Virtual Reality Headset: Oculus Rift and possibilities

VR headsets and Oculus Rift

There was a time, in fact it’s still there, when you try hard to visualize virtual reality (VR) sitting in front of a large TV screen and try to feel yourself right inside the scenario which is being in the TV screen. We talk about 5D or 7D simulators where they try to enhance your experience by introducing appropriate vibration, smell, motions etc. But, the experience remains incomplete because of your viewing angle which is about 40 Degrees or so.

Anyone played virtual reality games, will realize the deficiency.  There are virtual reality headsets which give the similar effect of having a small TV inches from anyone’s face with viewing difficulty along with glitchy and headache-inducing.

Oculus is trying to overcome all those shortcomings with full stereoscopic 3D display, accurate head tracking, and the backing of several prominent game developers. The Rift, like a pair of goggles, is strapped onto the face of a person to provide immersive stereoscopic 3D display. The display provides a field of vision upto 110 degrees diagonally. This is really huge when compared to the field of vision of 40 Degrees through conventional methods. Oculus Rift makes the real difference between watching a game played on a screen and having it surrounding on the vision almost entirely.

Interestingly, Oculus VR certainly isn’t the only company making a virtual reality headgear. There are rivals which include Sony (Project Morpheus VR headset for PlayStation 4). In this blog we will restrict our evaluation to Rift only.

Companies are serious about Virtual reality hardware. Microsoft Xbox game’s chief Phil Spencer says “Virtual reality is a really interesting area, especially for games, and while it seems like it’s been ‘just over the horizon’ for the last 20 years or so, I think we could finally start seeing it prove out soon for both gamers and developers,” ; “Our Microsoft research team has been playing with virtual reality for quite a while, and while we don’t have anything to officially announce, it’s clearly an area people are excited about. The potential is definitely there.”

Oculus Rift, currently, is in its developer version. This developer kit has a resolution of 720p (1280×800), which is expected to be improved in the forthcoming consumer version. The most striking feature of Rift is its ability to overcome latency. Most Virtual Reality Headsets suffer from latency issues which cause a noticeable delay between a person moving his and when the screen follows along. Oculus has introduced real-time head tracking which adjusts the screen almost instantaneously. Gamers reported that this headset actually feels more accurate than a mouse as you just need to look at the target to aim and shoot. This feature is very clode to what we do in the real world. As of now, the Rift is only compatible with PCs, but the company has immediate plans to make it work with consoles and even mobile platforms.

The VR headset by Oculus stands out from other similar projects because of several factors. It is backed by high profile gaming developers like Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games intend to integrate the Unreal Engine, Gabe Newell of Valve taking personal interest so that Kickstarter project is successful and John Carmack (creater of Doom) promised a compatible Doom 3 game.   Oculus’s recently launched a Kickstarter venture was aimed at distributing development kits to game developers at the earliest possible. The Rift kickstarter campaign raised $ 1 million in funding, surpassing its initial goal of $ 250,000 in just one day.

The bigger story is something else. Facebook now owns Oculus VR after closing the$2bn acquisition, announced during March, 2014. Facebook is pumping $400m in cash plus 23.1m Facebook shares to the makers of the Rift headset. There is a further bonus of $300m in incentives if it hits certain milestones in the future.