Oculus Rift

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

We are preparing to start shipping the new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. Please take a moment to update your billing and shipping information on the Order Management page



Status:PENDING:Your order is pending.

[Kayaker Magic]

Woot! I have one on order! For several reasons:
1) Trying out virtual worlds in 3D!
2) Rumor has it that the DK2 is using a display designed by a small company in Sebastopol California, a display with a sub-pixel layout called "PenTile". It turns out that I worked for that small company and had a hand in designing all the PenTile displays and it would be double-pluss-cool to have a device like the Oculus Rift with some Tech in it that I helped design.
I have an hypothesis (and this is only my own supposition) that Oculus acquired a container full of Galaxy S4 displays to make the DK2s. This hypothesis is based on the reported resolution and OLED technology of the DK2. If the rumor that the display is PenTile turns out to be true, that will clinch it. This is very good news for Occulus Rift, because the Galaxy S4 display is a "Diamond PenTile" display with the red green and blue sub-pixels offset diagonally (in a "diamond" pattern) which will help break up pattern visibility. It also has twice as many green sub-pixels as red or blue, and the human visual system sees most of the luminance and thus most of the resolution in the green channel. You heard it here first!

[Marstol Nitely]

They're shipping!
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/ocul ... ers-565213

[Marstol Nitely]

No longer a rumor Kayaker: http://www.cnet.com/news/ifixits-oculus ... y-40-leds/

[Kayaker Magic]

No longer a rumor Kayaker: http://www.cnet.com/news/ifixits-oculus ... y-40-leds/

Yay! Well, I was predicting a Galaxy S4 display and it turns out to be a Galaxy Note 3. Both have the same resolution, so I wonder why the chose the larger physical sized one? I would think that you could use the S4 display, move it a little closer, and change the lenses to compensate. The result would be a smaller total system. Perhaps there is some optical limit that makes the larger size better. The Note 3 display is a "Diamond PenTile" like the S4, so it will still have the advantage of less pattern visibility than an equivalent non-PenTile display. I can hardly wait to see one up close! Mine has not arrived yet

[Kayaker Magic]

Well, my Oculus Rift did arrive today. With hours of delivery hassles (UPS delivered it to the people next door, they didn't have time to walk it over or call me until I knocked on their door at 5:30PM). Then there were the usual software hassles. There are 1000's of people on the Oculus forums with rifts that show an orange light (NO SIGNAL) and cannot get them to work.

Here is the combination of things that I did to get mine to work:

Use their config utility to put it in "extended display" mode. It becomes an extension of your main monitor (and the orange light finally turns blue for OK). Use your display setup (nvidea for me) to rotate the Rift until that half of your extended double monitor is right-side-up. Then run the demo programs that say they are built for going directly to the Rift. (This is backwards, you SHOULD use the other one). If the image straddles the two displays, you can look at the Rift with just one eye, or exit (escape) and run it again, it usually goes to the right place the second time. I got most of the demo programs I downloaded to work with this combination.

Most, but not all and sadly ControlAltStudio, the version of FireStorm modified for the Rift, was one of the ones that never worked. Probably because it was built to not go directly to the Rift (the combination that never worked for me). LL's rift viewer for SL had a similar problem.

How did it look? I got a little queasy. If you run the Tuscany demo and look at sharp edges as you move your head, you see some effects that are not natural, edges moving in a jerky swimming way. It is fun to chase the butterflies! You turn your head and move the mouse in a natural feeling way to keep a butterfly in view. You might forget to look for queasy edges while doing this! The video games are so immerseive that you forget to see the screen resolution. The DK1 had a regular RGB display that people said looked like viewing the world through a screen door. The DK2 with a PenTile display is like viewing the world through ... grainy color film. I think this is better than an RGB display of similar resolution would have looked.

[Kayaker Magic]

Update! I figured out how to get the CntrlAltStudio viewer to work! So I am seeing Kitely through my Oculus Rift!

There are lots of problems everywhere. The Oculus "service" program keeps dying, which means the head tracking stops working every other time I need it. The CntrQAltStudio viewer reports the camera angle rotated by 180 degrees. I wrote my kayaks and surfboards to steer with the mouse in mouse-look mode, so this camera angle bug makes a kayak spin around unless you turn your whole body until the Rift is facing away from the head tracking camera. But then mykayak steers by just looking where you want to go!

It is a thrill to walk through a 3D environment that you designed yourself! Then (sitting backwards in my chair) I kayak surfed a big wave, stood on the deck of a pirate ship under sail, and jumped off the back of a wave in a windsurfer, caught big air, and fell back down into the water! Open Simulator (and that other Virtual World) are going to create millions of things for people to see and do with the Oculus Rift!

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

Mine arrived friday
Works as intended for me ! It's a bit pesky switching from extended to rift mode though.


Guaranteed motion sickness and general awesomeness
(it's not friendly in that I need to unplug a monitor though.. ordered a splitter.. maybe that'll help)

[Marstol Nitely]

Update! I figured out how to get the CntrlAltStudio viewer to work! So I am seeing Kitely through my Oculus Rift!!

Share please. I can maneuver the latest update of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete viewer to where it should be using the Windows and arrow keys, but when I hit Ctrl-Alt-3 my screen goes black. DK2 is not as friendly with my computer as DK1 was.

BTW, I let my husband ride my Pandoran Ikran on Marcat using DK1 and he thought that was the coolest thing he'd ever done or seen in a virtual world. Can't wait to try it with the improved graphics.

[Kayaker Magic]

Share please. I can maneuver the latest update of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete viewer to where it should be using the Windows and arrow keys, but when I hit Ctrl-Alt-3 my screen goes black. DK2 is not as friendly with my computer as DK1 was.

There is a long list of things to do, poorly documented, let's see if I can remember it all:

First of all, "direct HMD access from apps" does not work, but it is the default mode (orange light) the stupid thing comes up in! You have to run the configuration utility, click Tools->Rift Display mode->Extend desktop to the HMD. The blue light will finally come on and you will see a Windows desktop in the Rift.

That window will be sideways, you have to run Screen Resolution (right click on screen to find that) and put the Rift in portrait mode to get the image right-side up. This is also where you can force Windows to use your monitor as the main display when it goofs up and decides to move all your icons and windows into the Rift.

Most of the demo programs from Oculus will now work, if you run the version that says "DirectToRift" in the name. This is backwards, the other one SHOULD work in this mode, but this is what works.

If your head tracking stops working, and you get a message "Oculus service not available" from their own utility, "Tools->advanced->restart service" never worked for me, I had to find C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus\Service\OVRService_x64.exe myself and run it by hand.

CtrlAltStudios Viewer has a long list of things to do, I'll repeat them here:

It came up in full-screen mode the first time for me. You need to put it in windowed mode. Preference->graphics->general is where that check-box is. It won't switch until you restart, but hold off and do a few other things there, like check the "Advanced Ligting Model" box.
Go to the "display output" tab and enable Oculus Rift.
Hit Apply after every step! (As usual). Now exit and restart the viewer

Maneuver yourself around to where you want to be in Rift mode. Once in Rift mode you cannot sit on anything, so sit on vehicles while you are in flat windowed mode.

The CtrlAltStudio pages say "Window->Right_Arrow" will move the program into the Rift display, but this never worked for me. I had to grab the window and drag it into the rift side of my extended display.

THEN you can hit Ctrl-Alt-3 to go into Rift mode.

To get back out, (and you will need to do this over and over again), Ctrl-Alt-3 turns Rift mode off. Peek through the rift one eye at a time, find the mouse cursor and the window top bar, and drag it back onto your monitor. You can run in flat window mode to reposition, find places and things, sit on vehicles, then drag it back over to get back in Rift mode.

If you use one of my critters or vehicles that is steerable in mouse-look mode, they will run in circles until you turn to face away from the Oculus IR camera! (I think this is not MY bug). Then you can steer (at least left and right) by just looking where you want to go. VERY COOL! I wish I could say "Oh yes, I planned it this way, I knew this would work in the Rift". Next update to the Ikran will have an Oculus mode where looking up and down also works!

This is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME YET is it?