Catching Up With VR

[Tbone]

Today we are very close to the VRevolution, and so I thought I would take a moment to catch everyone up to where we are and where we're going. I know not everyone has been obsessively following the Oculus Rift like I have, and so you may not be aware of the progress that has been made and exactly how close we are. There's a lot to cover!

The Oculus Rift: Developer Kit 1 (DK1)

Last year around CES, I discovered the Rift, a new virtual reality headset that many were claiming would change the landscape of gaming. At the time, it was just a prototype - a proof of concept. But Oculus (the name of the company) had already raised 2.5 million dollars in funding from Kickstarter and was winning all sorts of awards. I brought it up to everyone in FA and we decided we wanted to be at the front of this new wave of VR gaming!

In August of last year I finally received my own Oculus Rift - the Dev Kit 1! It truly is amazing and is impossible to describe or compare it to anything you've experienced before. The technology works and it's a big deal! That said, DK1 was still a proof of concept prototype, and while impressive, it was limited.

DK1 has a 720p screen which, when pressed close to your face, makes it easy to see pixelation and a "screen door effect". While head tracking is absolutely amazing, it lacks positional tracking (leaning forwards, backwards, etc.) There is also a decent amount of motion blur which leads to simulator sickness after extended play time.

Despite these limitations, the DK1 sold over 60,000 units and recently sold out. Developers have been busy making demos and games for the Rift, and during this time Oculus has managed to gain over $100 million in funding, as well as attracting talent such as John Carmack and working closely with large companies such as Valve.

Developer Kit 2

Since the release of DK1, Oculus has been steadily R&Ding and improving the experience to get to a near-perfect consumer product. This brings us to their second iteration, the Developer Kit 2 (DK2).

Recently Oculus unveiled a new prototype called the Crystal Cove. The Crystal Cove has a 1080p OLED screen as well as positional tracking. With the OLED screen, Oculus was able to create low persistence, a technology which eliminates motion blur and allows the world to seem fully real. This, combined with positional tracking, eliminates simulator sickness and allows the mind to sub-consciously fully accept the simulation. This acceptance has been coined "presence" by Valve and Oculus, and it is the "magic VR" that we've all dreamed of. Valve showcased their own version that they've been working on with Oculus, and it simply blew people away. It's apparently light years ahead of the original DK1.

So that brings us to the second developer kit, DK2. Oculus recently hinted that they'd be making an announcement next week at GDC about DK2, especially with DK1 now being sold out. We know that this second developer kit will at least have a 1080p OLED screen with low persistence and positional tracking, and it's been said that it will contain all the functionality of the consumer product. This will be the magic device that takes virtual reality from a proof of concept to reality.

Should you buy it? Well, that depends on what we hear about the consumer product...

Consumer Version 1 (CV1)

All of the prototypes and developer kits are leading to the consumer Rift, currently referred to a CV1. Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Rift, says that the CV1 will meet and exceed all of the requirements laid out to achieve "presence" (magic VR). It will also be much sleeker than the developer kits and much easier to plug 'n play with.

What we don't know is a time frame for the release of CV1. They have stated that DK2 would be available very shortly before CV1, so the ongoing theory is that if DK2 sales are happening soon, CV1 may not be that far behind. Whether to buy the DK2 or hold out for CV1 will depend on the differences between the two, the time frame of the release, and how anxious you are to experience true VR!

Content is King!

Development hasn't only been made on VR hardware. Oculus announced the creation of its own VR platform, Oculus Share. They also have becoming a publishing company, planning to co-publish VR games. EVE: Valkyrie is the first official launch title announced, but expect to hear of a lot more. My guess is we'll hear more about games during E3.

Valve has also thrown their support behind Oculus and VR in general, devoted a large amount of time at their Steam Dev Days conference to promote it. Steam now has a virtual reality version, called SteamVR. The interface works inside the Rift and allows you to load VR games directly from Steam without having to remove the headset. Steam is also working on a "legacy mode", which will allow you to play any non-VR game on a giant virtual screen inside of the Rift. So cool!

Basically, if you were worried that the Rift would just be a peripheral, don't be. It will be a new genre of gaming and has the backing of the largest names in the industry, as well as a few you'd be surprised about...

The Competition

Oculus isn't the only one making a VR headset, according to rumors. Another announcement set to be made next week at GDC is from none other than Sony. That's right, everyone is saying that Sony is going to announce their own VR headset (and not just an update to their media viewer HMD). We don't have any details yet, other than that the thing exists. Will it be PS4 exclusive? Is Sony working on their own VR content? We don't know. We do know that this means VR has a huge potential to go mainstream, whether Oculus is the one to take it there or not.

Furious Angels in VR

So where are we in all of this? I personally have been integrating myself into the VR community as much as possible, and I've made connections with many developers and personalities. Whether you've known it or not, the Furious Angels have been heavily involved in a lot of extremely important VR projects. We've helped test VRChat (ran into the Oculus guys in virtual reality while testing this), MinecRIFT (a VR mod for Minecraft), Firebox (a VR internet browser that allows you to create and host virtual environments on the web), and many many more. I've been on RevKyle's VR podcast, participated in live events and discussions in VRChat, and am a regular poster in the Oculus sub-reddit and Oculus dev forums.

Our newest project is our VR website, which I'm designing to be what the FA Construct project started out as. I definitely could use help with this project, so please take a look at it on our site! It's simply amazing!

As more games are announced for the Rift, we'll ramp up recruitment. EVE: Valkyrie, MinecRIFT, and Everquest Next are the online games we may be invovled with that I can think of off the top of my head, but I think we'll be hearing of a lot more interesting projects soon!

Here's Where YOU Come In!

If you haven't been around in a while, now is a good time to start coming back around! Very soon the Rift will be available, either as the DK2 or as a consumer product. In the meantime, we have a lot of projects that could use some help. Obviously there's our VR website, but we could use more activity on the Oculus sub-reddit and dev site. I'd love to have enough people get the DK2 that we can have a small army of beta testers. We've also been playing some non-VR games as well. Check out Rust or Titanfall - those are most recent!

It's hard to imagine that 10 years ago this guild was created for The Matrix Online and now we're actually experiencing an early form of the Matrix itself! To celebrate our 10 years, we're having a big party in DC the last weekend of April! I have a few couches people can crash on and can also get cheap hotel rooms. Of course I'll have the Rift here, so anyone who comes can experience virtual reality for themselves! The mysterious Broin will even be there!

I think it's very exciting that we're leading the way in this new frontier of gaming. In the year since I first found out about the Oculus Rift, it's blown up to be bigger than I imagined it could in such a short amount of time. I hope you'll join us at the beginning of this exciting new chapter in FA and gaming in general!