
Oculus Rift's John Carmack says a new Rift dev kit is in the works... - wildermuthn
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/18/oculus-rift-john-carmack-interview/
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malandrew

        The bigger issue, though, is head-tracking -- something 
        Carmack's actively concerned with and working to solve 
        ahead of a retail release. "A lot of the work at Oculus 
        has gone into working out better position tracking," he 
        told us. "The tracking side is something that there hasn't 
        been as much of a push for and we're frantically working 
        on a lot of that, because that is one of the other really 
        large issues. But we expect that the next developer kit 
        will have higher resolution and position tracking 
        addressing some of these significant issues."
    

I find it incredibly refreshing when a company working on a hard technical
problem is candid about the engineering challenges that lie ahead.

~~~
rocky1138
A friend came up with the idea of using a QR code sticker on the front of the
unit, tracked by the laptop's webcam as you play. This way, you can detect the
angle and distance from the laptop and do positional tracking.

Anyone wanna take that on and see if it works?

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ealloc
As I understand, the issue is not so much getting the position data, but
getting the data _quickly_ (with low latency) to reduce mismatch between the
rendered position on screen and the user's actual position. The Rift has
special 250 Hz position sensors for this purpose, and even that's not fast
enough. Webcams are usually only 30Hz.

[http://oculusrift-blog.com/john-carmacks-message-of-
latency/...](http://oculusrift-blog.com/john-carmacks-message-of-latency/682/)

~~~
rocky1138
Fair enough. What about interpolation?

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deletes
How many frames of delay do we get then. About 8 to 9. Not really useful with
realtime games.

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malandrew
Where does most of the delay come from? Is there a way to take a "cockroach"
nervous system approach where certain sensors have as direct a connection as
possible to the code that updates the view of the user?

~~~
acous
You might be interested in the articles Carmack[1] and Michael Abrash[2] have
written about VR.

[1] [http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-
mitigation-...](http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-
strategies/)

[2] [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-
qua-n...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of-
ar-and-vr/)

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Fuzzwah
On topic: secret Carmack projects make me very excited. The fact that he
mentioned that other oculus content creators were with him in Denver drives up
my hopes that its an engine specifically created with the rift in mind.

Off topic: I could listen to Carmack talk about this stuff all day, but
putting up with the interviewer saying "sure" at the end of every single one
of Carmack's sentences made the video really painful for me.

~~~
devx
I'm not sure if you're aware but Carmack is CTO at Oculus now.

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wildermuthn
It appears there will be another Rift development kit (whether for the public,
or for private partners, he doesn't say), with higher resolution and
positional tracking. Carmack says that VR is going to 'change the world'. I
believe him.

~~~
fusiongyro
It might change gaming, but as a non-gamer I don't see much point. If the idea
is to woo non-gamers like me with amazing games, it's going to have to be
cheap and casual, and neither of those are natural adjectives for the Rift. If
the idea is to really take over the world, somebody somewhere had better think
of an actually compelling office/business use for it. Jurassic Park scientists
examining DNA does not count.

For what it's worth, VR has been trying to become a thing since the mid-80s.
Much like 3D, it bubbles to the surface for a few years and then nobody cares
again for the rest of the decade.

Carmack is clearly an amazing programmer, but I'd like to know what his
prognosticatory credentials are. He's also predicting Haskell will be a big
deal in gaming. You can be amazing and still be a crackpot. Look at Linus
Pauling for instance.

~~~
TorbjornLunde
I think Oculus Rift i combination with something like Leap could lead the way
for useful 3D-interfaces. I don’t like the term VR reality. To me it’s the
skeuomorphism of the 3D-world. Instead of trying to simulate the real world,
why not use 3D to express more abstract concepts (like we already are doing
with 2D screens).

Of course, in time something like holograms will be more relevant, but in the
mean time I think things like Oculus Rift in combination with other
technologies can be a nice stop-gap.

~~~
ctdonath
Skeuomorphism is necessary to ease people into a radically new/different
interface. Once they've grown accustomed to the new interface, then the
skeuomorphism can be removed as it has gone from guidance to impediment. For
VR, people aren't used to literally looking & moving around a 3D environment,
so recreating the real world is necessary to ease them into the differences of
the interface until they grasp it...THEN we can start changing what's
perceived to express more abstract concepts.

For all the familiarity people have with the abstractions of interfaces on 2D
screens, they're still just a flat limited surface within the space of our
visual perception, and required skeuomorphism to ease people into familiarity
therewith. VR is a massive change, which has to start by satisfying
familiarity via sufficient imitation of the real world; once someone gets
comfortable using it to the point of foregoing real scenarios in favor of
virtual ones, then we can start tweaking the virtual to do things previously
impossible and yet are natural extensions of their new understanding of the VR
interface.

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tocomment
Just curious if anyone has an opinion:

Is it worth ordering a dev kit now, or should I wait for this next one to come
out?

Also what's the minimum cost rig needed to run an oculous effectively? I only
have a 3 year old macbook right now.

~~~
wildermuthn
I have a dev kit, but unless you want to develop games, I'd wait for the
consumer version. There's just too much missing in terms of resolution and
positional tracking.

If you just want to demo the rift, here's a map of willing owners:
[https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=21608056830108037...](https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=216080568301080371629.0004d6d217a93e60f7cc6\\)

My Macbook Pro runs the rift just fine, but it all depends on the game.

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tocomment
What's wrong with the positional tracking?

Also do you need a certain Mac OS? I'm on something ancient like saber lion
:-(

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termie
Currently the Rift does not do positional tracking. So, in other words, the
Rift can't tell when you move your head in space forwards or backwards. The
quality of tracking up/down/left/right is good enough right now. If you have a
Razer Hydra, there are some demos that will use it for positional tracking
(forwards/backwards/squat/climb).

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tocomment
I'm not understanding how the android powered standalone headset would work?
Would you download games to it? Would it have enough horsepower to run the
games? Would it need a huge battery?

~~~
deletes
No need for a battery, it is just a phone in a headset running older games and
you see the screen through the lens.

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thearn4
Very surprising, I figured they would go right to the consumer version. It's
good to hear that Oculus is taking their time and getting things right.

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mephi5t0
Ha, on that picture Carmack looks like an ugly step sister of Kevin Bacon :)

