Games

PAX '12: Hands-On - Ocuclus

By Sean Booker
September 8, 2012 - 09:27

One of the coolest products I got to try last weekend at PAX Prime 2012 was the head-mounted 3D Display titled the Oculus Rift. I was lucky enough to get a look (no pun intended) at one of the prototypes of the device and was able to discuss the past, present and future of the virtual reality machine with Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Scaleform and an interested party.

The Oculus Rift is "a new virtual reality (VR) headset designed specifically for video games." That alone makes the device something to keep an eye on despite the high benchmark that it is setting up for itself. The developers completely understand that marketing the Oculus Rift is hard and, speaking from experience now, you really need to see it to believe it.

But first, a brief back story of where this product came from. The Oculus Rift was designed by a man named Palmer Luckey and funded out of a website called Kickstarter. For those that don't know, Kickstarter is a site where developers of anything can put up their idea and if enough people (literally anyone) enjoy the idea and pledge money, the concept can be made reality. The Oculus Rift just ended their Kickstarter (you need to run this fundraiser for a month) last week on Septemer 1 and collected almost $2.5 million with over 9,500 backers. During my demonstration of the device, I was told that his number was 1000% more than what they had been asking for and ended up being the sixth largest Kickstarter project to date. From there, legendary game developer John Carmack (Doom, Quake, etc.) got involved after becoming quite interested - going as far to say that "what I've got [with the Oculus Rift], is, I honestly think the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen" - and the device really took off.



The Oculus Rift is basically a large set of goggles - the prototype I used seemed to literally be an altered pair of ski goggles - with two screens inside and a built in gyroscope. Each screen displays a slightly different image in order for the games and image to be fully 3D. With the size of the screens and the distance from your eyes, I was never able to see the edges of the lenses and thus, my entire field of vision was taken up by the game world. And with the game and machine running at 60 frames per second, the movement was incredibly smooth when moving my head. Apart from some dust and dirt caught on the screens, the Oculus Rift made a huge arguement towards really immersing me into the game.

The gyroscope tracks your head movement and allows you to physically look around the environment. The video at their Kickstarter page points out that most VR devices only show up to a 40 degree field of view, while the Oculus Rift goes all the way up at 110 degrees. Having tried this out for myself, the range of motion I had was incredible and from normal movement, I never hit the edge of its limitations. The movement is also altered exponentially between what you're actually doing and what shows up on the screen. Moving my head only a couple degrees will cause the game camera to move a much greater distance. This ensures that you don't have to physically strain your neck if wanting to look at more extreme angles while playing.



The biggest concern that the Oculus team is working on, and that was stressed to myself, was the issue of weight. The demo I used was a second generation version of the goggles (I was informed that they already had a working third generation prototype elsewhere) and that mine was heavier than the final product. The team has a huge commitment to making the Oculus Rift as light as possible in order to ensure the greatest possible comfort and allow for extended periods of gameplay. My prototype definitely felt heavier than I would have liked, going as far as to put a bit too much pressure on the bridge of my nose. Their goal is to get the product down to around 220 grams (a little lighter than a Nintendo 3DS).

The demo I had had a working copy of Doom 3: BFG Edition (out on Octover 16th) playing on it. I played the game entirely with an Xbox 360 controller and it definitely took some time for me to get used to not relying on the right analog stick for the majority of my camera control. The Oculus Rift is definitely something completely new that I would have to train myself to go to. I was told that Doom 3: BFG Edition was the only game fully working on it so far and the second is to be Hawken (a game that the majority of PAX seemed incredibly excited about).



Watching the above video will show just how excited people in the game development industry are including Epic Games's Cliff Bleszinski and Valve's Gabe Newell to name a couple.

The Oculus Rift is currently only being designed for PC and Android platforms with the goal to move onto iOS and home consoles in the future. And they are aiming for a price point of around $200-$400 with the mindset of making it as cheap as possible in order to get it out there. The SDK is already going out to developers now and the finished product is set to be launched in December of this year. I really enjoyed my time with the Oculus Rift and strongly urge everyone to keep their eyes peeled.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12