Oculus Connect "Future of VR" Panel Questions

[Gypsy816]

Hi all!

As you're aware, Oculus Connect is coming up in a few days. We have a special keynote panel titled "The Future of VR" occurring on September 20 at 2:15 pm PDT and we're looking to get questions for the panel from you, the development community! Select questions will be answered at the panel and posted on Twitter using #FutureOfVR.

The Future of VR panel includes Michael Abrash (Chief Scientist), Atman Binstock (Chief Architect), John Carmack (CTO), Palmer Luckey (Founder), and Nate Mitchell (VP Product - Panel Moderator).

Panel description: An open discussion on the future of virtual reality from some of the leading visionaries in the industry.

Post your questions for the Future of VR panel below!

[matus]

Q: When is Linux SDK coming?

I'm sorry, I can't help. I would like to start working with my DK2 and explore the future of VR but for obvious reason I'm still stuck in the past :roll:

[Paul33993]

I've got a second question now:

Q.) Is Nvidia SLI VR as good as it sounds? Does this mean SLI will be the preferred method for VR? Am I correct in assuming that currently, to get the left eye perspective, the scene must be rendered @ 1920*1080 (and the right eye data is thrown out). And then the same for the right eye? So you're effectively rendering 1920*1080 X 2 X 75hz?

But with SLI VR, you could have the left eye render its scene at 960*1080 and the right eye does 960*1080. So you'd effectively cut out 50 percent waste (that's never even seen). Is this correct?

You can make the question less muddled, but I'd love to hear the answer about just how significant it really is.

[RonsonPL]

Some questions might be not interesting, impossible to answer now, or plainly stupid, so to whoever doing the selection - please read all of them, maybe you'll find at least one good enough. 🙂

Display:

1. Will we see perfect clarity in motion on CV1/2?
2. Will future SDK and/or firmware take care of brightness in terms of health? We need bright enough screen for perfect artistic freedom, but ultra-wide FOV + high brightness + longer periods of use = eye damage. Is there any mechanism planned for CV1/2 to adjust it in real-time by some "intelligent" algorithm? Or maybe at least you plan to speak to developers, rising awareness about this issues, before some TV show concentrates it's "breaking news" on that, scaring away many people from VR? I think we should do everything to avoid anything that could slow down the VR adoption.
2b) Is OLED technology at higher pixel density/resolutions even capable of achieving high brightness in low persistence mode? (DK2 is a little too dim for me, mostly because of the SDE, I guess)

Performance:

1. Are there any plans to create a mechanism that would work in every Rift game, that optimizes VR performance in games, for example by changing LoD settings, view distance and such, so a layman PC user can start a Rift game and enjoy it (even if he bought a CPU that he shouldn't buy at all 😉 )

2. If VR features of newly announced Nvidia Gefore series is not that breakthrough, is there any breakthrough planned for dual-GPU configurations? Can we expect ultra-low latency VR gaming utilizing 2 GPUs for almost +100% performance gain, in next 4 years from now?

3. Will popularization of PCs with 16GB of RAM and 8GB for GPUs open the doors for rendering the far distance objects of the scene, on separate, low framerate threads? Can we hope for drastic increase in background detail (geometry/textures) thanx to it? Can it be done without redesigning the whole PC architecture?

Future, generally speaking:

1. Is there any chance 3D scanning technology gets cheap enough to become a standard in VR gaming in next 3-4 years? I mean the situation, where you can see your real chair in VR, your steering wheel with it's button layout, your walls, so you can avoid walking into them, your speakers layout, or your carpet so you can fly on it, if you wish 😉 )

2. Is Oculus considering helping the arcade machines industry? So they'll be able to create the VR stands that are much more powerful than PCs, equipped with pneumatic actuators to rotate the gamer etc. It could make for great PR for whole VR, and "Powered by Oculus Rift technology" in large font couldn't hurt either 😉

3. Is there a possibility that CPU/GPU designed totally from scratch, specially for VR, could deliver drastic performance gains? Can we hope for that if VR conquers the world?

[Robertlebeard]

I only have a few questions so here.

Q: So far in both dve kits I can see the edge of the oculus when wearing it; making me feel like I'm looking through a telescope for lack of a better word, I just want to know if that will be gone when the CV1 is out?

Q: Would it be possible to put a curved screen in the devise instead of a flat one, or is that even practical?

Q: Would it be possible to put a small camera in front of the oculus so that at anytime during a game session you can press a key/button that would bring up a small video in the corner of the screen so that it wont interrupt you game session; giving you live feed of whats right outside your device? I feel like it would get annoying and ruin the immersion of the game if you have to keep taking on and off your headset to see whats going on in the room you are in, so thats why I think a camera should be considered if it hasn't already.

[mscanfp]

Is there a clear road map to broad mainstream adoption of OR?

[dkellitt]

My question:

We have heard recently that Nvidia have incorporated dedicated VR support for their latest gpu cards, including SLI support and help with latency. In an assumption that you want to market VR to everybody, will there be similar support for people with older GPU's?

[L1VE3V1L]

before FOV, wireless or anything else....I think a universal official oculus control scheme would be in order.


What is Oculus' plan for control in VR? if any at the moment.

Mouse and Keyboard is too unwieldy and an xbox controller seems like I'm driving future tech with an ancient device. We need a new method that all devs can agree on and develop for equally. The fragmentation of so many different companies with very cool but ultimately niche tech, depending on who purchases it, is going to hinder true adoption by the VR masses.

[L1VE3V1L]

"Robertlebeard" wrote:
I only have a few questions so here.

Q: So far in both dve kits I can see the edge of the oculus when wearing it; making me feel like I'm looking through a telescope for lack of a better word, I just want to know if that will be gone when the CV1 is out?

Q: Would it be possible to put a curved screen in the devise instead of a flat one, or is that even practical?

Q: Would it be possible to put a small camera in front of the oculus so that at anytime during a game session you can press a key/button that would bring up a small video in the corner of the screen so that it wont interrupt you game session; giving you live feed of whats right outside your device? I feel like it would get annoying and ruin the immersion of the game if you have to keep taking on and off your headset to see whats going on in the room you are in, so thats why I think a camera should be considered if it hasn't already.

The curved screen thing is an interesting one. Years back I thought it'd be the only way to do VR. A giant curved screen in your face with no lenses. But then remember, two slightly different images are being projected onto the screen to give you true 3D so unless the curved screen would be split down the middle and lenses are still employed, effectively still giving you a degree of tunnel vision, it just won't work without them. Take the lenses away and project one image across a whole curved screen?....then say goodbye to 3D.

I think the FOV problem is way larger than we first perceive and getting true 180 degree immersion is no where near where we are now. I think we'd have to pretty much assume that a huge FOV will not be sorted anytime soon. Unless something new is invented.

[mdk]

My question:

Realtime global illumination is advancing at a rapid pace and there are a lot of different approaches to it.
What do you think will be the best solution for realtime global illumination in general and for VR in the next few years?

[GameOutLoud]

Thanks for passing these along to the panel, gypsy. The panel was really candid and I felt like there was no marketing hokum getting in the way of their answers, which was really refreshing.