First impression - 2 days of use - first VR experience (wow. just wow)

[heynewt]

First impression of Oculus Rift was that I had an Aug 11 ship date, but it arrived on June 30.  Sweet.  Always good when they exceed expectations.

My first VR experience.  Though I work as a 3D animator, I'd never done any VR except a crappy Cardboard video once.  I think first few hours impression are incredibly important for any new tech, and here are mine:


1.The box!  It's like a black obelisk.  Takes a moment to figure out how to open it.  Best unboxing design since my first iphone box.

1. Setup went smoothly.  I run a GeForce GTX Titan, and it's approved for VR, though I have that annoying banner saying my setup doesn't meet expectations.  Still, according to Virtual Desktop I'm getting 90fps, and everything looks great and smooth.  There are so many steps to the setup though, I can see potential issues for some people.  Luckily, I had none.

1. The Home environment just blows me away.  Standing in that room is so real.  Like my wife said, "I SO want to sit down on one of those pillows."  Can't stress enough how cool that first VR room is.  You can take a few steps around the rug, it's feels utterly real.

2. Dreamdeck Dreamdeck Dreamdeck.  Whoever decided to include that in the intro was brilliant.  For a VR virgin, it's a killer demo, especially when you DL the full demo and run "Play All".  I brought 5 people over last night to watch it.  At the end all of them wanted a repeat, and then all of them said, "I want more!!"

3. Huge difference between true 3D VR environments and watching VR video.  Mainly because true 3D Environments allow moving your body across the ground as well as your head.   In a video, you can only move your head.  Plus, the 3D environments look infinitely better than the low resolution videos.  Still, there are a zillion more videos than games.  I suggest getting the "WITHIN" app and watching the U2 video.  Despite all videos looking like crap resolution wise, this one still was brilliantly shot and produced.

4. Lucky's Tale is amazing to play.  First time you move though, be prepared for serious motion sickness.  That disconnect between your body/head moving realistically and your eyes floating with the game camera, basically diconnected from your body, does a serious number on your brain.  I do kind of worry what the long term effects of that kind of dissasociation.

5. After several hours my neck did get tired.  I never felt like the earphones were able to fully cover my ears.  I've read how to use my own headphones.  Might try that, but it's one more cord, and the quality of the built-in earphones is pretty good.

6. I been a player of Elite Dangerous on Steam.  SteamVR was pretty easy to install - though in the setup portion I lost audio through the headset for awhile.  It came back when ED launched.  And E.D. should be awesome once I get all the keyboard controls mapped correctly.  Playing something non-VR for months, and suddenly being able to sit in the cockpit in VR and look around was an incredible experience upgrade.

7. Definitely install Virtual Desktop.  I resisted for a day thinkin, "Do I really need that?"  Then I got it so I could watch some 360 Youtube videos.  Overall, it's just worth having that floating desktop.  Plus, it's very intuitive.  Watched Game of Thrones as if it was a giant movie screen, and I swear the experience was way more intimate than an actual theater.

8. Experience is so good now, I can't imagine what it's going to be like when we can use "Touch".  That will take it all to new heights.

Overall, VR totally exceeded my expectations (which were high).  It's utterly addictive.  And it's not exaggerating to say it's potential is limitless.  And to think, for mass consumers this is just the beginning of VR.  Even working in 3D and playing games for 20 years, that first moment I'm standing in that "Home" room was breathtaking.  After watching the Dreamdeck demo, I thought to my self, if I never see anything else in VR, that was worth what I paid for the damn thing.

Robert

[shanaf]

Great review and totally agree.

Have you tired showdown yet? That's the one I tried after dreamdeck and was like! Holy crap this sort of technology exists now!!!" Haha.

Yeah I wonder about the effects of the intense vr games aswell. I felt like I was going to fall over when I tried Dreadhalls. It felt so strange moving forward but not actually moving. I'm hoping will get used to it. VR definitely addictive I just wish I could use it longer without feeling a bit headachy.

I watched the U2 within video today aswell, was quite effective how they did that video. I'm not even a fan of U2 but enjoyed it.

[leo1954au]

My thoughts exactly, I was just blown away by the rift and quite a few of my friends that have tried my rift feel the same way

[heynewt]

shanaf said:

Great review and totally agree.



Have you tired showdown yet? That's the one I tried after dreamdeck and was like! Holy crap this sort of technology exists now!!!" Haha.



Yeah I wonder about the effects of the intense vr games aswell. I felt like I was going to fall over when I tried Dreadhalls. It felt so strange moving forward but not actually moving. I'm hoping will get used to it. VR definitely addictive I just wish I could use it longer without feeling a bit headachy.



I watched the U2 within video today aswell, was quite effective how they did that video. I'm not even a fan of U2 but enjoyed it.

No, haven't tried Showdown.  Def looking for my first couple of game purchases.  Thanks for that tip.  I wish they put out short demos, like non VR games.

[Shadowmask72]

Bonus "like" for sharing the same name. I think Rob is the most popular name on the board. Talking of which where is Robhermans.

:cookie:

Edit: I'd try BigScreen Beta for non 360 viewing as well. Once they add 360 support I think it might beat out VD and it's free as well.

VD is also free depending on who you sleep with, but that's not virtual.