Oculus and VR at CES 2015

[Tbone]

It's a new year, and with a new year becomes the same question of "Will this be the year of consumer VR?" Still no official word yet, but Oculus was at CES again this year. Last year they unveiled their Crystal Cove prototype, which eventually became the DK2. This year they are showing off the Crescent Bay, a prototype they originally unveiled at their own conference, Oculus Connect. I've been parsing the info to bring you the juicy tidbits!

Crescent Bay Impressions

Like at Oculus Connect, Crescent Bay is blowing people's minds. The term "mind blowing" has been used so much that people started posting a thesaurus entry for people to try to use other terms. There's a lot of little things working together to make the magic of "presence" happen.

The room is set up with a mat in the middle. The user stands in the middle of the mat. A small camera is mounted on the wall and there's an attendant to help put the Crescent Bay on and keep the wire out of the way. Yes, it's still wired and don't expect it to be wireless for CV1.

The new positional tracking camera has a very wide angle, allowing users to duck and walk around without losing the tracking. The tracking is now also 360 degrees. The user can turn all the way around without losing tracking. This is aided by a back plate to the headset that contains additional LEDs. The back plate also allows for better weight distribution.

Speaking of weight, the headset is apparently super light, and Oculus is confident that a user can wear the headset for extended amounts of time without any discomfort due to weight. This is a big improvement over previous versions of the unit.

Head tracking in general has apparently been optimized beyond what many thought was possible. Hearing people talk about it, no one is really able to describe very well what the difference is - but they say the tracking is so good that the world around you feels real and concrete. This may be aided by the 90hz the device is running at, taking full example of low persistence.

Oculus has been coy about what the actual resolution of the screen is. The PERCEIVED resolution, however, is much higher, as many report that they are unable to notice any screen door effect or individual pixels. Oculus credits this to their custom optics and screen more than a specific resolution. The general consensus is that it has to be somewhere between 1080p and 1440p. The real difference here comes in the legibility of text and seeing objects far in the distance. Oculus admits these are still issues and will continue to be issues with VR for some time, but eliminating the screen door effect and masking the pixels goes a long way.

The Field of View, while many have reported seems wider, apparently hasn't changed much and won't change much. Somewhere around 110 degrees is what to expect, and Oculus says anything higher would require significantly more horsepower and that, right now, the trade off would just not be worth it.

While Oculus still says the Rift is a "seated experience", it's clear that they believe the ability to stand, take a few steps, and duck around adds a lot to the experience and "presence". This was the first public demo for Oculus where people were standing rather than seated.

Almost all reports coming in is that this is as big an eye opener for VR as the first DK1 was. It's leaps and bounds over anything the DK1 and DK2 has had to offer.

VR Audio

The new addition to Oculus' demo was VR audio. Oculus has been working hard on 3D audio and relating it to the head tracking. The result is precise virtual audio positioning. This apparently greatly increases the immersion of the experience and especially helps with giving cues as to where the user should be looking. An SDK for developers to incorporate this into the DK2 should be coming out soon!

Consumer Rift

As usual, Oculus was very vague on details of the consumer Rift. There were several hints dropped that Oculus is hoping to launch CV1 (Consumer Version 1) sometime this year. Palmer stated the company has been operational for two years now and has released two products (DK1 and DK2). This will be their third year and if they follow that pattern...you can draw your own conclusions. Many features are close to being finalized - you can assume a lot of the Crescent Bay experience will be found in the consumer Rift, and Oculus has stated that it feels Crescent Bay delivers on what the minimum for consumer VR should be.

VR Input

Another hot topic that Oculus was vague about is VR Input. Oculus recently acquired Nimble VR, a company that had a Kickstarter for their hand tracking solution. It's similar to LEAP motion, only apparently good enough for Oculus to buy them out. Still it appears Oculus has not nailed down what their VR Input will be quite yet, but it seems to be a high priority. Oculus hinted that, while there won't be another dev kit of the headset, we should expect there to eventually be a prototype of VR Input that turns into a developer kit. More than a new prototype of the headset, I would expect to see the unveiling of an input device at a future conference.

Other VR

VR has gained a huge amount of popularity and it seems VR-based tech was a dime a dozen at CES. Razer announced their own open source VR initiative, which includes an open source VR HMD. Omni-directional treadmills were still on display, getting closer to their finalized versions. Sixense, Leap, and all the normal players were there. But honestly, all eyes are still on Oculus, who had their largest booth yet, and all other attempts at VR are still trying to play catch up.