So Oculus Rift
<div class="IPBDescription">How do you guys see it?</div>I usually see a lot of gimmicks but I am actually exited for this one. It might do a lot for gaming
Plus they NS2 devs have ordered a dev kit
Can you imagine trying to track skulks with one of these? I hope it does not fade away and lives up to what it claims.
Plus they NS2 devs have ordered a dev kit
Can you imagine trying to track skulks with one of these? I hope it does not fade away and lives up to what it claims.
Comments
In addition, if I remember correctly, in an FPS game your cross-hair would be where you look. Not where you move your mouse. Where you look with your eyes.
So basically, I could look at a head then fire and I get a headshot, move on to the next guy, rinse and repeat.
I have no idea if it will be that easy but I believe that's their intent. If so, I hope it's a colossal failure as it would destroy most FPS games.
Sure there may be uses for it elsewhere, but since I'm not interested in those, I wouldn't care too much.
In addition, if I remember correctly, in an FPS game your cross-hair would be where you look. Not where you move your mouse. Where you look with your eyes.
So basically, I could look at a head then fire and I get a headshot, move on to the next guy, rinse and repeat.
I have no idea if it will be that easy but I believe that's their intent. If so, I hope it's a colossal failure as it would destroy most FPS games.
Sure there may be uses for it elsewhere, but since I'm not interested in those, I wouldn't care too much.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why would it strain your eyes? And surely it will be down to the game devs how the device interacts with their game? Rather than a mouse currently controlling your entire body with rotation, a mouse can instead controll the arms via crosshair with moving your head control the head of your character. It will have massive immersion qualities because of this.
Am I being stupid or is that not how it works with a mouse?
If anything, I see aiming with Oculus being harder than keyboard, because
1. Having view movement seperate to crosshair (I'm thinking ArmA II, or perhaps the way it works in a tank in Battlefield) gets me muddled up easily
2. Wouldn't Oculus work on gyroscopic movement thingy-mabobs? In which case surely you can't replicate the pixel-perfect aim a mouse offers, let alone better it?
One of us isn't properly understanding how the Rift works. I'm under the impression you actual vision, where you as a human are looking, controls where your crosshair goes. I can look at people all I want right now in a game, but until I move my mouse on them I won't hit them.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If anything, I see aiming with Oculus being harder than keyboard, because
1. Having view movement seperate to crosshair (I'm thinking ArmA II, or perhaps the way it works in a tank in Battlefield) gets me muddled up easily<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From my understanding, there is no view movement that is separate from the crosshair. Where you look is where your crosshair aims. I don't know how that's possible, but your eyes control your crosshair. Assuming this can be done accurately, you would literally just need to look (not move a mouse) at a target and fire.
So yeah... if that can actually be done accurately it would be a horrible thing for FPS games, in my opinion.
I'm most excited about the possibilities of the rift and simulators. It would make elaborate cockpit builds more or less superfluous. Flight sims, mechwarrior, hooo daddy yes please.
--Scythe--
The headset though seems cool. Do hope it goes somewhere, if they can make it affordable and it gets enough game support I'll get one.
This might have been addressed already but what's the recommended maximum use per session with OR? The 3D function on handhelds are like 3-4 hours and I hope I'm not alone with playing things for longer than that without taking 1 hour breaks.
First actual full in game footage I've found, this looks like its going to be goooooood
Sub-optimal to say the least.
On the other hand, it's not hard to imagine a lightweight, head mounted, wireless, seamless, hemi-spherical curved display offering a huge FOV in a form-factor that the average consumer won't find repulsive. This is probably many years in the future, though some progress is being made on the seamlessly curved part of that idea.
I do regret not stopping by to try it at CES
I don't know, I'd say HL2 is a AAA title. An old one, but AAA. That shoehorned feature sure looked game changing to me, and I was just watching on a regular screen.
It's not your eye movements that control the crosshair. It's your head movements. I don't think that the human neck muscles are more accurate that those of the human hand and fingers so it's unlikely to provide an advantage in that respect.
That said, your head movements don't necessarily have to control where you're actually aiming. It depends on how the head tracking system is implemented. It seems to me like there are two possible ways that the head tracking system could be implemented for FPS games:
- Moving your head alters your aim just like the mouse. You would still need to use the mouse to turn completely around because you would not be able to do that while sitting down. So essentially, you'd be using a combination of mouse and head movements to aim.
- Moving your head alters the direction that you look without changing the direction that your gun is aiming. You would continue to use the mouse exclusively for aiming. Moving your head would just be for looking around. It would be like the Half-Life 2 video Drfuzzy posted except you'd be sitting down with a mouse instead of standing up with a custom gun controller.
I can't say for sure which one of these I would prefer because I would need to try them both out before forming an opinion. However, I THINK that I would probably prefer the second option.Last year around October, I played a fair amount of Day-Z, which is a zombie mod for Arma 2. Arma 2 has a feature where you can turn your head independently of where you're aiming. You hold down a certain key and then you can move your mouse around to turn your character's head without changing his aim.
At first, I thought this was a pointless feature but, after trying it out for some time, I found that I was using it all the time without thinking. When I went back to playing other FPS games, I started to wish that they had this feature as well. In fact, I think it would be really cool to add this feature to Natural Selection 2, regardless of Oculus Rift compatibility.
With the Oculus Rift, however, a feature like this could essentially be on the whole time without even having to hold a key down.
I wrote a bunch of words about what defines a AAA game but who really cares. HL2 was a success and a great game but it still pales in comparison to the sales records of games like COD:blops which almost outsold the lifetime of HL2 in the first 24 hours.
I think Occulus is a great idea but it's ahead (pun unintended) of it's time. I would blame the fact that the technology required to make it in a form factor that will be palatable for the average human (which is to say: not computer gamers) simply doesn't exist.
With that said, I look forward to the future when video games all take advantage of VR (stereoscopic, true to life FOV, head movement tracking, etc) presentation techniques whether it's head or wall mounted.
Imagine FPS games where you actually have to USE the iron sights, they don't align automatically (ala COD) instead you actually have to position your head correctly. Perhaps environments that take advantage of your heightened spatial awareness or the ability to correctly use cover.
I guess these are the kinds of game changes I want when I said I was afraid of it just being an after-thought shoe-horned accessory.
Gude,
I tested a system with a little different approach and I can say, that it is currently nearly impossible to compete with those kind of glasses + head tracker when there is no auto-aming/mouse provided.
The turning speed with the glasses "lags" a bit and cannot be compared with the direct keyboard+mouse input at the moment as far as I can tell.
The tested system consisted of the following:
- Glasses with motion sensor
as a substitute for the mouse
- Gaming Glove (Peregrine as far as I remember)
as a substitute for the keyboard (movement only)
- A friend
who pressed the fire button on the keyboard, when I said "fire". XD
So the system was pretty unique.
Naturally, firing would be much faster if I had a second glove for the different fire modi, reload and weapon switching, but combining these 3 "future" techniologies was really awesome. (By the way, we used a cryengine 3 sandbox, so the graphics were cool, too.)
But as I said earlier: You cannot compete with a normal keyboard+mouse control because of the current aiming lag you will suffer in FPS games.
Maybe the motion sensors will get faster, but according to this video QuakeCon 2012 - John Carmack Keynote (starting somewhere after the first hour) the "direct" input combined with fast monitors will deliver the better gaming experience. Think about a gasoline engine compared with a hydrogen engine. In theory, the hydrogen engine has the better efficiency and more energy availability, but the gasoline engine has 100+ years (equal to roughly a quadruple-bazillion of man-hours) of extra development time... Same counts for the motion sensor input. It is the more natural input, but the keyboard+mouse has made lots of improvements over the decades like from the ball mouse to a 4-or-more-k dpi laser mouse.
Back to the quote: I think if the development goes on, many people will start using these new input/output devices. But I am sure it will not end the era; It will just bring it to the next level while it will certainly never feel more "direct" as a decent mouse.
Isch mach ma weider.
The only reason I didn't buy a Dev kit is because 1) The lenses sit so close to the cornea, that wearing glasses is impossible, and 2) the commercial release version has been stated to include planned diopter adjustment, as well as software correction for astigmatism.
Had a friend who tried one out; apparently it was absolutely incredible. He got motion sick; not because it was bad, but because it was so GOOD. Turning his head resulted in an instant response. Zero perceivable delay. The reason he got motion sick was that his eyes said he was moving, but his body was completely still. The reverse of carsickness, essentially. Also, it's apparently light enough that even extended wear is a non-issue, even with the dev kits.
I'm also looking forward to a version that integrates a camera (or two/three) for each eye, and motion-track contact lenses; allowing both head orientation to be tracked (by the MEMS gyros in the headset) and eye tracking to optimize things even further (A follow-HUD, graphical effects reliant on where you're looking)... I can only imagine a remake of something like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem putting screaming faces and slithering things in just at your peripheral vision, that would vanish as soon as you looked at them. Or ACTUAL tunnel-vision on low health. Closing one eye to go into scoped mode. Or yes, as people have been afraid of, looking at an enemy to target them, independent of head position, making the whole thing even more fluid and natural.
Really, it all depends on how well it's adopted. Most of my engineer friends are chomping at the bit, or already own a Dev model. A higher-res version is expected between the $200-300 price point; high for a monitor, but on-par with a standard 3D setup. Beyond that, it all becomes chicken-and-egg; getting game devs to include the support (and do it WELL!!) to justify buying one... and people buying them making it a viable point to include in a game's code.
The only reason I'm really negative is the low inclusion rate of multi-monitor gaming... even NS2 (which would GREATLY benefit from a triple-monitor setup, with a SIMPLE and proven change to the code) doesn't do it right; the Devs continue to use Vert- instead of Horiz+ for FOV. When it's a literal 15-second change to the code needed. Imagine how much it will take to add Oculus support?