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Oculus Rift HD prototype VR headset appears at E3, we go hands (and eyes) on (update: video)
We've been impressed with Oculus Rift from the start, and have been following the VR headset closely ever since. The developer edition has been in the hands of devs for a couple months now, and while Palmer Luckey and Nate Mitchell have certainly received rave reviews of the headset from many, they've also heard lots of feedback about ways to improve it. The number one request from users and devs? A higher-resolution screen than the 1,280 x 800 panel in the dev device. Well, after months of research and tinkering to find the right hardware combination, team Oculus is finally ready to show off a Rift with a 1,080 x 1920 display, and we got to demo the thing.Before heading into the land of 1080p, we got to explore a demo built with Unreal Engine 4 in the existing dev headset. After looking around a snowy mountain stronghold inhabited by a fire lord in low res, we switched to the exact same demo running at 60 fps on the HD prototype device -- and the difference was immediately apparent. Surface textures could be seen in much higher fidelity, colors were brighter and less muddied and the general detail of the entire environment was greatly improved.
Unreal Engine 4 now supports Oculus Rift, introduces 'Integrated Partners Program'
Unreal Engine 4 now supports the Oculus Rift VR headset, Epic Games announced this morning. The move comes as part of an "Integrated Partners Program," which also adds support from a variety of other middleware companies (Autodesk, IDV, and NVIDIA to name just a few). Licensees have access to the entire list of middleware software, and can implement functionality in their UE4-powered projects starting today. Epic Games VP Mark Rein told us at GDC 2013 that Unreal Engine 4 support for Oculus Rift was in the works, but we didn't think it'd arrive this soon!
Insert Coin: Virtuix Omni VR treadmill gives gamers the run around from $249
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. If the unison of Virtuix's Omni Treadmill and Oculus Rift got your left thumb hungry for a well deserved retirement, then it'll also want to push you in the direction of the game controller's official Kickstarter. Yup, for just $249 (if you get in there quick enough), you can snag yourself an Omni in DIY kit form plus one set of shoes (additional pairs costing $49). Those with deeper pockets can opt to get the full kit (including belt, tracking hardware and software) from $399, or go all out and get the Omni Rack (for holding your Rift control box, favorite beverage etc) and some exclusive merch on top for $539. Really dig this thing? Then why not lay down $7,999 for a custom design made from wood and steel? Those of you who are still undecided can delve into the project a little further (at the source), but it seems likely that the final retail price could be somewhat higher than that offered to Kickstarter backers so, you know, you might not want to hang around too long.
Valve's Tom Forsyth and robotics scientist Steve LaValle join Oculus team
The Oculus team just got bigger by two, with software engineer Tom Forsyth, formerly of Valve, and robotic scientist Dr. Steve LaValle of the University of Illinois both jumping on board. Forsyth previously worked alongside Joe Ludwig and Michael Abrash on Valve's Team Fortress 2, which has a VR mode specifically designed for the developer version of the Rift. Valve's developers were some of the first to get their hands on dev kits, and Forsyth's considerable experience will be put towards the Rift SDK and a few secret R&D projects. LaValle also has some history with Oculus; he's had a hand in developing VR hardware and software with the company since last September. As Oculus' full-time principle scientist, LaValle will be working on things like sensor fusion, magnetic drift correction, and kinematic modeling. Though the Rift is still a long way off from being ready for consumer use, this savvy collection of industry talent could be a sign that big things are afoot for the VR company.
Among The Sleep clears Kickstarter goal with three days to go
Psychological horror Among the Sleep achieved its $200,000 Kickstarter goal this morning. That means the happy, innocent-looking faces of Krillbite Studio can endeavor to provide us with nightmares when the game hit PC, Mac, Linux, and Oculus Rift in Q4 this year. While Among the Sleep was already close to its Kickstarter goal, we suspect some of Krillbite's cheer comes from the validation of doing so after releasing the playable alpha yesterday. That's still available for free on the game's Kickstarter page, if you'd like to experience how the game leverages its scares from a two-year-old's perspective. You can also read Richard's thoughts on a demo which made him "love a teddy bear within the span of a half-hour." Among the Sleep has already cleared its first stretch goal: $200,030 got bought ice creams for each member of the team - which might also explain those happy faces. With three days to go, Krillbite only has two other stretch goals currently listed, with $225K allowing the team to optimize Oculus Rift support, and $230K unlocking in-game commentary.
Half-Life 2 officially supported on Oculus Rift, beta gets shipped to developers
Gordon Freeman, in your head. Well, that's the plan, with Oculus now offering official beta support for a headset-based Half-Life 2. There's a few known issues to iron out already, including an overly-dim UI and issues with the zoom. But even at this early stage, it appears to lack any gameplay deal-breakers we've seen elsewhere. As mentioned by Valve's Joe Ludwig on the Oculus developer forums, however, the current build is a bit rougher around the edges compared to the Team Fortress 2 beta that launched earlier this year. Developers with the necessary Rift hardware can pick up the files on Steam or follow the developments on Oculus' own forums -- but no comments about headcrab hats and wearables, okay?
The Daily Roundup for 05.09.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Minecraft lands unofficial Oculus Rift support (video)
If you're looking for more virtual worlds to explore using the Oculus Rift, MTBS3D forum user StellaArtois has developed something that might strike your fancy: a Minecraft mod dubbed Minecrift that bakes in support for the virtual reality headset. The modification still needs refining, but it already incorporates head tracking and warping. Not only did the intrepid forum goer grapple with the OpenGL API to devise the solution, but they also created the altered software before their own Rift dev kit arrived, relying on others to provide feedback for tweaking. Mojang has has expressed interest in the VR headset and already has one in house, but official support for the Rift doesn't seem close at hand for Minecraft."Would take a lot of work to get it working for Minecraft, but not impossible - especially with the new launcher," Mojang dev Nathan Adams tweeted yesterday regarding the Rift. Click the first source link below to give the mod a shot or head past the break to see it in action.
The Daily Roundup for 04.26.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
EVE Online dev reveals Oculus Rift-based space dogfighting 'experience' (update: video!)
It's not clear if Icelandic game studio CCP is extending its crazy MMO, EVE Online, into the world of virtual reality, but the company is working on some form of EVE-based VR application using the Oculus Rift. CCP teased the concept during the keynote event at its Fanfest event this afternoon, showing off what looked like a modern Wing Commander-style space shooter set in the world of EVE (similar to the first-person shooter extension on PlayStation 3, Dust 514), built using the Unity game engine. EVE fansite The Mittani notes from a hands-on demonstration at Fanfest that the game is currently 3v3 dogfighting employing the VR headset and an unnamed "console-style game controller." Sadly, it sounds like the project is little more than an internal curiosity at this point, but color us unsurprised if this pops up in a more polished form down the line. We'll add a video of CCP's presentation to this post as soon as it goes live -- we were marveled by the gorgeous visuals and gameplay promise of a space shooter which employs VR. Several games are currently in development for the Oculus Rift, and Valve's Team Fortress 2 already supports the device. However, the headset that's currently available is a development kit, and not meant as representative of the final retail product. Update: We've added the video from Fanfest below the break!
Oculus' Palmer Luckey on the Motorola StarTAC and living in the meatspace
Every week, a new and interesting human being tackles our decidedly geeky take on the Proustian Q&A. This is the Engadget Questionnaire. Oculus VR founder and designer Palmer Luckey has a go at our weekly set of questions while chatting perception modification and the importance of a meatspace presence. Join us beyond the jump in order to peruse the full collection of responses.
The Daily Roundup for 04.23.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Be awed by Skyrim on the Oculus Rift, then let down by its limitations
Here's some exciting news: Skyrim, the game where you hunt and murder dragons, is relatively playable on the Oculus Rift VR headset. Rather, it's workable, and should you have an Oculus dev kit (they're shipping out right now), it's not terribly hard to make the game play nice with the headset. Now here's the sad news: navigating menus is nigh impossible, according to the Penny Arcade Report. Here's PAR's Ben Kuchera on the issue, which he says goes deeper than Skryim: "The Rift does not do well with menus, in-game text, or any user interfaces that aren't purely graphical. It's a major shortcoming of the hardware, and it makes games like Skyrim that throw many menus of that kind at you intolerable to play in a serious way. You'd have to remove the headset every time you need to read anything, much less compare weapons or assign skills." In our experience with the Rift headset, menus weren't an issue -- but that's because it's something we never encountered. Given the development nature of the device, demos were always very guided experiences, with games being loaded independently on a separate PC and not something press had to deal with while trying to use the headset. It's possible that games like Skyrim will receive mods that make the (many, many) in-game menus usable, but it's certain that support won't come from the game's publisher, Bethesda Softworks, as it recently finalized production on the game. For a taste of Skyrim running with the Oculus Rift, head past the break.
Virtuix hooks up Oculus Rift to its Omni treadmill, shows off 'True VR' (video)
Sure, Omni-directional treadmills are nothing new, but Virtuix's take is worth a mention now that it's been shown off working in conjunction with the Oculus Rift. The company's been posting videos of its Omni treadmill working with Kinect for months, but last Thursday it upped the ante by adding the Rift. All told, it makes for what looks to be an intense VR session of Team Fortress 2 -- one-upping SixSenses' Razer Hydra demo for the VR headset. The company's been working on this unit as an affordable solution for households, aiming to eventually try for funding via Kickstarter. Catch the video demo after the break and please resist throwing money at the screen in an attempt to get in on the action early.
Oculus Rift's Tuscany demo scores unofficial support for Razer Hydra (video)
Oculus Rift's Tuscany demo was built with a good ol' fashioned keyboard and mouse setup in mind, but now it's unofficially scored support for motion controls. Sixense, the outfit behind Razer's Hydra, has cooked up a custom version of the Italian-themed sample for use with their controller, and it gives gamers a pair of floating hands to pick up and manipulate objects. Originally shown at GDC, the tweaked experience is now up for grabs, and can even be played by those who don't have a Rift -- albeit with just the controller's perks. Booting up the retooled package offers users a new 3D menu, giving them options for arm length, crouching, head bobbing and a crosshair. It's not the first project to combine Rift with Hydra, but it certainly helps illustrate the potential of such a setup. Sixense says it plans to release updates and the source code, and it recommends folks sign up for their project-specific email list and keep an eye on their forums for word on availability. Hit the source links below for the download, or head past the break to catch Road to VR's hands-on with the Hydra-friendly Tuscan villa.
Oculight LED hack gives the Oculus Rift a hint of peripheral vision (video)
Although the Oculus Rift is one of the more ambitious attempts at making virtual reality accessible, its lack of peripheral version is all too familiar -- it's much like staring into a pair of portholes. Rather than let the disorientation persist unaltered, though, Hack A Day has taken matters into its own hands. Its Oculight hack puts an RGB LED strip inside the headpiece, with the colored lighting set to match the edge of the screen through Adalight code. The result is much like Philips' Ambilight, but arguably more useful: the virtual world's light "leaks" into the wearer's real peripheral view, adding to the immersion. Oculight clearly isn't for sale and needs a refined installation to create the ideal effect, but the readily available resources will let anyone with an Oculus Rift development kit build their own solution.
Oculus Rift gets torn down by iFixit, adds high repairability to its kudos list
The Oculus Rift VR headset has had a wild ride so far after hitting its Kickstarter goal in a single day, raising a whopping $2,437,429 and gaining accolades along the way to the release of a development kit last month. iFixit (or one of its very trusting friends) was apparently one of those ponying up the $300 for the developer version, and naturally the first thing they did was put a screw-gun to it. The teardown reveals as tidy-looking a design on the inside as the exterior, and iFixit said that it couldn't have been easier to do. The only minor hitch was cables held together by tape which would likely need to be replaced in the event of any surgery on the Rift. It's hard to say whether that ease of access will remain with the final production model, but the way that Oculus has gone about its business so far, we wouldn't be surprised. Check the step-by-step process for yourself at the source.
In conversation with Epic Games' Mark Rein: Unreal Engine 4 support for Oculus Rift (and everything else), and thoughts on next-gen
Epic Games isn't just offering up its ubiquitous current-gen game creation tool Unreal Engine 3 to Oculus Rift developers, but also its next-gen tool, Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games VP Mark Rein told Engadget as much during an interview at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, repeatedly stating he's "super bullish" on the Rift, all the while rocking an Oculus pin on his exhibitor lanyard. "Oh, for sure," he said when we asked about UE4 support for the Rift. "We're working on that now." The Rift dev kit was demoed at CES 2013 running Unreal Engine 3's "Epic Citadel" demo, and Epic's offered support to the Oculus folks since early on, making the UE4 news not a huge surprise, but welcome nonetheless. The next-gen game engine was being shown off at GDC 2013 with a flashy new demo (seen below the break), as well as a version of its "Elemental" demo running on a PlayStation 4 dev kit (shrouded behind a curtain, of course). Rein was visibly excited about that as well, unable to contain random vocal outbursts during the presentation. "It's a war out there, and we sell bullets and bandaids," he jokingly told us in an interview the following day. The quote comes from coworker and Epic VP of business development Jay Wilbur, and it's fitting -- Epic only makes a handful of games, and the company's real money comes from game engine licensees. In so many words, the more platforms that Unreal Engine variants can go, the better for Epic (as well as for engine licensees, of course). "It's a good place to be -- we try to support everything we can. We have to place some timed bets on things that we feel are gonna be the most important to licensees, and also to us where we're taking games. But because the engine is portable -- it's written in C++ -- a licensee can take and do whatever they want," he said.
PSA: Oculus Rift development kits now shipping, some may have already arrived
Oculus Rift is in the mail! Development kits began shipping to customers on Wednesday, and even if you have yet to receive a tracking number of your own, a kit may very well be on its way. The Oculus team has been "tied up at GDC" this week, which explains the delay in sending out tracking info, but folks taking care of logistics have apparently been hard at work, prepping some 10,000 development kits for shipment. Of course, not every set will be on its way to a developer right away -- it does take time to get that many kits out the door -- but if you're expecting one at your front porch, it's likely to arrive very soon. In the meantime, the Developer Center has opened up to devs, with access to the SDK, Unity and Unreal Engine integrations, forums, wiki and other documentation. The team also published a video of its SXSW panel in full for your enjoyment -- you can catch it just past the break.
Oculus founder: booze and Rift don't mix
You know that rule about not drinking and operating heavy machinery at the same time? You can widen that common-sense topic to include not getting tooled up before strapping the Oculus Rift to your face. In conversation with Joystiq, company founder Palmer Luckey has mentioned that the nausea-inducing effects of virtual reality can, unsurprisingly, become magnified if you combine it with the demon drink. Hey, it's something to bear in mind before you lose your lunch.
