Meet Michael Abrash, Oculus Rift's Chief Scientist. First off, here's his wikipedia and Oculus bio for those who don't know of him.
He has a blog and I feel it should be required reading for anyone with a Dev Kit. Whether you are developing software for the Rift or are taking your role as a tester-enthusiast seriously, it's important that you understand some of the physiological and technological obstacles VR will have to overcome in the next few years.
Mr Abrash has taken the time to write a blog explaining many of these issues in layman's terms. Before demanding higher resolution or complaining about OLED's, please take the time to read this blog. Hopefully you'll understand why they've made some of their choices, and why some issues still aren't resolved.
For anyone interested, I recommend starting here and then moving through to more recent posts. Several threads on this board have encouraged me to educate rather than debate. For my own piece of mind, I'm doing this instead of trying to argue with people who simply haven't been exposed to good sources of information. Lack of information and overpopulation are humanity's two biggest foes. I can't do much about population :lol:
Cheers,
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C Clarke
Interesting that Abrash talks about judder being smearing - I'm pretty sure most people are referring to frames stuttering when they talk about judder on forums...
Yes. The post I recommend people start with was written in 2012. The last update to Mr Abrash's Valve blog was January 2014 and he joined Oculus in March 2014.
In the DK2 hype video, John Carmack mentioned "...Valve's research which demonstrated, so vividly, what a difference the low persistence display makes." This was a major contributor to their decision to go OLED in order to reduce persistence.
I think he's likely referring to Michael Abrash's work. Within two weeks of the pre-orders for the DK2, Michael Abrash was introduced as the Chief Scientist for OR and moved from his job at Valve. His blog explains why a lot of seemingly simple issues are not at all easy to solve.
If you feel they're no longer relevant please let me know.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C Clarke
I gave it a try - but again, Abrash being sour about why he is not famous and gets the glory he deserves. Just reading the first two paragraphs of the blog give me a bad impression about him. Do not get me wrong, he definately is a good researcher and contributed very, very much to VR, what i can not stand is his selfpraise and sulking about not being aknowledged - and that most stuff he writes about is not about solutions, but about explaining the problems. Just can't stand him... 😉
I don't have a bad word to say about him tbh, I think his talk on Presence & VR is probably one of the best out there. I've definitely listened to him Carmack & Palmer the most.
Thanks for promoting that blog to a wider public, and thanks for creating that blog in the first place.
I myself own a handful of patents and helped with many others. Therefor I know that the identification of problems is an essential and huge part of solving a problem. The bigger the problem is, the better it needs to be illustrated to become absorbable by others. The problems are huge that need to be overcome to create mass market ready VR devices, so is the need for smart people looking into this. The amount of work invested in the naming and illustration of mostly technical limitations in the Michael Abrash blog is immense, and generates a great part of the knowledge fundament that the developing VR community needs. Sadly, I do not see other branches or company doing the same - as they do not share identified problems, because they intend to benefit alone from the solutions. Only wholehearted enthusiasts and builders do so.
It is fascinating to see how many of the problems mentioned in the Michael Abrash blog were already addressed or diminished in the DK2.
