Ordered my rift DK

[TheBadger]

Hey,

Anyone else besides me and archonforest and Matt buy into this VR stuff yet?

I am going to try an learn unity even though I dont have much interest in making games. But I would like a chance to play with a real time render engine, and unity is free, so...
Also, there is a lot of stuff for the rift already that I think I will have a blast taking a look at.
Then of course, I really want to see some TG inside of VR

Anyway, anyone else buy or going to buy? Sure hope so. Would suck to make something cool using TG in whole or part, and not have anyone here to share it with.

[inkydigit]

I got vrse on my phone, which is cool, I guess using Google cardboard may enhance the immersivity
J

[TheBadger]

Cool. That should be good for the pure video stuff.

Have you seen this?: http://www.kolor.com/store/360-degree-video/casque-de-realite-virtuelle-homido.html?___store=eng&___from_store=default

Its the most pricy of the viewers that I have found when looking. But it appears to be the only one that is fully adjustable, including (it looks like) the lenses. Which I would think is very important.
There is already a ton of stuff that is made for this kind of viewing.

please check this out if you have not already (content for viewing) 7 movies made just for this VR/360 stuff http://www.jauntvr.com/content/

A review of "Black Mass", http://www.roadtovr.com/exclusive-sneak-peek-black-mass-vr-horror-short-director-paranormal-activity-5/ this story is downloadable in the link above

Cant wait to start watching... err, I mean... studying, how things are done, and where I may find a place to start creating/problem solving.

Delevery could be as long as 2 weeks or more.

[TheBadger]

I got vrse on my phone

Oh, so wait, this allows you to move your view back and forth and get parallax, not just look around like in a 360 viewer? I see. I have not really looked into the smart phones for this since mine is I guess not supported.

I really wanted to get rid of my smart phone and just get a land line. But now it looks like I will have to have one if I want to play with all the content that is coming down the road. Man this is already getting expensive!

[PabloMack]

I should show you my museum of bleeding-edge technology that is gathering dust. I'm going to wait until it is main stream. Remember Beta and HD-DVD?

[TheBadger]

Remember Beta and HD-DVD?

Yes. I thought about that on day one. But this is about developing content now. There was no difference in creating content in VHS Vs HD. Video is video. None of the fundamentals changed for production. things just got better. And besides, Oculus was bought for more than a BILLION dollars. No one is going to take a loss on this, it will be developed to the utmost. Right now is all about creating and learning the fundamentals of a (more or less) new production method.

I Honestly don't care if Oculus survives. The soft I have to learn will still be the same; UnReal, unity, cryEngine, and the the various video capture devices that are out now and the ones being developed.

I have a very simple goal in mind. It really wont matter in the end what device it may be viewed on. But you really cant develop now without a VR head set, and Oculus is ready for that now, at a price I could afford.

But anyway, I will be happy just to play with all the demos. $350 is not too much for a years worth of fun. Its win win for me.

next year I want to upgrade my desktop. I will of course rethink everything then.

[PabloMack]

I thought about that on day one. But this is about developing content now.

Still image content or video (animation) content? I've actually been using the spherical camera quite a bit lately. I have determined that I need a 12K X 6K still image to provide enough resolution to feed a VR monitor (or headset) with 1920 X 1080 viewing resolution at 60° horizontal viewing angle (a typical camera magnification). I don't think they make HD headsets yet but for your content to be future-proof you must plan for this. With this in mind, whatever rendering power you needed for HD you will need about 36 times the rendering power to generate the equivalent VR CG content as well as 36 times as much disk space to store the renders (and back them up). Double that to a factor of 72 if you want to do stereoscopic. How big a render/disk farm are you planning on having? I have 40 cores and I often think that it is not enough even for plain old HD.

[TheBadger]

Not worried at all.

The only thing I am on about now is creating an enviro and a real sense of presence. At first I may just make some large cubes to meander around. Also want to do an animated video sphere. Ill deal with it as I go. And Ill go as far as I can get. HD is not even a concern right now.

There are plenty of demos to download and try, Pablo. Things seem to be pretty fun already. Not trying to take over the world here, in the end maybe just have a little VR demo for interviews and self promotion.

[TheBadger]

Got an e-mail that my rift is finally in the mail.

[PabloMack]

Well, getting in now will get you familiar in ways you can't without actually doing it, HD or not. Since I'm a developer I think I can get the feel for what it is, what it can do and where it can go by mental extrapolation. My one and only experience with the Oculus Rift was exactly like I thought it would be. I even "broke" it within seconds just to confirm the expectations I had about the way it works and thus its limitations. But the intricacies of the supporting infrastructure I can never get a grasp on without actually taking the financial plunge. I just figure that I have higher priorities for where my money will go during the next year or two while the industry sorts itself out. I still don't have Z-Brush and that is a shame. Tools such as this will be applicable to SD, HD, Stereoscopic, Spherical and VR as well. I didn't come up through the ranks in the way I think you did because I'm not trained as a professional artist. But I'm happy there are guys like you to lead the way. Full steam ahead!

[TheBadger]

I'm happy there are guys like you to lead the way. Full steam ahead!

It wont be me or people like me.

It will be math nerds and code geeks. And as with current 3D soft, they will make it as hard as possible for "artists " like me to do anything.
Im just a little mouse trying to get a bit of cheese. 

[TheBadger]

Got it today.

So many wires.

Problems problems problems.

Have to buy some more wires/converter crap.

I think it will be worth the trouble.

[TheBadger]

OK, last post for this thread I think.

It works.
It is awesome!
I was right. This is going to be huge! And all I have done so far is the set up demos  which are not that good at all.

But there are problems of course.
After a little while of playing with only the included demos, my eyes hurt a bit, I feel a little dizzy/disoriented, and that is with the headset off now for several min, I still feel funny.
It gets a little warm on your face.

Took a good while to set it up do to a lack of easy to find info. But it is in the end really easy to set up on a mac. PC is more complex and has more things in the download. But that looked easy enough from what I saw.

If you dont want to try and develop something/learn, or you are not a game/tech fanatic, dont buy now! When they say it is not a consumer product, they really mean it.
But I LOVE it! Really glad I started down this road. Even though I feel a little sick.

I will try more demos tomorrow but I wont bother you with them.

Cheers.

[Dune]

No wonder you get disoriented with this stuff. I think you should either wear it ALWAYS, or be sick after every visit to the imaginary worlds 

[Upon Infinity]

my eyes hurt a bit

That'd be the myopia setting in.