First Day Review of the Oculus Rift Dev Kit

[ApexStudios]

So, I got my Oculus Rift dev kit yesterday, and I've decided I'd write up a review on my first (and not very long) experience.

I'll start off with the unboxing. I came home from work after an agonizing 4 and half hours knowing that my rift was at home, so the first thing I did once I got in was grab my rift and take it to my room.

So firstly, the box for it is awesome, and the first thing you see upon opening it is a nice little letter from the guys at Oculus explaining that they're happy I bought the dev kit and they can't see what I make with it. Next we had an easy to follow instructions manual for setting up the rift.

As for parts included, we had a control box and the headset itself, which are both very lightweight, we had a few cables to connect the rift up (can't remember exactly what there were, but it was a USB cable, a display cable and a power cable), and of course there were the three lenses: A, B and C.

I pressed the power button and the little blue light came on indicating the device was turned on, and I booted up Tuscany. Unfortunately, this first time it simply came up with a display saying "Device not detected" or something along those lines, so I quit, and downloaded the TinyRoom demo.

As soon as I booted it up, I noticed the display on my second monitor (I had this one duplicating the rift) was facing down, as was my HMD. I picked it up, and the screen moved accordingly, so it was working. I strapped the HMD onto my head with eyes closed until it fit comfortably, and opened my eyes.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of vision the rift covers, it's incredible, and I could only just see the black borders at the very edge of my peripheral vision, but other than that it was amazing. The second thing I noticed was the spot-on head tracking, and I began to look around the rather low detailed room.

One thing I didn't find as good as I'd expected was the 3D, however I'll get to that later. And also the resolution was (as I expected) pretty low, but it was actually better than I'd been expecting. After walking around in the room for a bit, I walked up to a shelf on the wall, and this was where some of the 3D stood out, the shelf was really inches from my face.

So next, I opened up my favourite game: Minecraft. I'd already set up the Minecrift mod, so I opened it and dove back into the rift. First thing that happened was a little head tracking calibration thing, which was pretty cool, and made sure that everything was where it should be.

So I'd already prepared a world for the rift, and I jumped in (using a head-tracking enabled main menu and world selection screen). So, as soon as I got in there, I literally sat there for about a minute going "Wow" over and over as I stared at a torch I'd placed on the wall. It was massive, all of the blocks were literally one cubic meter and looked huge in front of me. I began to look around and began another series of "Wow" as I noticed my blocky shoulders and legs.

I then did something stupid, I walked out of my house and started to climb up the first of the 5 towers I'd built to test the depth and vertigo that the rift would give me. I reached the top of each and leaped off. Again, I will explain in a bit, but I didn't get the feeling of 3D or any vertigo as I fell. What I did get, after Minecraft, was a bit of nausea (to be expected after falling 250 meters without really getting used to the rift first).

I tried Tuscany again, and it worked this time, and I must say so far this is one of the best experiences, and I think that's down to a more realistic and detailed world than the first two demos, which were both relatively flat and without awesome models/textures. Tuscany had a better feeling of depth as I looked up at the ceiling, which was surprisingly high up, and also when standing next to a candle and it was literally next to my face.

I didn't stay in Tuscany for long as my family had been wanting to give the rift a try. I did something horrible here, and threw my sister into the Ocean Rift demo, without explaining to her what happens (I'd seen it on YouTube). She wandered about the ocean giving a series of "Wow" like I did, until she went into that deeper trench, and the shark came. One of the funniest things I've seen.

So after my family were finished with demos, I decided to try out different lenses, and put the B cups in. What a difference that made. I booted up Team Fortress 2, used the snazzy IPD tool to set up my rift, and created a game with no bots or players just to get used to the controls and test out different types.

The first thing I noticed with TF2 was how for some reason the resolution didn't seem as bad, it felt a lot clearer in TF2 than any other demo so far, and also, the 3D. Turns out the A cups just didn't give me the proper 3D I'd been expecting, but wow, the B cups did it for me. I finally got that depth perception I'd been hearing about. So after playing a game or two using the default TF2 control scheme for the rift (my favourite), I tried out a few more demos, but it was getting late.

The final demo I tried was the Museum of the Microstar, and jheeze, those particles at the start of the demo are so awesome, and then of course the rest of the demo too, incredible depth and detail, and the microstar itself looked fantastic, until I jumped into it.

And that's about it for my first day using the rift, I was left with pretty annoying nausea which lasted for about and hour or two, but it was more of an annoyance than a "I'm gonna throw up" type of sick.

So I can say that the low resolution and lack of positional tracking are my only issues with the Oculus Rift, the 'screen-door effect' is so over exaggerated, I didn't notice it until I looked for it, and even then it was not an issue at all, and will likely dissipate entirely in the consumer version.

Overall, it's a very cool device, and extremely immersive when you get into a game. It has it's flaws but honestly things aren't as pronounced as people say (screen-door), and I would recommend everybody support Oculus and if not the dev kit, but the consumer version when it's released.

I'll update this thread after some more experiences with the rift. But in my opinion, it is amazing.

Thanks for reading, hope this helped some people 🙂

[jeremyc9]

Nice little write-up. I never tire of reading people's first reactions of the Rift. I like the idea of keeping your eyes closed the first time putting on the Rift to adjust it and then opening them to a whole new world, something I've planned on doing when mine gets here.

[ApexStudios]

I would suggest trying out Tuscany rather than TinyRoom as I did, I think that Tuscany feels a lot more immersive and would be incredible to open your eyes to that world, not that my experience wasn't amazing, but I'm sure I would've had a lot more "Wow" if it was Tuscany

[looptheory]

Great review , got mine yesterday 🙂

I agree with the Tuscany Demo and had a brilliant experience with it, made unexpectedly more impressive as having set up a rotating fan in my room earlier had the effect of feeling the wind when standing outside near the low wall looking out to the sea 🙂
I can also suggest Titans of Space , which was breath taking and really gives you such a sense of scale and the feeling of floating in space

[ApexStudios]

"looptheory" wrote:
Great review , got mine yesterday 🙂

I agree with the Tuscany Demo and had a brilliant experience with it, made unexpectedly more impressive as having set up a rotating fan in my room earlier had the effect of feeling the wind when standing outside near the low wall looking out to the sea 🙂
I can also suggest Titans of Space , which was breath taking and really gives you such a sense of scale and the feeling of floating in space

I've been meaning to try Titans of Space, everyone says it's a really awesome demo. One weird thing I've noticed with the rift is that particles seem to get so close to you, like I was chopping a tree down in Minecraft and as such, the particles that fell from the block literally looked like they were going to fall in my eyes, and it's a natural instinct to close your eyes.

I think this shows the level of immersion the device gives you, through I think I really need to play Half Life 2 and get right into a game before getting that "forgetting I'm in a room" feeling people have described, that is what I'm really looking forward to, as demos are too short to really make you forget you're sitting in a room, in my opinion.

I'm actually planning a realistic gladiator game for the Hydra and Rift, which I think could be awesome, actually 'being there' and fighting an online opponent who is using the Rift and Hydra too, I think soon we'll see immersive games that were never possible before, and I think that both melee and gun-based combat games are going to have a huge new set of control options specifically for VR, can't wait to get my Hydra. 🙂

[iantetlow]

My rift arrived in work today, first impressions on holding the rift - its much smaller and much lighter than I anticipated.

Cannot wait to get home and try it out now 8-)

[Dysheekie]

Man, threads like these make it so much more difficult to wait for my rift to arrive.

[ApexStudios]

"Dysheekie" wrote:
Man, threads like these make it so much more difficult to wait for my rift to arrive.

But they also give you something to keep you occupied, literally the time waiting for my rift was spent reading reviews and watching videos about it, don't think I've ever been excited for a product like that before.. and it definitely lives up to the hype.

I'll also say something I found weird, last night I had a very vivid dream about the rift, can't remember exactly what happened in it but it's weird, other people have had the rift affecting their dreams too from what I've read.

Another negative factor I'll include which I just remembered is that getting into bed after using the rift is not a great feeling, the room was spinning like I was drunk and the nausea I had didn't really help. I'd recommend people stop using the rift about half an hour or so before going to bed.

I think today I'm going to try using the rift standing up, see what differences that will make. And I may also install Half Life 2, it's just sitting there in my Steam library 😛

[Xand0r]

Waiting for the Rift to arrive is agony. UPS was delivering it last Thursday for me, and I was refreshing the tracking page like a mad mad, only to see a Failed Delivery attempt!

Customs/Brokerage slammed me for 52 bucks! I live in a Condo building, so the front desk can receive packages, but can't pay anything, obviously. So I paid over the phone and had to wait until THE NEXT DAY to get my Rift! :?

Hah, but then it arrived. I was able to put a few hours into experimenting with Vierio and Skyrim and the various demos. Had I known TriDef had released Oculus Rift support, I would have been all over that, but I didn't read about it until yesterday! Tried that last night, and so far it's awesome. Played some Fallout 3 and it looked amazing, though my pip boy menu was out of alignment. Didn't have much time to play last night, but am looking forward to more experimenting with TriDef.

[ApexStudios]

I just remembered something else that bugged me a bit yesterday, when I was trying out the VR Cinema, I was putting my head back on the seat and found it to be very uncomfortable due to the plastic on the strap or something being at that part of your head, it becomes quite painful to lean your head on the back of your chair.

-Ben