RIFTactular!

Its been quite busy this last month, progress on the Shinobi stormtrooper build has stalled while work and other things get in the way. HAWKEN is progressing nicely, and while I still have my doubts about them adding a healing class (which is somewhat overpowered (OP) in my opinion), Meteor seem to be happy with it staying open-beta (OB has been running for nearly six months now). I have also taken a stroll through a few levels of Bioshock Infinite and have been impressed with what I have seen so far. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to dedicate to other titles that are worth checking out and unless I find about a month of free time soon - that pile of shame in my steam account will continue to grow. Especially now I have added Monaco and Rues to that list!

As you may have surmised from my less-than-subtle title, I shall be discussing the Oculus RIFT in this post, especially now that I have my very own dev-kit. Upon unboxing, I was pleased to see it came with its own padded case for all the equipment, several eye-cups for those of us (like myself) who need corrective lenses and all the required cables and connectors (as well as some handy adapters for both DVI and universal power).

RIFT HMD and its control box

So far, I have really only had about 12 hours hands on with my kit and already I've experienced several moments that have been simply too epic to try put into words. Some are jaw dropping, others can be nauseating and overall I think that anyone who tries the Oculus RIFT for themselves walks away with their mind blown. Whether or not they agree it's the next big thing in tech is entirely personal. For me however, I think that this is the birth of a whole new world, albeit a virtual one(s).





Sure. As it stands right now, the RIFT needs a lot of work. These high tech snow-goggles are really just that, they just happen to be an extremely awesome, lightweight and comfortable VR device masquerading as a dev-kit. Already there are a number of high quality tech demo's available online and in the developer forums. Things are being done and games are being developed with native Oculus RIFT support built into them. Also, aside from Unity and Unreal integration already working with the Oculus SDK, many games available right now offer RIFT support. Especially seeming Valve is on-board. I won't list them all here but instead mention a few that offer native support - Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, Doom3BFG (modded by the community) and even HAWKEN (although HAWKEN's RIFT support is not yet in a usable state).

Currently, the RIFT display resolution is just 1280x800, which limits the per-eye resolution to a paltry 640x800 - hardly anything approaching high definition. Yet, keeping in mind that the commercial version is still a ways off (current speculation places its release around Q4 2014) and that it is still thoroughly immersive when strapped on (its field of view (FOV) offers a massive 90 degrees). It is quite capable of creating neurotoxic responses (eg. nausea/vomiting) if you are one of the unlucky few who suffer from this potential side-effect. It doesn't take long to see past the "screen door effect" and see how, with improvements made (already well underway), this will emerge as the next big thing at its launch. You see, there are vast and wide ranging applications outside of the gaming arena and while i am excited at the promise on offer from the developers and online community, this emerging technology and its supporters are already starting to hint at some of the alternative applications.

MotM (museum of the microstar)

UDK Roller coaster

RIFT (with right lens removed) running BlueMarble demo

Right now, there are numerous tech-demo's and some pretty incredible experiences to be had. As it stands, I have a few ideas for projects of my own and while I am an old-school code monkey of sorts, it will take me a while to work up something not already covered by several of these impressive demo's AND have it in a playable state. Rather than go into a list of them all here, I will instead list some of these online resources now, along with a brief description on what they offer. Check out some of these sites for further details...


www.riftenabled.com - lists games and demo's along with some handy info (including ratings)
theriftlist.com - another list of games and demo's.
www.reddit.com/r/oculus/ - the oculus reddit
www.vireio.com - Vireio's "perception" is an open source 3D driver of the Oculus Rift
<EDIT> to ensure proper Oculus RIFT support, ensure you have the latest build from the MTBS forums here... http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=17069
www.vorpx.com - another 3D driver, only this one doesn't appear to be ready yet.
developer.oculusvr.com/forums/ -  the official dev forums.


Should you buy your own Oculus RIFT? That all depends really. At just $300 plus shipping, it is an absolute bargain. Is it something that you should buy if you have no intention of developing games for this device? That all depends on whether or not you want to buy a product that is already superseded by its next-gen prototypes. Whether or not you want to spend that sort of coin on what is essentially a development platform for people to create new realities is entirely up to you. Personally, I took the leap because not only do I wish to develop my own experiences, I wanted to be one of the few early adopters who strapped the virtual world onto their face for the first time and "gazed through the looking 'glass'" ;P