Jumping into an outer body experience with Edge of Nowhere
Some people said it would never come out. Said people called it vaporware. But I have seen it with my own eyes. Today, I got to try the consumer version of the Oculus Rift.
The head-mounted display will officially release in Q1 of 2016, with the recently revealed Oculus Touch controller following sometime within the first half of the year. I only got to play one demo today via a game called Edge of Nowhere (more on that experience later), and unfortunately that demo uses an Xbox One controller. I should be getting some hands on time with the wireless motion controller later throughout the week, so please stay tuned for that write-up.
This is my O face
What were my impressions of the actual head-mounted display then? It was great. As previously announced, the resolution runs 2160x1200 split across two displays. Like the Crescent Bay prototype before it, the "screendoor" effect is largely a non-issue. Can you still see the pixels? Yes, if you try. There's going to be plenty of room for improvement here over the years (I want an 8K by 8K solution personally), but for consumer version 1 (CV1), it's certainly good enough and the pixels tend to disappear the deeper you dive into experiences.
The consumer version of the Oculus Rift sitting next to its new sensor.
In terms of field of view, without any official measurements, I would say it's 110 degrees, give or take 10 degrees or so. Do I wish it had a wider field of view? Of course, but it's good enough for CV1. I also made sure to use my pupils to peer at things off-center of the screen and saw no issues with the visuals on the outskirts of the optics.
Because everyone has different distances between their pupils, one new feature that CV1 introduces is an interpupillary distance (IPD) adjuster. Unfortunately on the version that I used, the IPD adjuster was sealed off, and I couldn't adjust it. Luckily for me, the default distance worked fine for my eyes.
One annoying issue with past Oculus prototypes is a negative effect called chromatic aberration. This is the effect where you see a faint unintended rainbow of light on the optics. If you've ever rubbed your oily fingers over a glossy monitor, you might get the idea. While we saw some hints of it when the main character in our third person platformer was carrying a torch, it looks improved upon when compared to Crescent Bay, though I’ll need more hands-on time with it to fully test.
Through the looking glass.
Latency was also a non-issue. With CV1 using a 90Hz refresh rate, I tried moving my head side to side and up and down as fast as I could without breaking my neck, and saw no blurring and felt no motion sickness. This is coming from someone who can get pretty sick with the development kit 2 headset.
As much as Oculus has tried to solve the throw-up issues people have been having with VR up until now, Oculus has also spent a lot of time trying to perfect the ergonomics of the headset. In my opinion, it was time well spent as CV1 feels light, balanced, and comfortable to wear. I've personally got a fairly small head (and a super small brain, from what I've been told), but I was able to strap my noggin in tight. There are three straps in total: two along the sides and one straight down the top of your head. Once I got it on, it fit snuggly and I encountered no wobbling issues. Could you play with it for hours on end? Considering I only got to play with it for about 15 minutes or so, it's hard to say, but it's the most comfortable VR headset I've worn thus far. Oculus says there will be different facial templates you can swap out on the headset, because everyone's face is shaped differently. The version that I tried had plenty of room for people with large nose bridges. Considering I don't have a large nose bridge, there was a bigger gap then I would have liked and this inadvertently let in some unwanted light on my end. It wasn't a deal breaker by any means, but was more noticeable for me over development kit 2.
This is the new tracking sensor.
Another tweak that CV1 offers over the previous developer kit is that it does away with the external tracking camera in favor of a tracking sensor. The sensor is basically a little stick on a stand that just sits atop a table. When we asked the rep in the room how far the sensor would extend to, he mentioned that it was roughly 10-12 feet. It is worth mentioning that the rep was a hired hand for the event, and not an Oculus employee, so do take his word with a grain of salt.
Regardless, this 10-12 foot guestimation also coincides with the length of the headset cable I saw, although I don't know if that will be indicative of the final length of the shipping units. In terms of tracking, it was definitely a step up from the DK2's tracking camera. I tried blocking the sensor by waving my hands, I tried turning my body a full 360 degrees, and not once did I see any weird clipping issues, which is something that is typically seen in DK2. It does help that there are tracking sensors on the back of the headset. If someone stands in between you and the sensor, however, or you move off center too far, tracking comes to a halt.
Edge of Nowhere trailer
With the technical aspects out of the way, I was able to choose among nine different titles to play in my short session. I chose Edge of Nowhere because Oculus VP of Product Nate Mitchell told me it was amazing at the recent Step Into the Rift press event. And yea, I’d have to agree. Developed by Insomniac Games, the guys responsible for the Ratchet and Clank games, the game plays a lot like Uncharted or Tomb Raider in that it’s a third-person adventure/platforming game. It veers away from the aforementioned titles by incorporating some sci-fi/horror elements, however. The demo starts off with your character atop a snow-capped mountain environment. Off in the distance you see a giant monster/alien-looking creature roaming around the frozen tundra. You can look all around your character to check out the environment in 360 degrees and it feels like you are there watching over your protagonist. You eventually jump inside a cave and climb down a deep dark hole with a rope to allow you to slide down. It really feels like you have a bat’s eye view of this ice climber sliding down this deep dark cave here. Eventually you find some flat footing, and in the darkness some monsters start jumping out towards you. I literally jumped out of my seat for a second (mostly because I’m a wimp) and proceeded to run and platform the hell away from them. Eventually you see an outside opening in the cave, and the giant monster you see from the beginning of the demo peers inside at you. It’s a little unnerving. Eventually the monster walks off and the demo ends. I’m generally not into horror games, but I’m looking forward to playing this game and it’s nice to see a AAA game made exclusively for VR.
CV1 features a pretty interesting fabric texture wrapping the shell of the HMD.
With the game being in third person, it sort of feels like an outerbody experience, one that allows you to watch your virtual character go through this seemingly real journey. And in case you were wondering, you can’t really lean down towards your character. The camera kind of defaults to a certain distance. You are able to look wherever you’d like, however. In addition, the integrated headset still sounds great and the positional audio is still amazing.
All in all, it was a great experience, and Q1 2016 can’t come soon enough.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1G80cjc
