UNITY, you are losing so many new devs to UE4 due to Oculus support

On the other hand, one might call you biased for not seeing anything besides the technology and claim not having tried it might actually make my analysis more valid.

Just saying.

 

I'm willing to be proven wrong about the Rift, but I don't have easy access to a device outside of paying $350. So unless you know a way to obtain a device for little or no money, I'm going to have to wait till it hits stores and try the display model BestBuy will inevitably have.

As for VR in general, it may stand a chance or it may not. A single device being popular may or may not be enough. Only time, and products available to the consumer, will tell.

 

The moneys going actually hellbent into dev - theres a lengthy wired article somewhere, zuckerburg was pretty passionate about wanting that thing.. passionate enough that he convinced oculus, john carmack (this man is a very very clever man), abrash from valve (i consider this a political as well as manpower move as many valve developments went into oculus rift) to all hop on board and explicitly state he doesnt care so long as it breaks even, he just wants it in as many hands as possible

this is what every VR evangelist wants, they want it in the hands of as many people as possible, because the difference between before and after in night and day and ensible conversation cant really continue until after


its not 'can this be a success' and more 'how do we make rthis a success'

 

No, it really doesn't, erm. That's about it. Have you seen the colour green? If you hadnt seen the colour green would you say you knew what the colour green looked like? I'd like to think you didn't make a big display about how you didnt need to cause it was just a fad anyways

Do you understand how you might be looking at this stuff the wrong way entirely? The technology, as implemented by Unity, accounts for an easy to calibrate stereoscopic rendering with possible barrel distortion to account for the lenses in the housing. This is common through all of these devices. Televisions are made by sharp, sony, samsung, phillips etc, but they still have a screen and generally share the same bits and bobs. Unity should support VR, OR provide a VR product, right?

 

I would love to get it. But until it starts selling in stores next to the X box and ps4, you can't say yes it is going to do good. Wii ring a bell or that stupid pad controller they came up with.
It might look great on paper but until consumers start grabbing it like sliced bread, it is all speculation.

 

Then let them buy pro if the profits are gonna be rolling in according to you . The bogeyman scare and FUD drama seem to be coming from the cheap seats. They may be violating US Dept of Agroculture hogwashing regulations

 

find it a weird outlook as eyestrain's not been the remotest problem and even weirder the idea that youre looking at two screens seems to suggest you're plain Doing It Wrong. Cause that's... absolutely the opposite of what the optical effect is employed for. Maybe you have Wrong Eyes Syndrome, it's a pity because holodecks are a very long way away while goggle glass form factor appropriations of this kinda thing seem pretty within sight

 

Really? You tell people to try it and when they do and are not entirely convinced, they are doing it wrong? Seems kind of biased..
I don't have any opinion on Rift, because I didn't try it. But I trust Aurore to be able to judge it adequately.

 

I spent a couple of years working at a studio that used Unity (which I love for its ease of use) and the Rift DK1. The Rift was a cool experience, and I decided to personally buy the DK2 when pre-orders started. Yes it's a lot of money for something unproven and without much content yet, but I'm single (so expenses are pretty low overall) and usually pretty thrifty so I decided to just go for it. Most of the content at the moment is demo material. There are a lot of cool concepts to experience, although even with the DK2 the resolution is low, and unless you're getting 75 FPS the head tracking is jarring.

After the first few hours, my overall impression ranged from a 5/10 to 7/10. Then I saw that a full game called Star Conflict had official rift support. I had downloaded this game a year before, played for about 20 minutes, and promptly uninstalled. It's essentially a multiplayer spaceship shooter, where you get paired up with other players to do team battles, capture the flag, and other types of game modes. At the time I found it fairly bland.

I loaded it up, put the rift on, and it just WORKED. You come out of hyperspace to find yourself flying toward a giant asteroid field with some kind of space station. You can look all around you and see the other ships on your team flying alongside. Despite the low resolution of the Rift screen, it feels like there is this expansive environment around you. It reminded me of some kind of Ender's Game style combat simulation. You quickly realize that in space, there is no "up" or "down". Dodging asteroids and enemy fire, destroying an enemy fighter and flying straight through the resulting explosion at full speed, doing crazy maneuvers that actually give you vertigo or dizziness (because they realistically SHOULD, and not because of poor movement implementation like many Rift demos), it was unbelievable. I would be very tempted to call it the best gaming experience I have ever had.

I have no idea if the Rift will be widely successful and become a staple in every house the way a TV is. Other than generally wishing success to Palmer Luckey and all the other people who are passionately working hard to make it a reality, I don't really care if it becomes huge. I don't have some kind of fanboy loyalty to Oculus itself. If competition arises and makes a better product for less, then great. But personally I am going to keep buying future iterations of VR headsets (and likely ebaying my old ones) until they stop making them. Even if 1 demo or game out of 100 "works", it seems worth it to me for the experience.

Just my 2 cents for those who haven't had a chance to try it yet.

 

Getting vertigo from a space shooter because it's realistic sounds every bit as immersive and entertaining as getting stab wounds from Assassin's Creed and PTSD from Call of Duty.

 

I, for one am not excited about strapping a bulky device to my face. Personally I think the Rift is way over-hyped and will not be anywhere near the "game changer" that people think it will be. Sure, it may have modest sales once it finally gets finished, but once the novelty wears off, sales will fall flat.

 

Nice, I laughed when I read this But seriously, I mean vertigo like you would get on a roller coaster, not the hours-long queasiness that people experience with the Rift when movement is poorly implemented or frame rate is low. Vertigo is probably the wrong word. I should say the slight fluttering in your stomach that comes along with the sensation of extreme movement.

 

It definitely gets somewhat uncomfortable. I'm not sure if there's even a way to completely eliminate that. My longest gaming session so far was about 2 hours, although it wasn't like it was so painful or uncomfortable that I needed to stop.
There's no denying there are issues with VR. Some will be resolved in time, some probably won't be.

 

Ah, okay. That actually does sound pleasant.

 

I think the thread is predictably falling between the people who have tried the oculus (very much positive) those who havent (completely clueless) and Aurore, who will toe company line until policy changes

I feel mean now saying this, but then again i really dont understand it because it's not really anything hard, your eyes are working normally, its not a trick youre just looking behind the screen (quite far behind the screen).

And yes the feeling of vertigo is the correct way to describe it, but its genuine vertigo, like if you go on a rollercoaster, its that feeling, its exhilarating

 

I have read reviews of people raving about how they put on the Rift and immediately forgot where they were, and thought they were actually on Mars or wherever. That sounds kind of crazy to me. I'm not sure how anyone's brain allows them to forget reality. To me, looking at a game on your monitor is like looking through a window into the game world. The Rift lets you get inside that game, that's all. It is really cool, and when done right it certainly gives you sensations of movement, lets you sense the scale and distance of the world around you, but it has yet to make me forget the real world!

 

I've said this so many times but i'll say it again - the technology needs refining, but its a very natural and agreeable, entirely new way to consume media, it is unique, it has not been achieved at this scale before, it cannot be described in any other way than 'you are there', and you'll see what is meant when you spend some decent time with it and have your 'special moment' and you're convinced in a way that hearing music out of a speaker would convince you that this was a Good Thing. I'm a bit evangelical (fanboy is ridiculous, do you know of the concept of tv fanboys? not a brand or whats shown on the tv, but the idea of a tv itself?), and its because i've had incredible experiences with it. How could I not? I was there. Was I being tricked? Not really, no more than real life tricks me, its in fact an opening of quite an interesting philosophical quandary

 

OK trying to be nice but this will come out totally wrong.
now you are telling people what yo do and that they are wrong. Didn't know you had a neurological degree and a psychological degree.
All things aside. The same goes with 3d movies. Some people it works and others it doesn't. Same goes with depth perception. It might work for some and others not.
Don't try to be the master of how things should/shouldn't be.

 

Also, 3D movies are kind of unnecessary, get a lot of hate and only are such a big success because cinemas and publishes can charge an extra for it. The hype about a whole new way of consuming media turned out to be just that - a hype.

 

A lot of people are comparing the Rift to previous "next big things", like the Kinect or 3D movies. I'm genuinely curious about this so anyone feel free to jump in. But personally I don't remember many individuals trying kinect or 3d movies and raving about them. It seemed in those cases that it was mostly the companies themselves who were trying to push it and hype it up. And then the reality failed to live up to it. I may just be biased though because personally I never had any interest in kinect or 3d movies (despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact of working on them for a few years), but I DO have an interest in being inside a video game world

 

Well, since this thread is now about the eventual qualities of the Rift, I'll be shameless. I never tried it (I probably will in the next couple weeks), but to be honest I hope it doesn't prove successful, at least in the game industry (it could be cool for other uses). Not because I don't believe its awesomeness. Actually, I'm pretty curious to try it because I believe it's probably as awesome as many people describe it. Still, I really don't want to see the game society develop into something where people stick a clunky mask to their face in order to play. Just my utterly personal opinion

 

3d movies are absolutely not even in the ballpark, the kinect is like comparing your joypad to your tv (it makes no sense) and absolutely every criticism apart from Aurores (which i was a dick about) has been full of the pretty much abject ignorance that makes people like me want these people to try it and give it a decent go and stop talking until they have. It will not be what you expected and you may well feel a bit silly, just a word to the wise

 

lazygunn, will you please acknowledge that this thing has other aspects than the technological one and stop marginalizing every opinion that you disagree with? It's really getting annoying.

 

I own a DK2, I am a huge supporter, and I can say that it will not work for every genre. But for the genres it does work with, there is absolutely no going back to a traditional display.
Flight/space sims, racing games, realistic FPS/adventure games are amazing with the rift. There is such a clear advantage in these games to being able to naturally look around and judge distances correctly.
The rift is not clunky, it's actually fairly small and very light (I think 1.7 pounds?). In fact, the first thing I thought when I opened it was how light it was.

EDIT: for those making the comparison, 3D movies are not even close to the rift. 3D movies feel gimmicky and just don't make for a very good experience usually IMO. Whereas with the rift, you are actually there. I agree I've only had brief flashes (maybe 1 second at a time) of actual presence where I kinda forget where I am and those moments are for some reason insanely addictive. But the feeling of looking to your sides and above you and actually being IN the game world instead of seeing it through a tv camera view is incredible.

 

I think I will take it back, i was being a dick, i think VR for you will actually show up in your life several years down the line in AR eyewear which will by that time be doubtlessly elegant and light pieces of hardware, VR is just one part of these technologies and VR gaming will be just one thing you do with it, you'll also use it for directions, to find friends, to identify people in distress or disabled, inform you of dangerous or just plain busy traffic, give you situational information based on context and eventually replace giant chunks of your vision with computer generated imagery (at your discretion) as part of VR integrating this imagery into your world through optical technology, very high mobile data bandwidth and very powerful mobiles.

Obviously by the end of that paragraph ive moved some years into the future, but you see the importance of learning the journey to that, and the implications all that has to realtime interactive 3d graphics authoring software is quite profound

 

I fell out of my chair once with the dk1 when standing at a cliff ledge peering over.

I've had to wear it a combined total of several hours when finishing up a project for deadline and felt like a drunk sailor. Even worse one of the scenes was underwater and I was seeing caustics everywhere for hours afterward.

It's really great being able to turn around and look wherever you want in 360 space in a virtual world.....

@camelotvfx The kinect 2 already is a "big thing", one of the most affordable yet high quality motion tracking sensors available....might not see it in every house but tons of businesses are using it.

 

I actually think I will like it, for the few minutes I will try it. But I don't think I will like it in the long run. Still, I might be completely wrong and we'll see. If I change my mind I will cover my head in ash and repent.

Either we have different ideas of clunky, or the images I saw are deceiving. I'm indeed very very curious to try it now. At least I will be able to say "Noooooo, it IS clunky!!!" (or maybe I will just hide in shame because it actually is not)

 

You can read my above post for the grand economical aspect of the technology and hence the importance in authoring tools like Unity. Unity could quite easily stop being a games engine and be a reality authoring platform. That's quite a significant jump, it's perfectly viable, and just offhand rubbishing vr out of ignorance gets annoying where i'm thinking about unity like that and you're thinking of unity as a silly little toy producer

 

Indeed businesses got excited since it's first release (it's truly a great instrument in itself), and all my clients were asking Kinect-ready content (for museums and stuff like that). Still, not so awesome for the game industry. And even my non-gaming clients are now starting to get bored of it.

 

I never tried a DK1, but I agree it did look quite clunky in pictures. The DK2 comes off much better in pictures. But still seems even smaller when used IMO.

It all comes down to content for the Rift. VR content is a new medium and it will take some inventive devs some time to find out exactly what works and what doesn't in VR. It's such an exciting time for many of us to be on the ground floor of something like this. I wish Unity allowed us hobbyists to stick with their awesome product is all

 

lazygunn,

If you really believed that the Rift was the next big thing in gaming then instead of trying to convince Unity to put support for it into free you would be trying to figure out how to pay for Pro so you could be one of the limited game producers that got in on this future huge market before everyone else.

Instead you are coming across as a fanboy that wants to play around with the Rift in Unity for free as a hobby.

 

Even though I own a pro license, I still think the free version needs to have support for the rift. I think it's a great way to attract new users, especially now, when the rift is gaining momentum.
I own a DK1, and even though it has its flaws (low res, mblur), it's a truly unique experience, and it gets me really excited for the future.

 

I've got pro and believe that the freedom to produce and propogate peoples realities, their ideas, to teach and learn in ways literally only possible in a VR is an absolute right that should be available to everyone. I am disabled, left mostly housebound through schizophrenia which has become much better through the love of a rather beautiful woman who has influenced my thoughts about everything regarding this kind of thing. Virtual reality could supply valid, powerful therapy for the mentally ill, supplying direct information to maladapted semantic connections in a hugely palpable way, and supply invaluable education for carers and psychiatric professionals who simply do not understand the illness and can come closer to treating their patients more effectively through this immersion into an alien realm of perception

I know this because i've been through psychosis to the point of hospitalisation for a total of 9 months and VR has been the only thing, like, breath of hope i've ever found of being able to show people a way of seeing things they'd otherwise never know, and this drives all my continuing enthusiasm for the medium

I'm not in this to get rich, if i wanted to get rich i would have been rich a long time ago doing different things, im currently getting by best I can to get a foundation together so i can start developing vr applications in psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy, i've been talkig to people about scalable vr solutions starting from showing residential clients of interior designers how their plans might look like as a space, including shadowing, gi, occlusion, and awareness of space and their situation in it. We've been talking about if we can, ramping it up to simulations of areas with high public activity like bars and using AI simulations like rvo to just see how avoidance works in a very tangible sense in a crowded public location, from the perspective of a fellow person, so they can identify where people might come to harm.

This is not for money (althouh i hope to one day be comfortable), i think i got over money a long time ago, i think its a bit more to do with giving everyone the tools to express their inner universe and let others experience it, i think that should be a right, in a digital arena where the freedom is there. I think there's a lot of room to find peace, but really push some philosophical notions about space, priority, and well, ill stopgoing on. But we arent all in it for the money

 

Yeah, it would be pretty great if UT started handing everything for free. But they too have to survive somehow.

Also, nobody forces you to use Unity for Rift development, so this is totally not about freedom. You can use OpenGL or DirectX, both of which are free to use, plus any free compiler (e. g. g++) plus Notepad.exe and you have everything you need, strictly speaking. Unity just makes some things a lot easier.

 

That must be one of the most dense possible comments to make in this debate

Topic: OR support in Unity Free to enable open intuitive development in the medium

your conclusion: force development back into the dark ages

you're going on ignore, wether you're trolling or just a plain waste of space, you arent contributing at all positively to this conversation

 

Get a job. Do a freelance gig. If yer all badass enough to create a money making VR game then a Subway Surfers or similar gig can be had all over the internet for hire. I cannot believe the melodrama the want-everything-for-free crowd go through to weasel yet another free ride instead of taking the initiative and getting the work done to acquire more and better tools.

 

You mean like every comment you put into a conversation? The original discussion in this thread focused around the cost of Unity versus UE4 for Rift development and the poster complaining that he didn't want to pay for it. The Reddit thread he later linked is entirely focused around pricing.

It only devolved into a discussion about the Rift because he felt it was necessary to justify his opinion and push it on everyone else. Opinions though are rarely based in fact and his was no different.

As for not trying the Rift, it does not automatically make one completely clueless. I've been a hobbyist developer for a very long time. I have watched companies form and dissolve. I watched the virtual reality crazy in the 90s when it formed technologies such as VRML.

I remember the various companies producing software to support it and how practically every single one of them disappeared when it failed. Why? Because they sunk too much effort into a concept that consumers simply did not buy.

As someone who is now progressing towards becoming more than a hobbyist developer, I will not blindly invest money into a concept solely because I think it looks cool. Which I do believe the Rift is a very sweet device and I would love to have one for playing Skyrim. But it is not worth an investment of $350 that may not pan out.

For those of you trying to shove your opinions on us, some of us are more than blind fanboys. For those like Aurore, who gave an opinion without trying to force one, thank you. Your opinion is far more valuable to me.

 

lazygunn, you are twisting my words. You are ripping my posts out of context. You are constantly ignoring everything I say because it does not fit into your viewpoint. You claim the right to decide who is allowed into a discussion and who isn't. And you have tried to insult me (but somehow didn't really succeed in that) several times now.

Feel free to ignore me. At least that brings down the temptation to discuss anything with you down a bit. I really should stop that, anyway. And thanks for showing everybody how you are completely out of arguments and not to be taken serious.

 

You don't understand a simple concept like, you can't say something about something if you dont know what it is?

I'm not going to run screaming from Unity because it doesnt support OR in free, i dont have to, in fact i'm working towards developing a strong set of dx11 tools for making the best VR experience possible, using all the best technology possible. But this miasma murking around of Free users as freeloaders is really just plain repugnant and is just a regularly occuring sign of pro users being some kind of moral elite, since they most likely came to their license through a process initiated by pure meritocratic principle rather than nepotism and all...

VR is a medium. Your monitor is a medium. Your speakers are a medium. Your kinect is an input device. You wouldnt know better as you haven't even bothered to investigate the issue

The one image effect VR needs is barrel distortion, here i'll make it easy, here's my package for getting OR working on Unity free i made quite a long time ago (might be out of date) http://pourfoi.co.uk/wp/OculusFree/OculusFree.zip, it requires either an asset store buy or some faff, but it can get you there

Meanwhile you've done nothing but pour scorn on something you have absolutely no knowledge about Ryiah, but do continue it's thrilling

 

The Rift is not a new concept. Similar technology has been attempted in the past only to fail miserably.

Pretty normal for fans who are blind to anything that is not in favor of their product. They cannot imagine a negative review so they claim it is someone's fault that they didn't like it.

As for lazygunn, he's always like that.

 

I'm sorry but I'm having a hard time figuring out how this is a response to my post. If you are attacking me, I am paying for a Unity Pro subscription and believe it or not, I do have a job. The question remains, why would someone just starting out pay $1500 or $75 per month over $20. Telling someone to get a job so that they can pay a lot more money is rather silly.

 

Sony have bee making 'VR' style HMDs for years, you can buy them from amazon, youve been able to buy the from amazon for years, theyre fancy versions of the horribly clunky Virtuality stuff shown around in the early 90s (i went on one in the london trocadero at an early age)

They are not the same thing. The best analogue to oculus rift's optical process can be found in surgical equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars and available to very few practitioners. As I say, you really should return to this subject with somebetter education

 

It's not trying to get something for free, it's asking the maker of my tool of choice to become affordable to do the things I want to do with it. I don't think anyone has a problem paying, but $1500 just put it out of mine (and many other's) price range.

Take this analogy, you've been going to the same gas station for years for free gas, but you decide to get a new car which runs on hydrogen! Your normally free gas station offers hydrogen for $1500, or you can go drive across state to get it for $20. Even though I know it was my choice to buy this new car, I REALLY don't want to drive across state, and I'm hoping my old gas station which I really really like can make an offering that is more in line with the competition.

 

Checked that out online earlier in the year. The idea is cool. There have been multiple attempts to do this sort of thing over the decades. It does look like the tech is here finally. But still it is just a peripheral. At least to me it is. Some people got super excited over steering wheel controllers. Others over flight sticks. Some people go on about 3d movies. Personally myself and most people I know (from age 14 to 60) prefer the normal 2D movies. I guess my point is if you are so stoked about it then get it. Get an engine that currently supports it. Or hook up with some of the other Unity users who want to dev for it and build some extension/api that makes it possible. Heck you can even sell it on the Asset store. Just realize not everyone will think this is the greatest thing since pong.

 

Originally I guess I had forgotten that image effects are required, and just assumed that the free version of Unity would still let you develop for the Rift, but without shadows and all the other Pro features. I still believe this would be totally fine and not lose Unity any customers, because most people will want that layer of polish provided by the Pro features. But I also admit that, due to the constraints of my current studio job, I am one of those people that only wants Rift support in Unity free so I can play around with it for now. And it's totally understandable that UT should not have to cater to my desire to do so.

Of course it also seems clear (from the reddit post, although reddit is always kind of a weird and skewed representation) that they have lost and will continue to lose potential customers if they don't allow Rift support. Of course that is their choice to make, as it is the choice of the customers as well whether they go with Unity or Unreal. And although that thread on Reddit has several hundred replies, relatively speaking that is probably only a drop in the bucket.

For what it's worth though, just know that, as someone who both supports Unity and enjoys the experience provided by the Rift, reading this entire thread has been a mostly negative experience. I was originally planning on going into more detail, but I probably shouldn't for fear of contributing to the problem.

 

It wouldn't have been such a negative thread if people had simply understand that it isn't necessary to force your opinion on others. I'm probably somewhat guilty of this as well, but I am tired of being told my opinion is wrong simply by having a different one.

I completely agree with those who bring up Unity's affordability for hobbyists. Unity Free may be sufficient for some, but the features are simply not on par with most reasonably modern engines. Blitz3D and Torque are both from 2001 and yet they both have RenderTexture support.

 

I'd like to see the whole economic situation where someone with a pro license can just sit there and get down on someone on Unity Free and attribute their aquiring their license to pure talent, and not a load of conveniently unmentioned events that might have, maybe, originated in an education funded by their parents, or really all kinds of things that, i dont say this lightly, i think are pretty offensive basis by which to claim superiority over a free user just because you paid. I do think that kind of attitude does not belong in a field where you're creating content for the apparent betterment of its consumers? Asking for support for an entire medium is not remotely unreasonable. Should being allowed to use a monitor be an extra license? (You'll see in a few years)