VentureBeat » Oculus Rift

See Skyrim running on the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset

Jeffrey Grubb — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:37:14 +0000

Forget your local Renaissance faire — the best way to live in a medieval world full of magic is by sitting at your computer and wearing a virtual-reality helmet.

Software developer Chris Gallizzi did the footwork to get Bethesda’s beloved first-person role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim working on the Oculus Rift headset, according to Joystiq. The Rift is a special helmet that creates a full 3D wrap-around display of in-game worlds. It provides a real sensation of walking through a digital setting — which is ideal for Skyrim.

“It’s amazing,” Gallizzi wrote on his YouTube page. “Skyrim is the perfect game for VR. No online connection required and a massive world to explore. You can stand up and do a full 360-degree turn-around or look in other directions.”

Gallizzi’s solution isn’t official, so it will require some work for others to get working. The developer used the Vireio Perception Driver, open source software that brings Rift support to multiple games, and he had to play around with Skyrim’s settings to improve the experience.

Also, Skyrim could cause a lot of disorientation, even over short play sessions, due to the in-game menus, text, and heads-up display that are not optimized for the Rift.

“It takes some adjusting depending on your sight,” Gallizzi wrote. “I’m nearsighted, so I had to adjust the field-of-view from 100 degrees to 110 degrees to make everything seem correct.”

Check out Skyrim on the Rift in the video below:

Filed under: Games

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GamesBeat weekly roundup: Next Xbox rumors, BioShock Infinite talk, and more …

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:33:08 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Electronic Arts is named the worst company in America yet again, Microsoft executive Adam Orth is no longer employed after disastrous new Xbox tweets, and a Saints Row movie might be in the works.

You’ll also find previews for Civilization V’s Brave New World expansion, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded.

News

EA Troubles

Mobile

Multimedia

Tech

Previews

Interviews

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

Oculus Rift dev kit: Good virtual reality involves science and easy assembly

Stephanie Carmichael — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:15:23 +0000

Virtual reality is a wonder, but cracking the latest in technology removes a little of the mystery.

That’s a good thing.

The tech site IFixit posted a teardown of the developer edition of the Oculus Rift headset, which is basically an early prototype of what consumers will receive. We played with the device earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show, calling it “virtual reality that won’t make you barf.”

The headset uses a resolution of 1280-by-800 pixels, or 640-by-800 for each eye. Head-tracking works with a combination of a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer as part of a 1,000Hz absolute 9DOF orientation sensor. You can look around your environment without moving your entire body in the virtual world. IFixit tested the headset with one of the few compatible video games available, the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2.

The dev kit also included a convenient, generously sized case for storing various cables and adapters.

IFixit found that the 3D “magic” of the headset was really just the science of stereopsis. The Rift assigns a separate image to each eye, and your brain does the rest by merging them into a single image. The Rift comes three differently sized eye cups to suit each wearer’s interpupillary distance (IPD).

Taking the Rift apart was just as simple. Disassembly only took about 10 minutes with some basic tools, and it was easy enough for the website to award a 9-out-of-10 repairability score.

As it turns out, the headset uses an Innolux HJ070IA-02D 7-inch LCD panel, which comes from Chimei Innolux in Taiwan, the same manufacturer rumored to be Apple’s replacement source for the iPad Mini screen.

Three main chips control the device: a STMicroelectronics 32F103C8 ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller with 72 MHz CPU, an Invensense MPU-6000 six-axis motion-tracking controller, and an A983 2206, or a suspected three-axis magnetometer that helps account for gyroscope drift.

A basic control box, which contains a motherboard with three additional chips, connects the Rift to PCs. It features buttons for configuring settings and several I/O ports and supports HDMI to DVI output conversion.

There’s no telling how this product will compare to the finished one, but right now, it’s in good shape.

Photo credit: iFixit

Filed under: Business, Dev, Gadgets, Games

What developers doodle/write when they’re bored (gallery)

Dan "Shoe" Hsu — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:23:10 +0000

The Oculus Rift is sure keeping a lot of people on hold. The upcoming virtual reality headset “that won’t make you barf” (our words) isn’t nearly ready for consumers — the development kits just started shipping out. And at last week’s Game Developers Conference, attendees waited up to two hours to get their hands/eyes on a working demo just to see what the fuss is about.

Parent company Oculus VR, however, did have a simple plan to make the long wait at GDC a bit more tolerable. “We felt bad,” said senior product manager Joseph Chen about the developers waiting in line, “so we let them draw on our walls. We just provided the markers.”

Check out the gallery below to see what they ended up writing and drawing to help pass the time.

Filed under: Dev, Games

Epic Games’ alliance with Oculus VR means virtual reality gaming will be coming to you

Dean Takahashi — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:30:55 +0000

Virtual reality is getting a second wind in the game business, where its failures of the past have made everyone skeptical. But Oculus VR, the maker of the Oculus Rift (pictured at last week’s Nvidia GPU Technology conference) virtual reality headset, is hoping it can convince everyone that VR is back and that the experience will be an awesome one.

Epic Games, maker of the Unreal game engine, will do its part in helping Oculus. Today, the companies are announcing that Epic’s latest Unreal Development Kit (UDK) will be available with Oculus-ready code for every developer who has purchased the Oculus Rift game development kit. On top of that, all Unreal Engine 3 source licensees will receive the Oculus-Unreal Engine 3 integration code for free. The idea is that this will jumpstart the market for virtual reality games on the Oculus Rift platform.

“Developers have used Unreal Engine technology to create some of the most memorable games in history,” said Tim Sweeney, a founder and the CEO of Epic Games, in a statement. “We view virtual reality as a massive technological step forward and are arming all developers with the tools to create game experiences that represent the future. Our partnership with Oculus will bring the highest quality experiences to virtual reality games.”

Epic Games and Oculus have been collaborating since the launch of Oculus’ Kickstarter campaign. The custom Oculus-ready version of UDK, the free edition of UE3, will include the Epic Citadel tech demo, a medieval castle and village that developers can explore in virtual reality with the Rift. The companies are showing off the technology this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“We’ve said from the start that independent developers were as important to us as triple-A developers,” said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, in a statement. “The Unreal Engine and UDK have proven time and again that they are première engines for all game developers. Our relationship with Epic shows our commitment to give every developer the chance to create the next amazing game experience.”

Filed under: Dev, Games

Oculus Rift is virtual reality that won’t make you barf (hands-on preview)

Dean Takahashi — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:00:37 +0000

For more stories from the Consumer Electronic Show 2013, see VentureBeat's full coverage of CES 2013.

Motion sickness is the curse of virtual reality. When you wear a virtual-reality headset and the screen’s doesn’t match your body’s movement, it can make you feel sick — to the point of throwing up. But Oculus VR, a virtual-reality headset maker founded by Palmer Luckey, is launching a new headset sometime soon that it promises will make VR into an immersive and entertaining experience.

We tried out the latest Oculus Rift VR headset at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Our time with the device impressed us, and we didn’t leave any green goo on the ballroom floor of the Digital Experience party at the MGM Grand Hotel. Brendan Iribe (pictured), chief executive of Oculus VR, showed me a demo of the headset, which received funding via a $2.4 million Kickstarter crowdfunding project. The headset we used is a prototype and, after a few months delay, the final headset should ship in March.

“This is day zero of VR gaming,” Iribe said. “For the first time, it’s good enough so that you won’t want to kill yourself when you’re wearing it.”

This one already works great. The bulky goggles felt light on my head, and the images covering my eyes immersed me inside a gaming world. When I moved my head, the images changed rapidly enough to match what I would see if I turned my head in normal life. I walked around inside the Citadel demo, which depicts a medieval village built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. I experienced no lag between my movements and the changing imagery, so I didn’t get motion sickness. It was full stereo 3D, covering both of my eyes.

I could turn my head any direction I wanted, with a field of view of 110 degrees diagonal and 90 degrees horizontal. The resolution is 1280 x 800 (or 640 x 800 per eye), which is good but not spectacular. The Unreal Engine 3 graphics were good but flawed. The snowflakes had real shape to them, but they looked kind of fake as I could see through them. So it will take considerably better 3D graphics to convince you that what you’re seeing is real life.

But the interaction was great. I could shoot a little green spark at objects in the scenery, and it was instantaneous and accurate. If I turned my head too fast, I could see a blur in the environment. Future improvements will fix the effect, Iribe said. The screen itself added 15 milliseconds of delay. The motion sensor has a 2 millisecond latency, or delay between interactions.

“In a future version, for consumers, we could do a higher resolution,” Iribe said. “This is just head tracking, but in the future, people should be able to integrate hand tracking. The final version will come when there is enough content and the developers of the world say this is consumer ready. We’re not there yet.”

Still, it is a very good achievement to make something that won’t annoy the gamer. Oculus VR has a very small margin of error in delivering a good experience. Some famous game developers such as id Software’s John Carmack and Valve’s Mike Abrash have expressed interest in virtual reality as a way to advance gaming. They’re encouraged by Oculus VR’s progress. Carmack even promoted the Oculus Rift at last year’s E3 trade show.

“Latency is fundamental,” Abrash wrote. “If you don’t have low enough latency, it’s impossible to deliver good experiences, by which I mean virtual objects that your eyes and brain accept as real.”

Iribe said the CES demo has a new motion sensor that reduced latency and improved the experience. I controlled everything with an Xbox 360 controller. But you can use a keyboard and mouse, and future user interfaces could work as well, like a faux sword or wand.

“Controllers of the future won’t be simple gamepads,” he said.

If it gets support from developers, Oculus Rift might present a really compelling shift to gameplay. For instance, you might hold a controller in your hand, but if you look down inside the game, you’ll see that you’re holding a sword. That adds to the illusion. You can control your movement with the controller, which is so intuitive for players that they can do it without looking at their hands. This is one small step on the way to the virtual reality of the Star Trek Holodeck, where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

Pricing hasn’t been set yet. Oculus VR is currently manufacturing developer kits that will ship in March. Those developers will then modify their PC games so they are “Oculus ready.” The company will announce availability for consumers at a later date. Two games that will be Oculus ready are Doom 3: BFG Edition and Meteor Entertainment’s Hawken. The Oculus Rift works with Unreal Engine 3 and Unity. It supports DVI, HDMI, and USB inputs.

Luckey founded the company a few years ago. In August, the company launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. It raised millions and received support from 10,000 game developers and fans.

Filed under: Business, Games

Want more CES news? Check out our full coverage of CES 2013.

10 things that blew our minds at CES 2013

VentureBeat Staff — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:52:26 +0000

For more stories from the Consumer Electronic Show 2013, see VentureBeat's full coverage of CES 2013.

VentureBeat has emerged triumphant from CES 2013, with only one writer stricken with a mysterious convention illness. The past week went by like a whirlwind, but now that we have some time (and distance) away from Las Vegas, we can finally sit back and take a look at what worked best at this year’s show.

Fitbit Flex

Fitness gadget pioneer Fitbit came out swinging at CES this year, after being overshadowed by Jawbone and Nike’s wristbands. The $99 Fitbit Flex brings most of the company’s health tracking capabilities (sans stair counting) to a device that you can wear with you all day. The Flex makes Fitbit the most versatile health gadget company for consumers. If you don’t like wearing a wristband, you can always opt for the Fitbit One. I’ve found Fitbit’s data management to be the best of all the fitness gadgets, so I’m eager to put the Flex through its paces soon. – Devindra Hardawar

Fujifilm’s sleek X100S camera

While many hot new cameras debuted at CES, one really caught our attention. Fujifim’s X100S digital camera claims to have one of the world’s fastest autofocus on a camera at 0.08 seconds. The X100S is the successor to the well-regarded X100, with sales of 130,000 cameras worldwide since its launch. The outside of the X100S might have a retro look, but the inside is brimming with power. It features a 16.3-megapixel APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor and a fast EXR Processor II, both of which should ensure better noise reduction and all-around crisper photos. The X100S runs $1,300 and should be available in late March. — Sean Ludwig

Movea’s indoor smartphone location sensing

Movea showed off a way to use a phone’s existing sensors — an acclerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, Wi-Fi, and global-positioning system (GPS) satellite data. At the Las Vegas Hotel, Movea’s Dave Rothenberg showed me how his company created software that could calculate a route through the middle of the hotel, up the elevators to the sixth floor, and to the appropriate room.

Rothenberg’s Samsung Galaxy III smartphone showed the path the whole way, though it had to halt a couple of times to fix its bearings. As we rose in the elevator, Movea’s software figured out (using the pressure sensor in the Galaxy III) which floor we were on, and it prompted us to get off when we hit the sixth floor. The company retrieved the indoor map from the hotel’s own blueprints. The system does this in places where there is no GPS signal by estimating the length of your steps, given your height. This won’t work in uncontrolled environments yet, but indoor location isn’t so crazy an idea as phones become equipped with more and more sensors. – Dean Takahashi

Muse’s brain-bending headband

Muse’s Indiegogo-funded headband claims to measure your brain waves related to focus and relaxation. We had previously heard about Muse’s progress, but it was different seeing it in person. I tested it out, and as Muse claims, a program on a screen in front of you shows your brain activity in real time. As I focused more, the app onscreen showed more snow falling down, and as I relaxed more the sky turned clear. What was particularly revealing is that as I talked to different people, my brain activity levels changed, showing that some people engaged with me better than others. – Sean Ludwig

Oculus Rift makes virtual reality … a reality

The Oculus Rift VR headset is in prototype form and the final is expected to ship this March. But it already looks great. Once you put these bulky virtual reality googles on, it immerses you inside a gaming world. When you move your head, the imagery changes rapidly enough to match what you would expect in normal life. I donned the headset and walked around a medieval village built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. There was no lag between my movements and the changing imagery, and so I didn’t get motion sickness, as is common with many other virtual-reality headsets.

Some famous game developers such as id Software’s John Carmack and Valve’s Mike Abrash have expressed interest in this. If it gets support from game developers, it might be a really compelling shift in the you play games. For instance, you might hold a controller in your hand. But if you look down inside the game, you’ll see that you’re holding a sword. That adds to the illusion. You can control your movement with the controller, which is so intuitive for gamers so that they can use it without seeing their hands. This is one small step on the way to the virtual reality of the Star Trek Holodeck, where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. — Dean Takahashi

Pebble’s smartwatch is finally here

Yes, we love the Pebble smartwatch. It’s gone from a Kickstarter darling to a crowdfunding warning sign to a CES showstopper, all in less then a year. That’s a lot of drama for a watch that connects to your smartphone to display messages and control media.

Mostly, the Pebble’s popularity came from amped-up demand. There have been several attempts at smartwatches, but nobody’s yet managed to make a killer offering. (Apple came the closest with its watch-ready iPod Nano.) But with its simple design and monochrome display, the Pebble managed to capture geek hearts across the web. It makes sense for Pebble to choose CES as its official unveiling: Expect even more killer consumer tech startups to dominate the show in the future. (We’ve already seen quite a few this year.) – Devindra Hardawar

Project Shield: A crazy gamble on gaming hardware

Nvidia’s Project Shield could disrupt the console game business, where new titles typically cost $60. The Android-based portable gaming system lets you play high-quality, free-to-play Tegra Zone games on a 5-inch screen. You can also connect that machine via HDMI to a television and play games on a big screen. [Check out our hands-on video with Project Shield, as well as our exclusive interview with Nvidia's CEO.]

If Android games aren’t your taste, you can also play PC games that you have downloaded from Valve’s Steam digitial distribution service to your PC. And since Nvidia has invested heavily in its cloud-based GeForce Gaming Grid, you’ll be able to play cloud games on it too. The system is open, and you can expect a new model to debut every year. Nvidia is targeting hardcore gamers who want free-to-play games on their TVs.

It might be a narrow niche, given the crowded space. But Nvidia says the system is perfect for traveling people who want to access their own games from hotel rooms. You’ll be able to play any Android apps via the Shield, and you’re also have plenty of horsepower with the system’s Tegra 4 processor. If this takes off, Nvidia will open up gaming and lower the cost of playing for consumers. – Dean Takahashi

Tegra 4 brings desktop power to mobile

Nvidia’s Tegra 4 mobile processor will be the brains of a new generation of mobile devices. It has 72 graphics cores, compared to just 12 on a Tegra 3. That isn’t nearly as many as the 3,072 on Nvidia’s top PC graphics chip, but the power consumption of Tegra 4 is far less than a desktop chip. Visually, this means you’ll be able to play high-definition games on a TV screen or a small screen with a Tegra 4-based mobile device. And if you have a 4K TV and 4K content, Tegra 4 will be able to run that too.

The chip has four microprocessor cores, plus a smaller core that operates in power-saving mode. The chip will be small since it will be built with a 28-nanometer manufacturing process. The new process also allows Nvidia to cut power consumption by as much as 45 percent.

Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs says the graphics in the Snapdragon 800 series will beat Nvidia’s, to which Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang replied, “Pretty brash words. We’ll see, I guess.” – Dean Takahashi

Qualcomm’s batshit insane keynote

At first I was bewildered by Qualcomm’s zany keynote, thanks to the trio of terrible actors pretending to be “born mobile” youths. Then I felt embarrassed for Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs when he was upstaged by Steve Ballmer. But eventually, I’ve come around to see this monstrous event as something truly wonderful. It may not have done much to encapsulate what Qualcomm is actually doing to innovate the mobile industry, but it sure was memorable.

How could you forget a keynote that featured cameos from Big Bird, film director Guillermo del Toro (who showed off some fun and gory clips from Blade II in 4K), a finale concert by Maroon 5, and a video message from Desmond Tutu. Indeed, Qualcomm’s CES keynote transcends description — and at one point, seemingly space and time. — Devindra Hardawar

Xi3′s Piston ‘Steam Box’

The Xi3 Piston is a cool modular computer, even if it isn’t exactly what Valve will launch with its Linux-based Steam Box. Rumors are rife that the Piston is indeed the living room game console that Valve will eventually launch. Valve has invested in Xi3, and Valve chief executive Gabe Newell confirmed that Valve is making its own open game machine.

The Xi3 Piston has a 3.2-GHz quad-core microprocessor and 384 programmable graphics cores. It comes with 8GB of DDR main memory. It can support three monitors natively and two mini-display ports, and it comes with 64 GB to 1TB of storage, depending on price. It has plenty of other ports, but the box remains tiny, modular, and upgradeable. Piston consumes only 40 watts, compared to 1,000 watts for some of the high-end game PCs. That means it doesn’t need a noisy fan, and you should be able to play kick-ass games on it. – Dean Takahashi

Filed under: Business

Want more CES news? Check out our full coverage of CES 2013.

Production woes push Oculus Rift VR headset release into mid-March

Jeffrey Grubb — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:45:58 +0000

The virtual reality future that visionary developer John Carmack promised us will take longer than expected.

The Oculus Rift 3D headset developer kits are now set to ship out in mid-March. The product, which began as a Kickstarter project, is a victim of its own success.

“When we launched our Kickstarter campaign in August, we hoped to sell a few hundred kits to game developers and virtual reality enthusiasts around the world,” reads a statement from the Oculus VR company. “Instead, we were blown away by the overwhelming response from a community of almost 10,000 backers, who raised nearly $2.5 million dollars to help us develop the Oculus Rift.”

Oculus is off the hook for the 7,500 units it originally said would ship in January 2013, but a bottleneck in the production line is forcing the startup to inform backers of this delay.

The main source of the delay is with Oculus’s manufacturer and its injection-mold tooling required to create the headset’s plastic casing.

Oculus provided a chart that shows the injection-mold process swallowing up almost two months, from mid-November into the first quarter of January. The company also linked to the following video from the television program How It’s Made, which explains plastic injection molds:

Filed under: Games

Head-mounted displays are still amazing (and still expensive)

Ricardo Bilton — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:21:23 +0000

The future of displays is here, and, well — it’s still sort of pricey.

Imaging company Carl Zeiss is finally bringing its Cinemizer head-mounted displays to market, four years after it first introduced them. Retailing for $749, the Cinemizer HUD offers 870 by 500 resolution, HDMI, and the option of a head-tracking add-on.

As you can see in this video, this technology has some pretty distinct applications, including the virtual exploration spaces that don’t actually exist.

But as impressive as the Cinemizer HUD is, it’s also a day late and a dollar short, as Sony’s HMZ HDTV offers HD visuals for only $50 more.

But while Zeiss is a bit late to first round of HUDs, it is far, far ahead of what is likely to be one of the decade’s most compelling new consumer markets: personal augmented reality displays.

Consider the Oculus Rift, which raised over $2 million on Kickstarter last month. Backed by game industry bigwigs like Valve president Gabe Newell and Unity CEO David Helgason, the device has received praise for being one of the first to really push forward head-mounted display technology.

But the naturally giddy anticipation for this technology is tempered somewhat by harsh financial reality: New technology is, almost as a rule, prohibitively expensive for the average person. And that’s heartbreaking.

Fortunately, these things get cheaper as the industry matures and companies scale their operations. So for now we can only wait, wallets in hand, for the future that for now lies only in demos and concept videos.

Filed under: Business, Gadgets, Games, Mobile

The Oculus Rift might bring a virtual-reality renaissance to gaming

James Pikover — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:00:03 +0000

We all have a view for how games will look like and be like in five, 10, and 20 years from now. I expect some technologies, like 3D, to lead to holograms. Others will go in directions unknown. One upcoming technology aiming to change how we both play and see games and virtual reality as a whole is the Rift from Oculus. The Long Beach, Calif.-based company successfully completed its Kickstarter campaign with just under 10 times the amount it set out to make, a relatively meek $250,000 specifically for developer units and not consumer-grade peripherals. Yet with big names like John Carmack and Gabe Newell — founders of game-development houses id Software and Valve Corporation, respectively — openly claiming that the Rift is the best virtual-reality device in existence, it comes as no surprise that game developers and players everywhere have an interest in the peripheral’s future.

What is the Rift?

Photo by Kyle Orland, Ars Technica

The Rift is a pair of virtual reality glasses that completely covers the eyes and reproduces what people would normally see on a computer monitor or TV screen. With LCD displays, the Rift produces images at a resolution of 640×800 per eye (1280×800 altogether). The company has stated, however, that the consumer version, shipping in 2013, will have a higher-resolution display. Thanks to the two screens, the Rift fully supports and integrates 3D in what the company claims is the most realistic 3D gaming experience to date.

Many individuals agree with the assessment, but the device isn’t for everyone. Venturebeat writer Evan Killham played id Software’s Doom 3 BFG Edition, the first game to work with the Rift, and told me that while the technology worked, ”I realized that I was starting to feel disoriented and actually got a little clammy. Frankly speaking, playing the Oculus made me feel like shit.” His trouble with the device isn’t unusual for 3D technologies, though as an avid 3D gamer, he notes that the difference between the 3D of the Rift and devices like the Nintendo 3DS is extreme. He further added, “I told the developers afterwards about my queasiness, and they said that the Oculus would ‘take some getting used to.’ I’m not sure how long they expect people who have experiences similar to mine to stick it out since I’m pretty sure most people will stop as soon as they get uncomfortable. Even if they’re not worried about puking all over a prototype.”

My own experience with the Rift was very different. I had no difficulty with the use of 3D but also didn’t find the effect as incredible as the group using the Rift before me. I believe the technology certainly works, especially when compared to other 3D tech like Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses, though with one major caveat: that developers program games for 3D properly. Even the Doom BFG demo ends with a paralyzing cinematic that I was told Carmack himself apologized for because he didn’t program past that section of the experience. I ripped the headset off quickly, fully aware of the bad 3D effects. That is to say, as good and realistic as the Rift is, it can be equally terrible in the wrong developer’s hands. What’s more impressive, however, is the head tracking.

Head Tracking plus 3D equals true game immersion

Head tracking is a technology that tracks movements and combines those physical motions with in-game action. Most previous attempts to combine gaming with motion tracking of any kind, even including popular devices like Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation Move for the Playstation 3, have a noticeable delay. What makes the Rift unique is the combination of 3D-video-and-motion tracking (specifically the head tracking component) that is one-to-one. So when wearers turn their heads, the game recognizes the movements, adjusting the display in real time with no noticeable delay. It enables players to actively look around the game environment, something previously found only in extremely expensive or military-grade devices. Even in Doom BFG, a recreated eight-year-old title, I had fun turning my head to look around. In a strange way, the Rift turned this inexpensive and old game into the most immersive gameplay experience out there.

With head tracking, players can do anything from simply looking around the game space to actually controlling character movement. It all depends on how developers use the technology. For Doom BFG, id Software has the Rift designed so individuals play with a gamepad but move their heads up and down to aim vertically. Side-to-side aiming can also be done with the head mount, but it isn’t the main function. The difference between Doom BFG with standard 3D and using the Rift aren’t comparable. I played both at the Penny Arcade Expo and, frankly, you might as well play two separate games. Turning, slightly looking around, and full motion control elevate games with the Rift into a class of their own.

Filed under: Games

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Oculus launches Kickstarter campaign for virtual reality gaming headset

Stefanie Fogel — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:00:13 +0000

Technology company Oculus wants to bring virtual reality to video games, and it’s turning to crowdfunding website Kickstarter for help.

Founded by veterans of Guitar Hero developer RedOctane, interface software developer Scaleform, and cloud gaming company Gaikai, Oculus today launched a campaign to raise money for its first product — a virtual reality headset called the Oculus Rift. The company claims the stereoscopic 3D headset has a huge field of vision – 110 degrees diagonally – and will overcome the latency problems that plagued previous VR gaming peripherals.

“All of us at Oculus are excited to bring the Rift to people who love video games like we do,” says company founder Palmer Luckey. “As a technology for games, virtual reality has been an unrealized dream. We think the Rift is a game changer that will make VR the standard for gameplay in the very near future.”

Luckey tells GamesBeat via email the Rift headset is designed to work with any PC. It apparently also works on a number of other platforms, including Mac, iOS, and Android, according to the Kickstarter page. However, Luckey says his company isn’t ready to announce all of its existing partners.

“But we will soon,” he says.

Luckey also tells GamesBeat his team has spent a lot of time researching virtual reality, trying to figure out what games work best. While first-person shooters seem a natural fit, he says other genres could work as well. “For obvious reasons, first-person perspectives provide the most immersive experiences for virtual reality, but third person titles – when executed correctly – can also provide equally immersive experiences when using the Rift.”

Some well-known names in the gaming industry are already showing their support, including video game engine developers Epic Games, Unity, and Valve. Oculus hopes to bring game creators on board to help with the development process. Donors who contribute $300 or more on Kickstarter will receive a Rift-compatible copy of Doom 3 BFG, along with a development kit and access to the software development kit (SDK), giving devs the ability to integrate the Rift with new and existing games on PC and mobile. Console integration will come at a later date.

“I think this will be the coolest way to experience games in the future,” says Unity CEO David Helgason. ”It will simply be that big.”

“I’m a believer,” adds Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski. “We’re extremely excited here at Epic Games to get the Unreal Engine integrated with Oculus!”

Oculus has already exceeded its original fundraising goal of $250,000; it raised over $300,000 in the first couple of hours. Luckey says he is blown away by the positive reaction the Rift has received from the community. “To be able to reach our goal within hours is very humbling,” he says. ”Thank you all!”

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset will launch in 2013.

Filed under: Games