/vir/ - Virtual Reality

>>507

planning to buy the OSVR HDK 1.1 and stick with it for a while, maybe upgrading the display

maybe I'll upgrade to another OSVR-compatible HMD later

good plan?

I'm interested in:

(1) only using FLOSS

(2) writing my own content, I don't care if any games support it

(3) using Blender Game Engine

(4) using peripherals (I have a Kinect, Leap, Hydra; want a Virtuix Omni, Novint Falcon)

(5) a good, immersive HMD

I'm worried about (1)/(4) a little: third-party peripheral support in OSVR can be proprietary but it's not like getting a Rift or Vive will change that

and also worried about (5): I haven't heard a lot of unbiased experiences with the OSVR HDK but it sounds like it's not as good as the other HMDs. Is it just bad demos and muh gaymes (see (2)) or is the HDK's immersion bad enough to wait to pay more for the Rift CV1 and use it with the OSVR software?

HMD aside, should I be considering software other than OSVR?

>>507

/tech/ recommends OSVR

they were right about proprietary technology spying on everyone. I think they could be right again

From an average consumer standpoint, I don't see the appeal of OSVR. Sure you can do with it whatever you want both with the hardware and software, but the majority of people wouldn't want to tinker with the hardware in any way that isn't just replacing a broken part.

As for the software it wouldn't be even that different from the Rift where you can make any program run with it without Oculus having any say about it (only when it goes through their online store do they have any say).

>>1083

That makes sense because OSVR isn't targeted towards regular consumers.

>>1060

Not a good plan, but really the only choice if you really want free and open VR (for now). Unless you really want to get into perfecting a whole system that requires incredible amounts of engineering (all hardware + software, because it's a system, not something you can just slap a bunch of pre-configured components together, assuming you want something more than the shitty base specs) to provide competitive levels of presence (this does not necessarily mean immersion), it won't be worth it on an experiential level.

>>1088

>Unless you really want to get into perfecting a whole system that requires incredible amounts of engineering (all hardware + software, because it's a system, not something you can just slap a bunch of pre-configured components together

I'm not much of a hardware hacker but I can replicate others' improvements with my own HMD.

I don't think I understand presence or how the OSVR software supposedly sucks at it, so I doubt I'll have many improvements to make to it. Hopefully some of Razer's/Sensics' partners will start contributing more to OSVR Core.

>assuming you want something more than the shitty base specs) to provide competitive levels of presence

I don't know that the HDK is as bad as its specs sound. Very few people have tried it at all, and no one has tried and talked about the current version.

http://www.osvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=63#p602

http://vrguy.blogspot.ca/2015/01/how-things-work-dual-element-optics-of.html

I haven't heard a straight answer on why the OSVR HDK or software is bad. It's either the Razer Hydra sucking (duh), the demo games at conferences sucking (who cares), or things sucking that have apparently been much improved since it's been demoed.

I read that Vive will be compatible with OSVR software, so I would assume buying a Vive would open you up to any software using the OSVR standard. That alone make me edge towards the Vive.

I'm not digging Oculus' software platform. When comparing this new tech to smartphones, you could argue that Oculus is taking the iOS route while Vive goes Android. OSVR would be the Linux comparison which Vive will support, so that gets my vote.

>>1091

>>1090

OSVR is simply making an API. They won't have some sort of platform or operating system that's comparable to Android/Linux/Steam/IOS/etc, at least not that we know of yet. In other words, the "platform" argument largely doesn't apply in this situation. What does is the ease in which developers can use any API easily, because no one API will be able to let you have the best control for all hardware systems for VR, unless it's being managed by an insanely obsessed group who keeps it up to date all the time with all the hardware companies out there. Either that, or the hardware companies themselves implement support into the API themselves, but it doesn't seem that's happening with OSVR so far. More people are supporting OpenVR at the moment, even though it's actually less open than OSVR. We shouldn't expect any hardware developer to support an API that isn't completely their own yet because that will necessarily influence people to target standardized functions more while ignoring or generally being lazy on implementing specialized, hardware specific ones, even though it would be nice for those hardware developers to do it. Realistically, it would be more logical to actually get a polished working product out there and then see what standards arise naturally, and join in on wide support as the most important groundwork for hardware and software would be taken care of.

I have to see their pricepoint and additional features

Because OR has a better res, Vive has better inputs

>>1092

Right, obviously none of these manufacturers are making an OS. I was comparing the philisophical approach that these companies are taking towards their software and how it relates to the smartphone "revolution" that we saw half a decade ago.

It's hard to say who is supporting what yet because there is such a limited amount of hardware available or even in development. Even still, Valve has announced that they will support OSVR plugins on OpenVR. This will enable any OSVR hardware to be compatible with OpenVR. That style of ecosystem is far more attractive to me than Oculus' walled garden approach.

>>1093

Vive and OR have the exact same resolution

>>1092

>Either that, or the hardware companies themselves implement support into the API themselves, but it doesn't seem that's happening with OSVR so far. More people are supporting OpenVR at the moment, even though it's actually less open than OSVR.

[citation needed]

OSVR has 158 partners. 31 of those are hardware companies.[1] These 31 companies have at least told Razer/Sensics that they plan to write their own OSVR device plugins. At the very least Leap Motion has a nearly-complete plugin.[2]

OpenVR has 1 hardware partner[3] and no public list of software partners (that I can find).

[1] http://osvr.com/join.html

[2] http://www.osvr.com/blog/?p=56

[3] http://steamcommunity.com/steamvr

>>1099

Oh. Nice.

That's what I get from reading wikipedia articles without fact checking.

I'm still split between getting the Rift or Vive.

I was gonna wait a few months before getting any, but after trying VR for the first time a few weeks ago, I'm too hyped to wait much more.

>>1111

'available July 2015' yet it's the first of August and most of the VR communities I frequent aren't mentioning this headset at all. That's MTBS3D and the subreddits devoted to VR.

There doesn't seem to be much interest in it outside of niche libre developers who actually care about licensing and the few sane people who want to avoid anything that's associated with Facebook or Steam. I was expecting tear down, unboxing or review videos on youtube and instead there's nothing. Not a single video about the OSVR posted in the last month. Have they just started shipping them recently?

I'm also pinning my hopes on this becoming popular as it uses the Apache 2.0 license, has better optics and upgradeable parts but right now it's not looking very good as Oculus has most of the mind share from the general public with the Vive in second place.

>>1098

>Oculus' walled garden

I don't get this belief. There is no walled garden. They're simply just not taking any of their time and resources to develop compatibility, not actively barring people from making things compatible. It's only a walled garden in the sense that their app store will be limited to curated content, but you can use the device without the app store in the first place. Otherwise, Valve couldn't have already implemented Oculus support in OpenVR. And the "exclusives" are only exclusive by necessity, since they've already said there's a possibility for their exclusives to be compatible with other systems, but only after they're done making the game work for theirs.

So I don't see any other areas where they could really be considered a walled garden. Or am I missing something here?

>>1114

What's wrong with Steam? I get why people would be hesitant about Facebook, because they have that reputation, but most people like Steam, even the libre fags, because they're trying to support Linux.

>>1114

they still aren't accepting orders, let alone shipping them

the homepage still says july and there's been no word from razer/sensics

not dead, just delayed

>>1116

retard

>>1119

>We are currently working on a release date and are aiming to get it into the mainstream dev market as soon as we can. As you rightly mentioned we have released the units to selected developers and are now working with them to get some fine tuning done so that we can get the best possible version of the HDK out there.

>We apologize for the long wait.

http://www.osvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=576&start=30

>>1119

Honestly thank you for educating me. I've always been skeptical at the people who ridicule others and support Valve as if they're some special exception.

>>1119

their official response was that it was looking up if you visited cheater forums

it's still a dick move tho

>>547

>I'm giving a bit of preference for Oculus because without them we wouldn't have gotten anywhere since everyone else were having cold feet.

This is not how innovation works - it's not a vacuum until a prototype is developed. First there must be a series of conditions that allows technology to occur (in vr's case it was mobile phone screens and gyroscope sensors) and then the invention simply happens.

Without Oculus, someone else would have been the prime mover. Every major scientific breakthrough in history had others doing pretty much exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

>>507

I am torn but leaning more towards the cv1 since it looks more ergonomic which is important if I am to wear it for hours on end and I like their controllers more despite not having linear actuators in there like the Vive. Though they look both compact and light which is extremely important to me I don't want to be wielding two giant dildos that get in the way even if they are lightweight.

I have a headset but I'd rather have integrated earphones since it reduces the weight and apparently sounds alright, I am no audiophile so I don't care as long as it sounds decent, smaller earbud type earphones could do the trick but they would likely sound horrible compared to larger drivers.

Specs seem very similar between cv1 and Vive

If Vive releases as early as December bundled with its motion controllers and 2 base stations for a reasonable price not exceeding 400USD then I am sold since I like their motion tracking system more despite not being as ergonomic as long as it is reasonably comfortable over an extended duration I hope they include detachable integrated headphones I don't want to lug a HMD and G230 on my head for a 5 hour session.

CV1 might come out cheaper if it is mass produced in larger quantities at launch, the IR video cameras would definitely be cheap as they are already mass produced so amortization would have already taken effect there compared to the custom designed laser base station.

The only gripe with CV1 is that it releases in Q1 and you've got to wait more for the motion controllers, it is not as easy to add more peripherals either which could cost more as Vive's approach seems cheaper if slapping a bunch of IR sensors is cheaper than emitters facilitated by being supported by an open standard so any third party can hop in and make something interesting to work with the lighthouse tracking system. But then again who is to stop third parties from making stand alone peripherals that work alongside the oculus?

My money will most likely be on whichever of the two comes out first since I can't contain my excitement, I'm quite worried though that there will be way too much demand on the Vive and not enough to go around meaning I'd have to wait anyways and by then the CV1 would release defeating the purpose. If Vive are releasing early hopefully they would have some preorder mechanism to ensure that the supply meets the demand of the users, at least us guinea pigs that preorder one.

by the way, anyone know if HTC are going for Fresnel lenses? they are more lightweight and cheaper but I hear that comes at a cost as you get more color distortion, artifacts, and less contrast along the discontinuities which doesn't justify such a small weight and cost reduction. I hope HTC doesn't go that route, would be great if you can replace the lenses easily with a third party lens though that might not be possible since they might require more depth than the design allows.

looks fairly simple for the DK2 there appears to be plenty of space if the lens is deeper don't know about the Vive and CV1 though,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ8RS-GALBc

>>1295

Let me correct some things for you.

The consumer Vive design has yet to be released so you can't judge how comfortable it'll be.

The Oculus Touch controllers do have haptic feedback, but no one knows how it works or what it can exactly do, so it's possible they're using linear actuators as well. We simply can't say yet.

The Vive will release as late as December 31, but only in "limited" quantities and online only, so be ready with your F5 key. At first people thought it was not going to be sold to regular people due to their ambiguous wording but someone asked a representative if enthusiasts were going to be able to buy them and he said yes. The mass release starts in Q1 2016. It's probably going to cost around 400 USD if not more. They have said it's going to be a premium product in terms of pricing versus the Rift.

HTC has announced they're going to have integrated headphones that can be detached.

Lighthouse motion tracking is near indistinguishable from Constellation tracking, as long as you're not trying to track a warehouse sized space. A living room can be perfectly tracked by both systems.

Pricing of both systems is still very much speculative.

Oculus has said before that their Constellation tracking system will be free and open to third parties in the same way HTC has announced theirs will.

The Vive dev kit already uses fresnel lenses. CV1 uses "hybrid" lenses, which combines fresnel with regular spherical lenses so you get pros and cons of both systems but in a smaller quantity that's probably more manageable. We can't say what the Vive's consumer version will use.

>>521

Me here, I think Im going to hop on the vive bandwagon.

>>1300

We don't care about a random person's opinion unless there is good reason for it. Blog somewhere else.

>>1299

sounds good, I'll give the Vive a shot around December granted it is the consumer model and enough information about it is out.

If that fails I'll just wait for both consumer versions to properly release and decide from there.

The most informed decision would be to wait for both to release and a decent number of technical reviews pop up, but I am not that patient.

>>1301

>Implying any opinion is good

We're all just random idiots spewing our stupid opinions on the internet.

Be a stuck up douche somewhere else.

>>1301

Heaven forbid this board receives more than 4 posts in an entire day. This thread is entirely devoted to what headsets people are thinking of buying in the future, it's not as if he's making long-winded offtopic posts.

>>1302

>The most informed decision would be to wait for both to release and a decent number of technical reviews pop up, but I am not that patient.

Not really, both the Vive and OR are most likely using the exact same screen so the technical reviews will be somewhat irrelevant. The most important aspect will be the development community that builds around which platform not the technical specifications. Considering that the Vive is supposedly going to be compatible with OSVR and won't require Steam to use that's the one I'll probably go with and will recommend to others.

But in the back of my mind there's a voice saying that it's all wishful thinking and that Valve will end up disappointing those of us expecting VR to be open and free in a manner similar to what Oculus did.

>>1305

Yup, there will be only subtle differences in the specs, if any at all.

But Valve isn't completely open. Their solution isn't actually open source. It's all proprietary. OSVR is both actually open source and free though. OSVR also supports Oculus, and OpenVR. There is no reason why you should support OpenVR. If there is more development with the Oculus ecosystem, then it'd be more advantageous to get a Rift, as almost every game developed with OSVR and by that extension, OpenVR, should work with it. The OSVR headset unfortunately isn't worth it unless you're a tinkerer that doesn't care about a highly optimized system and likes tuning and tweaking things.

And finally, even if the specs were similar, there are enough subtleties that can effect the overall experience that they are more than worth considering. For example one may have ergonomics that fit your physiology better than the other. That's something that could never be expressed accurately to you as a consumer without you trying it yourselves. VR is extremely subjective too. A little difference here or there could mean the difference between getting Presence, and not getting it.

With that in mind, it's worth waiting for the devices to come out and try them before committing. In fact, I would recommend you buy them all and return all of them expect the one that works best for you.

I am speaking from experience of the Vive, Rift, etc.

>>1301

There is some decent reason for it if you employ critical thinking instead of waiting for retards here to regurgitate things they read on "news" sites.

>>1299

>Oculus has said before that their Constellation tracking system will be free and open to third parties in the same way HTC has announced theirs will.

Yeah, and Oculus said before that their whole damn SDK would be free. HTC is no better, with the nerve to call their shit OpenVR.

>>1305

>But in the back of my mind there's a voice saying that it's all wishful thinking and that Valve will end up disappointing those of us expecting VR to be open and free in a manner similar to what Oculus did.

Stop expecting things if you're so fucking dense.

>>1306

>I am speaking from experience of the Vive, Rift, etc.

I hope the "etc" means you're an OSVR partner with a recent HDK, else your claims are just as bullshit as everyone else's. See: >>1279

I swear everyone here is either a shill or a retard, or both.

>>1306

>But Valve isn't completely open. Their solution isn't actually open source.

According to what Valve said when they announced it it'll be possible to use it without Steam and it will be open. Right now it's still in beta testing and it's still far off from a commercial release so you're right that it isn't 'open source' right now. And most people here I'd expect know better than to use that worthless marketing term, it's the permissiveness of the license that matters not whether the code is provided to the public.

Again I'm half expecting them to go back on their word and that their claims are all bullshit to build up hype similar to what Oculus did.

>>1307

>HTC is no better, with the nerve to call their shit OpenVR.

They're much better considering that OpenVR uses an FSF approved license;

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/blob/master/LICENSE

I have no idea what your problem with the Vive is. Did I miss something that makes this not worth using to someone who cares about the licensing issues?

>>1308

OpenVR is NOT free software. The Oculus SDK is closer to being free (but still is not).

1) That repository is not free, because it does not contain the source code.

2) Even if it was free, it is useless by itself and useless in the free world in the context of the proprietary runtime.

See: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/issues/8

This cheeses me off no end but I'm going to bite the bullet and get the vive and the rift. Money isn't an object to me.

It's annoying because I want to stick to FOSS as much as possible but I figure money spent on VR in general will show that there is demand and we'll get more open platforms eventually. Mostly looking forward to flight/space sims and porn.

I want Vive right now, even though the technology for it might change pretty quickly. I plan to resist buying a Rift, because I don't want to support them. For the time being, I'm getting a GearVR