don't want a huge play area the vive can be used seated, likewise if you want a large Oculus play area you need some space. If you buy an Oculus with controllers you'll receive 2 tracking cameras that do the same job as the Vive reference lighthouse tech. I have both these units at work and, although the vive seems the most robust at the moment, the Oculus commercial product is shaping up to be pretty solid too.
  6. The Big VR Thread

    Stereoscopic equirectangular does exist but is broken in some fundamental ways. Jaunt / Google / Milk VR all have done some stereoscopic 360. It's pretty decent when you're looking at the horizon but looking up and down won't work and tilting your head completely breaks it. If anyone wants a further explanation of why give me a shout!
  7. The Big VR Thread

    This is exactly what happens with 360 video - it's stitched in a spherical projection and then stored in (usually) equirectangular mapping (to make it rectangular). It can be quite good but, as you say, the limitations are obvious. You'll notice that if you look up and down you'll probably see some distortion too - think texture stretching on badly mapped 3D models.
  8. The Big VR Thread

    The 'quality' on all the headsets that will come to market in the next 9 months or so are roughly the same, at least in terms of the technology. The software is going to be the real issue but I don't know anyone who's yet developing on more than 2 platforms - with 4 in the running at the moment.
  9. The Big VR Thread

    reddit has a list of some of the Mobile Jam entries built for dk2 http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/35wk40/vr_jam_dk2_builds/ Doesn't seem to have many of the finalists there though, which is a shame!
  10. The Big VR Thread

    I think it's slightly cynical to say that mobile gaming is just candy crush caliber pap although I do see where you're coming from. The quality and breadth of mobile games is wide and it's generally focused on quite a small locus around free to play and super-casual. I only really mentioned mobile as it seems like a home run for the technology, not necessarily the content. Input problems are relevant in mobile, dedicated or casual home and event spaces at the moment. Just interesting to see what other gamers think on the matter.
  11. The Big VR Thread

    As part of my day job I've been researching the state-of-the-art VR stuff for a few months now, glad to see there's a reasonable level of excitement amongst the intelligent gamer community. I was wondering what your thoughts are on mobile? It seems pretty obvious that mobile could be the biggest, quickest adoption of this technology in the near-term. Do we think there's scope for interesting gaming or narrative drive content on a mobile system or is everyone hyped about Half Life 3 in VR too much?
  12. Still slugging away. The length and back-and-forth gets you down after a while but then the game will have a set piece or section that'll pull you back in.
  13. New people: Read this, say hi.

    Hi all, long time listener / first time forum'er. Been away from video games for a decade and recently bought a 3DS and PS4 to get back into them. Love the cast etc..etc...
  14. THE EVIL WITHIN: Slurms MacKenzie

    Halloween, The Thing, Suspiria to name just 3 classic horror films. I guess it depends on where the demarcation of horror and scary is for you ... I played through a few scenes from Evil Within and wasn't blown away. I found the letter boxing really debilitating, obviously it's meant to feel claustrophobic but I felt it was a similar conceit to the "tank controls" of RE that seems to be retroactively be claimed to increase tension and frustration from the player.