How real is the perspective of depth in the rift?

[Category5x]

I've always been a fan of 3D, and i'm one of the few who loves watching 3D movies even at home, but it's clear the effect is somewhat a novelty where depth seems to only go back several feet.  in other words, objects far in the backgrouns appear to be maybe 4-5 feet within the 3D frame.  The depth is there, and awesome, but it's very compressed and un-natural.

I was just wondering if the rift manages to simulate real-world depth rather than this compressed approximation.  For instance, If you look at at road stretching out in front of you, do it feel like it goes hundreds of feet into the distance, or is the vanishing point much closer than in reality?

Seems immersion will be limited if the illusion of depth is limited.

Still waiting to try VR.  My Rift ships July 17-27!  😞

[Bloodlet]

The depth is there, unfortunately the resolution isn't. Yes the road goes hundreds of feet in the distance but at that point it's also a little blurry. I haven't got my CV1 yet so this is only based on my DK2 experience.

On the other hand. Even in real life, the further you are from an object the less the depth. Purely due to the view angle of both eyes to the object.
The closer the object, the greater the angle, therefore the greater the depth perception.

I can say that when I fly over a mountain range in War Thunder, it really does look like your flying over a mountain range. In both depth and scale.

Edit: positional tracking also brings out the 3D. Nothing beats leaning forward to look around or over/under an object. Certainly can't do that on a 3D monitor. 🙂

[Map63Vette]

A lot of it has to do with the content more than the hardware too.  I've seen 3D videos where the fish-eye effect is pretty pronounced and the edges of your perception have some funky depth or distortion (full disclosure, this isn't on any fom of Rift hardware, just a Gear VR and Google Cardboard experience).  360 degree videos seem to have less of this distortion effect than 180 degree videos though.  As with anything, the adage "garbage in, garbage out" is always true.  A crap game/video/picture will be a bad thing regardless of how high quality of a display you view it on.

My issue with 3D in the past has always been that there wasn't any depth to objects, but rather "layers" of 2D.  The Nintendo 3DS tends to be an example of this.  There is one plane where everything is at a set depth, then another behind that where everything is the same depth, etc.  You don't get "progressive depth" on a single object.  The latest wave of VR seems to do a much better job with this than the "3D" of the past.

I am looking forward to my Rift though as I hear the clarity is noticeable better than the other devices I've been using.

[CharlieHobbes]

The depth and 3D is excellent, provided the software you are running is any good. 
The resolution and therefore usability of the CV1 is a definite step up from DK2. 

This is a usable 1st gen product. 

I understand what the poster above says about "layers of 2d" this does NOT apply to VR games (on Rift or Vive for that matter) 

The only exception being when you use an injector like VorpX which just isn't quite as good as native support. 

Most people will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of these 1st gen sets. 

[Map63Vette]

CharlieHobbes said:

The only exception being when you use an injector like VorpX which just isn't quite as good as native support. 

I think this statement hits it on the head for what I mean with "layers".  The last TV my parents bought has a 3D feature and glasses.  When you "upscale" a regular 2D broadcast you get the same issue where it decides what lives at what depth, but can only project things as such.  It has to examine a screen and assign a depth to objects individually.  How or what kind of algorithm it uses is beyond me, but it's definitely not the same as "native" 3D.  The few Gear VR games I've played definitely have a immersion factor where the layering issue isn't even remotely present.  I played through Esper 2 in a few nights and had a blast and you really do get a feeling like you are present.  Every once in a while something might be a little bit off in some way or another, but it's still very cool to experience and what sold me on getting a Rift.

[Ricktor_Black]

Map63Vette said:

A lot of it has to do with the content more than the hardware too.  I've seen 3D videos where the fish-eye effect is pretty pronounced and the edges of your perception have some funky depth or distortion (full disclosure, this isn't on any fom of Rift hardware, just a Gear VR and Google Cardboard experience).  360 degree videos seem to have less of this distortion effect than 180 degree videos though.  As with anything, the adage "garbage in, garbage out" is always true.  A crap game/video/picture will be a bad thing regardless of how high quality of a display you view it on.

My issue with 3D in the past has always been that there wasn't any depth to objects, but rather "layers" of 2D.  The Nintendo 3DS tends to be an example of this.  There is one plane where everything is at a set depth, then another behind that where everything is the same depth, etc.  You don't get "progressive depth" on a single object.  The latest wave of VR seems to do a much better job with this than the "3D" of the past.

I am looking forward to my Rift though as I hear the clarity is noticeable better than the other devices I've been using.

I think this comes down less to the device you are viewing the 3D scene on and more about how the 3D content was created.  All the device (3DS, 3d TV, Oculus) does to create a 3D image is to show a different image to each eye.  TV's do that with shutter glasses, 3DS does it by a trick of the screen which splits the image as long as you are in the 'sweet spot' and the Rift does that by rendering completely different images to two different screens for each eye.  The rest of the 3D effect is left up to the content and how it was filmed, designed and/or rendered.

 Avatar was one of the few movies actually filmed with expensive 3D cameras, so everything in a scene of Avatar is fully 3d because that is how it was filmed (and all the CGI effects are easy to create in 3D because you just render the perspective from two different viewpoints).  When the content is created in 3D you get the full depth of field.  In Avatar you will notice that even the curve of a person's face curves off into the distance because it's real 3d.  There have been TONS of 3D movies after avatar.... but a huge amount of them are done in fake 3d.  They take a 2D scene and use a tool to make the scene look 3d.  That will never be as good as real 3d and a lot of times you get the 3D effect of different levels of cardboard cut-outs.  There is depth in the scene, but not much depth in the actual objects in a scene (if you know what I mean).

I guess that's a lot of words to say that... how good the 3D in a scene looks is more down to the content instead of the device you are viewing it on.  In a game that is just programming and design.  In film it's what camera it was filmed with (or the post-production effects used).

[Zenbane]

The depth is extremely real, as evident by the often overwhelming omnipresence I experience in so many games. It's quite fantastic.

[Fredrum]

Yeah like others say the Rift/Vive gives you 'Real' 3D. You can tell the actual distance to objects in the world you're in.  You can accurately judge how big they are .
As opposed to movie stereo 3D where you just have the sense of depth.

It is pretty astonishing when you first try it! 🙂

But as resolution is a variable in how far away you get good depth sense the HMD's low res means some limitations there. You can't show left right stereo difference to the different eyes if pixels are too big for the details.

[Map63Vette]

@Ricktor_Black 

Yep, that pretty well sums up what I was trying to say and offers a good explanation of what I meant.  How the content is created plays a big part in what you get in the end.  Fully "virtual" objects and games have the advantage of being able to change the perspective much easier than trying to capture it in "real life" through cameras as it becomes more of a "guess and check" method as the camera positioning can't really be changed after the fact.

[Category5x]

Wow.  Now I'm ever more excited, and more impatient to try it.  Of course we will be seeing dual 4K screens, and even 4K retinal projection before too long, but for me, whose experience is limited to 3D movies and Google cardboard, I am excited to try these 1st gen sets.

My kids (2 and 4) have no idea how different their world will be from mine.  We talked to their grandma the other day on the phone (normall we skype) and my oldest mentioned something must be wrong because he can't "see" grandma.  lol