Star Citizen is an ambitious new game which will feature Oculus Rift support. But it’s also much more than that — this is an opportunity to help realize a new generation of space combat simulator, a genre which once upon a time set the PC platform apart from its less auspicious console brethren.
Palmer Luckey, who also goes by PalmerTech online, is the creator of the forthcoming Oculus Rift head mounted display and genuine VR nerd (I use that term endearingly). Luckey, who claims to have the largest private HMD collection in the world, remains humble even after his Oculus Rift HMD project spawned a Kickstarter which reeled in $2.4 million. For the most part Luckey has been somewhat reclusive, buried under important work as Oculus LLC approaches the launch of the Oculus Rift developer kit. While I’m very interested in the Oculus Rift, I also wanted to learn more about Luckey himself. Join me for a Q&A with the creator of the Oculus Rift.
While Google’s Project Glass may have nabbed much of the AR spotlight lately, Vuzix is hard at work on some very interesting augmented reality glasses which could hit the market long before Project Glass. Using side-mounted optical engines and waveguide optics, Vuzix’s upcoming augmented reality glasses create an image that looks like something straight out of a sci-fi film.
Blackspace is an excellent looking hybrid-RTS game which the developers say will support the Oculus Rift. Pixel Foundry, the indie studio behind the game, launched a Kickstarter campaign for Blackspace back in September. With 5 days left the campaign is unfortunately still 65% shy of its $350,000 funding goal. The game looks to have excellent potential from what the team has shown off so far, and it is a steal at just $20 for a copy through the Kickstarter!
It’s time for another Oculus Rift News Bits update! On the agenda: We’ve got a video from GameTrailers TV who got their hands on the Oculus Rift; iJustine provides some thoughts. Cliff Bleszinski has announced his departure from Epic Games after a lengthy tenure, fortunately Unreal Engine integration is not affected. Palmer Luckey and friends from Oculus LLC have landed in South Korea to spread the good word of the Oculus Rift at KGC 2012.
Today I’m pleased to announce that Paul James of RiftVR.com will be joining me here at Road to Virtual Reality. Paul and I have a similar passion for the world of virtual and augmented reality and have decided to team up to bring you even more of the quality AR/VR news you crave. RiftVR.com will be phased out while we hope that RoadtoVR.com will continue to be your go-to source for such news. We are also working behind the scenes enhancing the site to create the best possible reader experience — this would be an opportune time to share if you have any site-related suggestions, just drop a comment below.
Paul has some exciting upcoming content planned, including interviews with the developers of Hawken, Blackspace, and Miner Wars, all of which are upcoming Oculus ready games. Stay tuned, and be sure to check the byline!
After head mounted displays, one of the obvious next steps for virtual reality immersion is to find a way to physically walk around a VR environment without walking into objects in the real world. A myriad of solutions (falling under the category of ‘locomotion device’ ) have been put forth. Take, for instance, omni-directional treadmills (ODT); the majority of which are big, expensive, and impractical for home use. The first person to crack the code — to create an affordable and reasonably sized device for VR locomotion — could revolutionize how and where people experience virtual reality. I recently spoke with Julian Williams, the creator of WizDish, whose product might be the first VR locomotion device to find its way into your living room.
The ultimate goal of virtual reality gaming is to convince players that they are actually the inhabitants of another world. A number of components are needed to make this a reality. While head mounted displays like the Oculus Rift bring us one step closer to feeling like we’re inside another world, there are yet more pieces to the puzzle; being able to naturally control the player-character — also referred to as body tracking or full avatar embodiment — within the game will be a massive jump in immersion compared to using the controllers of today’s video game consoles. A company called Yost Engineering Inc. (YEI) is now producing a set of low-cost high-precision wireless motion sensors which, when used in an array, can provide 1:1 body tracking in virtual reality games. YEI has cobbled together a prototype setup which combines the company’s sensors, Sony’s HMZ-T1 head mounted display, and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to show off the true potential of body tracking in virtual reality games.
IGN is running a series of segments talking about the future of gaming, their latest episode takes a brief look at where we are on the road to virtual reality gaming. Naturally the Rift is mentioned; IGN interviewes Oculus Rift head mounted display creator Palmer Luckey and also gives the HMD a try with Doom 3.
Today electronics manufacturer Sharp announced that the company is beginning production on 5-inch full 1080p LCD displays. The company mentions that the panels are for smartphone use but they could also be ideal for the Oculus Rift consumer version (Oculus Rift 2.0) which is expected in 2013. Currently the Oculus Rift developer version uses a 4″ panel with a 1280×800 resolution. The display is split down the middle, affording an effective resolution of 640×800 to each eye. Oculus knows that this is too low a resolution for eventual consumer adoption and is sourcing higher resolution panels for that purpose. Sharp’s new display could be ideal.
Palmer Luckey has made it clear since the beginning that it wasn’t any incredible invention or unlikely innovation that makes the Oculus Rift head mounted display / VR headset possible. Instead, he credits the mobile device (smartphones, tablets, etc.) industry as being the catalyst that has made the Rift possible. Small high-density displays, accurate accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers are part and parcel of any modern mobile smartphone or tablet. Now that these components are in plentiful supply, quality HMDs can be built and sold at prices that are actually affordable for a mainstream audience. For a number of dedicated virtual reality enthusiasts, the December shipment of Oculus Rift units from the Kickstarter in August is too long to wait. So instead they’ve endeavored to build their own VR headsets and have provided DIY instructions for others to follow in their footsteps.
While a number of games plan on supporting the Oculus Rift head mounted display, not many of them are being made specifically for it. Owen Pedrotti has a functional prototype of a virtual reality game that he is making to take full advantage of the Rift. Combined with the Razer Hydra, a high-fidelity motion tracking peripheral, Pedrotti hopes to immerse players in an intense mech-style first person shooter complete with up-close and personal melee combat. I spoke with Pedrotti to learn about his prototype Oculus Rift virtual reality game.
The Oculus Rift head mounted display / VR headset is now available for pre-order from the company’s website for those who missed out on the initial Kickstarter. If you’re late to the party, have no fear, you can pick up the Oculus Rift developer kit for the same $300 price offered through the Kickstarter. Pre-ordering also grants access to the upcoming Oculus Rift SDK which the company is expected to reveal in detail soon.
What you see above is not an alien visitor but rather a normal human wearing a prototype augmented reality welding mask. This system, dubbed ‘MannVis welding helmet’ by its creators, allows welders to see their work with an incredible level of detail that far surpasses what the human eye is capable of. It’s great to finally see a practical application of augmented reality when there are so many useless and novel augmented reality demos out there. The augmented reality welding system is not only useful for helping experienced welders to do better work, it is also quite useful for teaching welding techniques to students of the skill.
The Oculus Rift developer kit might not have shipped yet, but that hasn’t stopped some intrepid developers from working on exciting Rift projects like virtual reality desktop environments. Hesham Wahba is a developer working on one such project, he calls it Ibex. The goal of Ibex is to create a full virtual reality desktop environment for use with the Oculus Rift and other head mounted displays / VR headsets. Such an environment could provide the user with a huge amount of virtual desktop space even when there is little physical room to spare. I spoke with Wahba about his exciting plans for Ibex.
