Oculus Connect 3 Announcements.

[grifter_66]

A lot of really good stuff announced today.

Oculus Touch Is $199, Shipping December 6th, Final Design Revealed

Three new previously unannounced Touch game

Lone Echo from Ready At Dawn Games


Robo Recall from Epic Games


Arktika 1 from 4A Games


A -very- brief look at Oculus Quill


How Facebook's Quill Art Tool Differs From Medium And Tilt Brush

 

[MavericK]

Games look cool, hopefully eventually they will be multi-platform.

 

[cageymaru]

I guess that depends on if [H] is going to buy a Rift again, because it's Oculus exclusive apparently.

I'm somewhat in the dark with VR, but didn't they say that they got rid of the exclusive thing with their DRM? I think it was when their store kept getting hacked to allow the games to play on the HTC Vive? Like I said I don't keep up with VR. Yet...

 

[MavericK]

I'm somewhat in the dark with VR, but didn't they say that they got rid of the exclusive thing with their DRM? I think it was when their store kept getting hacked to allow the games to play on the HTC Vive? Like I said I don't keep up with VR. Yet...

Could be for existing titles that also happened to work on the Vive, but it sounds like these are going to be developed for Oculus only. Hopefully they will come out for Vive eventually because they look cool.

 

[Anarchist4000]

With all the grants and royalty coverage for developing titles, it wouldn't be surprising to see a lot of exclusive titles as everyone vies for dominance in the market.

 

[KazeoHin]

So let me get this straight...

Basically the big reason the HTC Vive is considered the superior platform is because (all together!) roomscale!

So the MAIN thing Oculus needs to deliver with the Oculus touch is (all together!) ROOMSCALE!

What is one thing Oculus says IS NOT supported by the touch controllers out of the box? Roomscale?

wait what!? Roomscale VR is not supported without the purchase of yet another camera sensor. Buying the headset AND the touch controllers only nets you two camera sensors: one camera sensor included in the headset purchase, one camera sensor included in the touch purchase. Three camera sensors are required to do the ONE THING people are going crazy over. An additional camera sensor must be purchased separately in order to partake in roomscale VR.

Some genius at Oculus decided that they could somehow compete with HTC by forcing new buyers to require 3 purchases (totalling nearly $900) to do the ONE THING that EVERYONE expects from VR. Who the f*** buys the touch controllers expecting to sit down and play games!? Nobody does that. NOBODY.

My god, it's like they are TRYING to fail and destroy their own business.

 

[Supercharged_Z06]

Calm down and get your panties unwadded. Unless you want to go bigger than a 12' x 12' area, 2 cameras will handle it fine. It seems Occulus encourages 3 cameras for really big rooms to ensure perfect 360 degree tracking. My one camera already covers the majority of my play area just fine.

 

[KazeoHin]

Calm down and get your panties unwadded. Unless you want to go bigger than a 12' x 12' area, 2 cameras will handle it fine. It seems Occulus encourages 3 cameras for really big rooms to ensure perfect 360 degree tracking. My one camera already covers the majority of my play area just fine.

So wait, you have the touch controllers and can confirm this?

 

[MavericK]

It's sort of vague right now, I've heard two are fine, I've heard two work okay but not great, and I've heard you need three.

 

[Supercharged_Z06]

I was referring to the tracking of my headset. Throw another camera into the mix with Touch and I don't see a problem. Sure, if you have both cameras front facing, I could see some issues with body occlusion of the hand controllers, but set them up similar to the Vive lighthouses with one at each end and for a normal size play area, things will be fine.

Raging on something not working two months before release without knowing if that's even the case seems a bit odd. From what I've read/seen thus far, two cameras handle things just fine. Got a massive play area? Then throw in a 3rd camera for even better coverage. Not like an extra $79 is the end of the world.

 

[KazeoHin]

I was referring to the tracking of my headset. Throw another camera into the mix with Touch and I don't see a problem. Sure, if you have both cameras front facing, I could see some issues with body occlusion of the hand controllers, but set them up similar to the Vive lighthouses with one at each end and for a normal size play area, things will be fine.

Raging on something not working two months before release without knowing if that's even the case seems a bit odd. From what I've read/seen thus far, two cameras handle things just fine. Got a massive play area? Then throw in a 3rd camera for even better coverage. Not like an extra $79 is the end of the world.

It's sort of vague right now, I've heard two are fine, I've heard two work okay but not great, and I've heard you need three.

With VR, you don't want 'okay', in fact, with controls in general, you don't want 'okay': you want accurate and responsive: imagine holding a gun and noticing if you hold it a certain way, at a certain angle and in a certain location, it suddenly disappears or shakes wildly. I have not read anything about the 3rd camera being for certain area sizes: what I've read is that Oculus will literally offer no customer support if you try to do roomscale with less than three, and that using two will give you a sub-par experience.

I could be mistaken. But if I'm not: there is no way that this product can compete with what is already out. and let's face it: Oculus has not had a fantastic track-record with good decisions thus far. They are like the AMD of HMDs.

 

[Supercharged_Z06]

With VR, you don't want 'okay', in fact, with controls in general, you don't want 'okay': you want accurate and responsive: imagine holding a gun and noticing if you hold it a certain way, at a certain angle and in a certain location, it suddenly disappears or shakes wildly. I have not read anything about the 3rd camera being for certain area sizes: what I've read is that Oculus will literally offer no customer support if you try to do roomscale with less than three, and that using two will give you a sub-par experience.

I could be mistaken. But if I'm not: there is no way that this product can compete with what is already out. and let's face it: Oculus has not had a fantastic track-record with good decisions thus far. They are like the AMD of HMDs.

Don't disagree with ya, they've done a number of boneheaded moves with the Rift release and all the delays. If you want perfect, then ya, you'll probably want to spring for a 3rd sensor... but for smaller play areas - which is what most folks have, I'm thinking the two cameras will suffice.

 

[KazeoHin]

Don't disagree with ya, they've done a number of boneheaded moves with the Rift release and all the delays. If you want perfect, then ya, you'll probably want to spring for a 3rd sensor... but for smaller play areas - which is what most folks have, I'm thinking the two cameras will suffice.

I really hope you are right.

I have yet to bite the bullet on VR, but my mate's Vive was awesome and the controllers tracked perfectly. I'm actually looking for something the Vive has done wrong. I really hope Oculus gives HTC a run for its money.

 

[Blade-Runner]

Any particular reason why devs have made these games exclusive to Occulus rather than platform agnostic?

 

[noko]

Any particular reason why devs have made these games exclusive to Occulus rather than platform agnostic?

Money up front for the developer. For the developer concentrating on one platform may help speed up the process in completing the game earlier. Developing for OSVR, STEAMVR, HTC, AMD Liquid VR, Nvidia VRWORKS, Sony's PSVR and also Occulus VR maybe a rather tall order.

After the nightmare of the various standards start to cause some pain, Microsoft will save the day for a standardized VR API (maybe just update DX 12 to DX 12VR) so everyone will conform to Windows .

Then first the Windows store will be the first and only place to get the super VR experience Mircrosoft will sell.

 

[TheSmJ]

After the nightmare of the various standards start to cause some pain, Microsoft will save the day for a standardized VR API (maybe just update DX 12 to DX 12VR) so everyone will conform to Windows .

That's probably the only way the PC will get a truly universal VR API (within Microsoft's ecosystem anyway). All of the other API developers have their own competing biases, but the one thing they have in common is that they all require Windows. Microsoft is the only company who has the power to force all VR hardware & software developers to learn to play nice.

 

[DPI]

That's probably the only way the PC will get a truly universal VR API (within Microsoft's ecosystem anyway). All of the other API developers have their own competing biases, but the one thing they have in common is that they all require Windows. Microsoft is the only company who has the power to force all VR hardware & software developers to learn to play nice.

Eh, SteamVR and OpenVR. Microsoft needs to stay out of it. Because anything they do will be self-serving "Lol Windows 10 Store Only" and walled, artificially disallowing earlier versions of Windows etc. Fortunately they don't have the anti-competitive power they once had.

 

[TheSmJ]

Eh, SteamVR and OpenVR. Microsoft needs to stay out of it. Because anything they do will be self-serving "Lol Windows 10 Store Only" and walled, artificially disallowing earlier versions of Windows etc. Fortunately they don't have the anti-competitive power anymore that they once had.

Of course I'm assuming there is no Microsoft Store requirement. The only way it would work, or be any better than any of the current offerings is if it wasn't tied to any content distributor just like DirectX is today. It also needs to be easier to develop for (both in software and drivers/hardware) and have the capibility of running just as fast, if not faster than what's currently offered. Those are the reasons why Direct3D triumphed in the late 90's.

SteamVR is in no way, shape or form unbiased. SteamVR is going to promote Steam, and Valve will always want their cut. They're really no different from Oculus aside from the fact that they're hardware agnostic. Valve doesn't care what hardware you use as long as you buy the software from Steam. It isn't much better than your "Microsoft Windows Store VR API" example, only rather than own the world's most popular brand of operating system, they own the world's most popular brand of online content distributor. And they want to keep it that way.

I'm sorry to say that OpenVR doesn't have the kind of clout that would be required in order to get all of the developers in line and abandon their current APIs. It's like where OpenGL was 30 years ago. Unfortunately Carmack isn't going to be there to support it so It'll need another genius-level developer to root for it, release a long string of hit games every few years and maybe it'll get to be where OpenGL/Vulcan is today in ~2035. They'll always be the underdog without a massive cash infusion keeping them afloat, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.