Why I chose Oculus-Walking from point A to B concerns

[Bel-garath]

I had a little back and forth with someone in the Reddit thread. Though he opened my eyes to a few of my concerns regarding the Vive, it didn't address all of them. There are 4 main reasons why I still have more confidence in the Rift and why my preorder money is going there:

1) Despite the Vive/Valve correlation, developer backing is strong on the Rift and I'm assuming (with Facebook's backing) that Oculus has more industry ties than the Vive does.

2) I'm concerned about investing so much in a product (Vive) with HTC's financial situation being a mess and the implications that might have for long term support. I doubt the success of the Vive in such a niche market is going to do much to help HTC.

3) The Rift just seems better built and lighter and comfort goes a LONG way with showing it to folks new to this. My mom refused to wear the GearVR for more than 10 minutes due to the discomfort. The Vive is apparently heavier than the rift and it doesn't fit quite as well (though maybe the final consumer version will). Also, the integrated positional audio on the rift being built in which is so far getting very high marks for quality is one less wire and fidgeting to care about.

4) Finally (and this goes to the impracticality concerns I have with room scaling breaking immersion), though I understand that Vive does seated experiences too, the following Video showing what's it's like to walk from point A-B in even a huge room which doesn't address what happens when you actually reach point B. Can you imagine this in a space like 8X8 rather than 15X15 (or even smaller)...not to mention it looks like he is almost going to choke her with the attached wire. See around the 1:40 mark in the video. Curious to understand how room scaling is going to fix this and not break the immersion when you are walking around. This was Vive's demo after all.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=044OpBaIMjk&feature=youtu.be

[YoLolo69]

I will add some points to your list IMO:

First, the fact the lighthouse system is build with a electric engines which need to run at a specific speed during all the VR session make me feel if one part will be defective quickly it will be those devices. This is the only part really mechanical with a constant movement. I though about this because I was really surprised to hear all new reviews about the Vive from CES. Devs said the new lighthouse devices are really improved from the first devkit version as it's now less noisy, and now nearly without vibration. So I learned here than first generation was noisy and was vibrating a lot, and that's something new (at least for me). I don't know how solid those devices will be on final release, but i'm scared that will be the first things to dye with this electric engine running at high speed all long.

Segundo, how those things are turned ON and OFF? Do you have to do it manually on the device itself, or by plugging the power supply, or they are in constant sleep mode until some wave signal wake them up? Unknown to me, so if some of you know, thanks to explain this I'll be graceful.

Thirdly, CPU cost. Ok, everybody seems to confirm the lighthouse system is more precise than the Galaxy Rift system, but which are both CPU cost? I mean, to detect the positional tracking, how much CPU consume the Rift Vs the Vive? Nobody know for now. I'm curious to see the first tests about this comparing the same application running on both and measuring CPU time, for now, it seems unknown (again, if you have data it will be welcome).

Quatro : Additional (custom?) devices. Adding a device which need to be detected by the Rift is easy as devices are kind of "passive", just lighting some IR led on them. For the Vive it seems to be the device job to work with Laser from Lighthouse to send is position to the system. For the Rift I imagine you just have to strap some IR leds around an object (E.g. a tennis racket) to incorporate it into your game. For the Vive it's another story.

So if some of you have more data to share about all this I'll be happy to know 🙂 For now, I don't judge one or the other as I didn't tried both.

[rlabelle]

My plan is to recreate confined areas within my garage. For instance, in Elite Dangerous you are generally limited to the bridge of your ship. By creating basic berriers that would coincide with the walls of the cockpit you would actually be able to walk around touch the walls and return to your seat very naturally. In the case of Arizona Sunshine, simple boxes or bags could be used to duck behind and leaned on that matched those within the game would add heaps of immersion. I Kickstarted the Sixense Stem 5 tracker system. While watching demos, it can accurately track drift free for nearly 15 feet from base station. If the base station is located within the middle of the space this gives you a solid 25 square foot area to roam, far surpassing that of the HTC Vive, and guaranteeing freedom from occlusion problems since it is magnetically based. My idea may fall flat on its face once in practice, but I am definitely excited to find out!

[Bel-garath]

"rlabelle" wrote:
My plan is to recreate confined areas within my garage. For instance, in Elite Dangerous you are generally limited to the bridge of your ship. By creating basic berriers that would coincide with the walls of the cockpit you would actually be able to walk around touch the walls and return to your seat very naturally. In the case of Arizona Sunshine, simple boxes or bags could be used to duck behind and leaned on that matched those within the game would add heaps of immersion. I Kickstarted the Sixense Stem 5 tracker system. While watching demos, it can accurately track drift free for nearly 15 feet from base station. If the base station is located within the middle of the space this gives you a solid 25 square foot area to roam, far surpassing that of the HTC Vive, and guaranteeing freedom from occlusion problems since it is magnetically based. My idea may fall flat on its face once in practice, but I am definitely excited to find out!

You're lucky to have that space :-). Though I have my own two car spaces in my own sort of alcove...I share a common area with 3 other townhouses..and its underground...and dingy and cold...and there is no garage door to each of our alcoves lol.

[Bel-garath]

"YoLolo69" wrote:
I will add some points to your list IMO:

First, the fact the lighthouse system is build with a electric engines which need to run at a specific speed during all the VR session make me feel if one part will be defective quickly it will be those devices. This is the only part really mechanical with a constant movement. I though about this because I was really surprised to hear all new reviews about the Vive from CES. Devs said the new lighthouse devices are really improved from the first devkit version as it's now less noisy, and now nearly without vibration. So I learned here than first generation was noisy and was vibrating a lot, and that's something new (at least for me). I don't know how solid those devices will be on final release, but i'm scared that will be the first things to dye with this electric engine running at high speed all long.

Segundo, how those things are turned ON and OFF? Do you have to do it manually on the device itself, or by plugging the power supply, or they are in constant sleep mode until some wave signal wake them up? Unknown to me, so if some of you know, thanks to explain this I'll be graceful.

Thirdly, CPU cost. Ok, everybody seems to confirm the lighthouse system is more precise than the Galaxy Rift system, but which are both CPU cost? I mean, to detect the positional tracking, how much CPU consume the Rift Vs the Vive? Nobody know for now. I'm curious to see the first tests about this comparing the same application running on both and measuring CPU time, for now, it seems unknown (again, if you have data it will be welcome).

Quatro : Additional (custom?) devices. Adding a device which need to be detected by the Rift is easy as devices are kind of "passive", just lighting some IR led on them. For the Vive it seems to be the device job to work with Laser from Lighthouse to send is position to the system. For the Rift I imagine you just have to strap some IR leds around an object (E.g. a tennis racket) to incorporate it into your game. For the Vive it's another story.

So if some of you have more data to share about all this I'll be happy to know 🙂 For now, I don't judge one or the other as I didn't tried both.

Wow these is a lot more technical than my 4 points lol. We would need a Vive representative here to respond to this :-).

[rlabelle]

"keithianw" wrote:
You're lucky to have that space :-). Though I have my own two car spaces in my own sort of alcove...I share a common area with 3 other townhouses..and its underground...and dingy and cold...and there is no garage door to each of our alcoves lol.

My wife is extremely supportive and understanding. I've been using the loft area upstairs as a home theatre/VR room, but it isn't large enough for full room scale, so we decided the cars are going to have to live outside for awhile, lol.

[Ashles]

"rlabelle" wrote:
My plan is to recreate confined areas within my garage.

What will be fantastic is when games/experiences scan and replicate your available space in-game.

[rlabelle]

"Ashles" wrote:
What will be fantastic is when games/experiences scan and replicate your available space in-game.

I've considered making a quick mock-up of the room in unity and then from there experimenting with adding items. Lots of creative ideas, might even make for a good science fair project for kids.

[YoLolo69]

"keithianw" wrote:

Wow these is a lot more technical than my 4 points lol. We would need a Vive representative here to respond to this :-).

Yeah sorry, I hick-jacked your thread and was kind of HS

[McTurbo]

until the sets can do what they do wirelessly i am uninterested in the walking experience. last thing you need is to rip the cords out of your computer from a bad angle costing you a motherboard or an expensive video card. (if not your entire pc if its on a shelf/table where it can be pulled off)

I do eventually want an improvement over controllers but i am willing to accept those limitations for an excellent immersive experience.

All of us need to remember that this is pretty much the 3dfx days of VR. these first few generations will not have the power, options, or even ability to do the things that later generations will. just be excited that we own one and enjoy the new experience.. because it will be feedback from you that define later generations.

[rlabelle]

"McTurbo" wrote:
until the sets can do what they do wirelessly i am uninterested in the walking experience.

It's not actually as hard to overcome as you think. I was able to set up a working system with little effort simply by suspending the cable overhead and using a medium rubber band to keep slack suspended just out of heads reach. With a little effort and a trip to the hardware store I'm sure I could come up with a very plausible system, especially since we are dealing with only one cable now.

Here is an example where I mounted a 720p mini projector to the top of the top shot elite, using the oculus for gun tracking and the projector for video. Playing in the dark was kinda like walking around with a flashlight. You can see I had multiple cables bundled together and my daughter was able to manage it fairly well. I double looped it over her head with rubber band holding up slack until she needed it. Bare in mind it was thrown together on a whim as a "what if" idea.




I was able to play doom 3 BFG quite easily while standing moving 360 degrees using the Top Shot and wearing the rift, suspending the single cable as described.