John Carmack confirms 2nd dev kit is in the works

[PalmerTech]

If it's not going to be in the consumer, why talk about it now? Before DK2 has even come out?

Palmer is either very wrong about the consumer not being standalone/mobile and needlessly confusing their customers, or Oculus VR has very terrible management.

Because Android support has been on our roadmap since Day 1 of the Kickstarter, and we have been telling people that we would get around to it for more than a year. We are working on it, and we tell people so if they ask about it. What would be better, typical megacorp public relations BS where we don't release information because are afraid it will confuse uneducated customers?

I am not wrong/lying/terribly managed, you are really jumping to conclusions there.

[android78]

...
Either way, I was doing a lot of traveling this past week and was sad that my OVR is such a cable nightmare. Would have loved to take it on my trip with me and use it on trains/planes/buses.

Have you done the USB power hack? I know it's just one cable difference, but it seems a lot more convenient having one less cable. With the power hack you only really have two cables which both travel the same route.

[blazespinnaker]

Plus a laptop It would have been wild. Still, it was tempting.. I took a very(!) long cheap coach train ride to save on air fair (actually I had never taken a very long train ride before. So there was that as well)

Who knows what my seat mate would have thought with all that gear. Power bars installed galore, though. A lot of buses these days are fully stocked on power as well. If you're looking to travel somewhere cheap, something to think about.

I think having AR would be nice as well, so you can check on your surroundings. I'm trusting, but with all those people around, it's a bit of a hard sell not having a camera on my rift.

What would be better, typical megacorp public relations BS where we don't release information because are afraid it will confuse uneducated customers?

Public relations BS is better than unclarified confusion dribbled out in reddit/mtbs3d.

Why not say it won't be standalone in the consumer model in the Kickstarter update? Why confuse developers like that?

[XCHDave]

This is rather interesting, from a consumer point of view it makes alot of sense.

At the start of the year we all thought we would see a consumer version by the end of this year, now not until next. We all know a ton of dev kits are in the hands of people not interested in developing but just keen to try it out, so a v2 dev kit then consumer only spells profit for oculus.

Trouble is the technology is changing that quickly I can't help but even seeing the rift go down the smartphone road. No matter what version you buy in 6 months to a year there's going to be a better one out.

It also kind of sucks from a dev point of view if they need to get a v2 kit to continue developing for the rift for positional tracking. May not be much for big companies but for indie devs they have to buy another kit because their current v1 is obsolete to the consumer version.

I hope they release a positional tracking addon for v1 for those devs on a tight budget that don't need the HD screen to continue development.

[slipstream]

I can't help thinking with all this delay that Samsung and / Or Sony will be first to release a consumer version on par or better than the oculus.

[MSat]

I can't help thinking with all this delay that Samsung and / Or Sony will be first to release a consumer version on par or better than the oculus.

What delay are you speaking of? IIRC, it was always Oculus' plan to have a consumer version in 2014, and as far as I can tell, they're still on track for that. I doubt that, assuming they started working on an HMD at the same time as Oculus, Sony or Samsung or whoever would be able to get a product to market any quicker. Smaller companies tend to be more nimble and iterate faster than bigger ones. Also, Oculus already has development hardware and SDKs in developer's hands - for a while at that. The same can't be said of any of the other companies, unless they're hidden behind NDAs.


One thing I don't understand is what would be the point of a V2 dev kit if it's not expected to be released prior to the consumer version. I assume that the consumer device would be suitable for development as well, unless it's intended the DK2 will have additional features.

@blazespinnaker

Not sure that an IMU-based motion tracker would play very nice in a moving vehicle or plane.

[colocolo]

I can't help thinking with all this delay that Samsung and / Or Sony will be first to release a consumer version on par or better than the oculus.

i dont think so.
They sure had some research going on even before Oculus formed as a company.
If they had wanted to release such a thing then they could have already released one.
I am sure that many engineers at Sony are eager to release such a thing, but i dont think so about the management. Those kind of people dont have good things in mind, the exact opposite.
If Sony or Microsoft will release sth like that than sure after Oculus has.
IMO its looking really good, multiple leading engine supports, John Carmack....etc
Apropos, have you guys imagined how advertising in TV would be like.
The best TV ad ever and most desired product since TV itself.
Oculus Rift will turn back the time.

EDIT: Oculus is probably the only company that has distributed tens of thousands dev kits, what is essential for VR game developement.
Sony has nothing to loose. They are too mighty. They can easily sell one much later or they leave it. No problem for them.

[blazespinnaker]

Not sure that an IMU-based motion tracker would play very nice in a moving vehicle or plane.

If the OR can't handle the vibration of a plane/vehicle, how is it going to handle the violent movements playing an FPS on something like the Virtuix Omni?

If you're referring to the fact that the visuals strapped to your head will bounce because of the IMU, keep in mind that visuals bounce quite a lot just watching a laptop - which isn't strapped to your head.

Anyways, I will agree a bus might be worse than a train or plane, which generally don't have a lot of gforces at play because of the steady velocity they move at.

Interesting research topic / patent material for OVR though.. How to combat motion sickness when being used on a bus or car.

What I'd really like to see however, is a seamless experience when using the Rift now, when I switch between games I don't get the nausea inducing imagery caused by the desktop not being stereoscopic.

[MSat]

I mean that cars, trains, planes, etc. make turns. I don't think there's any way to differentiate between your intentional movements and unintentional movements due to a bus turning. An ODT wouldn't pose a problem because all your movements are intentional.

[blazespinnaker]

I mean that cars, trains, planes, etc. make turns. I don't think there's any way to differentiate between your intentional movements and unintentional movements due to a bus turning. An ODT wouldn't pose a problem because all your movements are intentional.

Trains and planes don't make turns, relatively speaking.

Cars and Buses, yes, however since your mobility is already limited, it might make sense to fix your head tracking to your hand controller or mouse cursor rather than your head.

[PalmerTech]

Why not say it won't be standalone in the consumer model in the Kickstarter update? Why confuse developers like that?

Because we have never said that the first consumer Rift is going to be running Android, and most developers fully know that. The point of our updates is to keep developers in the loop on how things are going, not to counter the speculation of a tiny number of people in the community.

[blazespinnaker]

Why not say it won't be standalone in the consumer model in the Kickstarter update? Why confuse developers like that?

Because we have never said that the first consumer Rift is going to be running Android, and most developers fully know that. The point of our updates is to keep developers in the loop on how things are going, not to counter the speculation of a tiny number of people in the community.

" most developers fully know that. "

Riiiiiight:

"Oculus Rift's John Carmack says a new Rift dev kit is in the works, sees consumer model running Android (video) HD By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th, 2013 at 12:40 PM"

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/18/ocul ... interview/

No confusion in the comments there..

[MSat]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/18/ocul ... interview/

No confusion in the comments there..

The comments section of engadget is probably the worst example one could use.

[brantlew]

I mean that cars, trains, planes, etc. make turns. I don't think there's any way to differentiate between your intentional movements and unintentional movements due to a bus turning. An ODT wouldn't pose a problem because all your movements are intentional.

Trains and planes don't make turns, relatively speaking.

Really? Trains and planes do make turns - and even worse planes also go up and down. If your body can feel G-forces in a vehicle then an inertial tracker can too and they are indistinguishable from you head/body motions. So vehicles are challenging for sensor fusion.

[blazespinnaker]

So vehicles are challenging for sensor fusion.

Cars and buses, sure, planes and trains - nope. At least long trips in planes and trains. Short trips I suppose could be an issue, but then I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble in a short trip. iPad will do the trick.

Its also important to appreciate that the use case of the Rift in a vehicle is different than that of at home or in an Omni. It's less about Virtual Reality, and more about replacing the dull unchanging world (at least the one you can interact with) and the annoying distractions (fellow passengers / babies crying / etc) with a much richer, deeper, more complete environment that is suited to your particular longer term goals.

For example, if I could just get a full on 3D Desktop Environment where I could do modeling or programming - I'd be good to go.

[blazespinnaker]

The comments section of engadget is probably the worst example one could use.

Fact: I think if you asked anyone what the consumer Rift will look like, you'll get 30 different answers. I also think until Carmack or someone else confirms it, it's not clear to me that Palmer knows exactly what's in the Consumer Rift either.

The only thing I think we can rely on, and what they should be stressing more, is that the consumer rift will be backwards compatible with everything you can do right now.

[zalo]

So vehicles are challenging for sensor fusion.

planes and trains - nope. At least long trips in planes and trains.

Are you trying to say that planes never have to make course corrections to avoid turbulence, or that train tracks never go around mountains?

Because even those subtle angular accelerations will throw off your orientation. Plus, the magnetic field is changing as well.

[PalmerTech]

I also think until Carmack or someone else confirms it, it's not clear to me that Palmer knows exactly what's in the Consumer Rift either.

Confused Engadget comments have almost no overlap with confused VR software developers.

Why would you assume that I don't know what the consumer Rift will be, and how does it make sense to wait for someone like Carmack to confirm that I do? I have to be honest, that is a nonsensical idea. Of course the consumer Rift will be compatible with software made for the dev kit, if not, the dev kit would be pointless!

As I said earlier, our Kickstarter updates are not created to dispel the speculation of a small number of confused people. What are we supposed to do, make an update that says "Breaking news: The Rift development kit can be used to develop games for the consumer Rift!"?

[android78]

Some of the conversation in this thread is confusing.
I thought that it all made sense. There has been a dev kit released and Oculus (I would assume led by Palmer) are working on an even better version for consumer release. It seems that they are likely to release another devkit which more closely resembles the final consumer version when they have the consumer version specs locked down. That may (or may not include) SOC to make it possible to use stand alone as well connected to a computer the same as the current devkit.
From what Carmack has said, it looks like HMD with SOC embedded is a vision for the future. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen a confirmation that WILL be included in the devkit 2 or the first consumer model. It would be cool if it was though. My understanding is that they have been working on android API, not just for an embedded SOC, but so you could plug it into something like nvidia shield or samsung galaxy.

Just thinking about having embedded SOC makes me think that this will end up being what the virtualboy promised to be. Now, how to shrink down the STEM system so that it can all be embedded?

[zalo]

Now, how to shrink down the STEM system so that it can all be embedded?

As awesome as the STEM system is, there are a number of problems with it.

The biggest one being the base station. It's big, expensive, and cumbersome.

Oculus (Carmack?) has mentioned they're mainly looking at Optical right now. Cameras can be made a whole lot smaller and cheaper; see CastAR.
Onboard processing lets you get super high precision and massive sample rates at low power consumption and data bandwidth. Not to mention cost (see Wii Remote).

There's almost no way of getting by without a base station, so the goal is to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Optical lets you do that.

Obviously the "line of sight" issue is a horse that's been beaten to a pulpy mess, so I'll stay out of that here.


Now they could go a whole 'nother route and put STEM trackers in every rift with the option of buying a generalized Sixense base station to go with it.
This is good because it encourages users to get other Sixense enabled devices to go with their rift, but doesn't force newbies out of the price range. (Also another opportunity to make money).

[blazespinnaker]

So vehicles are challenging for sensor fusion.

planes and trains - nope. At least long trips in planes and trains.

Are you trying to say that planes never have to make course corrections to avoid turbulence, or that train tracks never go around mountains?

Because even those subtle angular accelerations will throw off your orientation. Plus, the magnetic field is changing as well.

Oh, all sorts of subtle things happen, for sure. It's all relatively speaking. You have to think of the practical reality of what you're dealing with here. Planes, once they are in the air, generally only make subtle course corrections, and trains can't turn fast even if they wanted to.

You're sitting in a seat, so you're going to be adjusting your view with a controller all the time anyways, so you should be fine.

[Lookforyourhands]

Yep. I posted about this before. If Oculus waits to release the consumer kit someone else is going to beat them to the punch.

Just watch.

Sorry Palmer, I love you but you need to hurry. Get Sony in on this thing and make something happen, anything.. We don't
want to see Oculus go the way of the dodo bird before it even begins..

[android78]

Yep. I posted about this before. If Oculus waits to release the consumer kit someone else is going to beat them to the punch.

Just watch.

Sorry Palmer, I love you but you need to hurry. Get Sony in on this thing and make something happen, anything.. We don't
want to see Oculus go the way of the dodo bird before it even begins..

If Oculus were to release a product that was poorly received by the public (due to rushing to get 'anything' out), what do you think would happen. I suspect something similar to the virtualboy except that oculus would almost certainly not have the capital nintendo did so would fold very quickly.

[PalmerTech]

make something happen, anything.

We are going to ship something when we can ship something good enough, and not a day earlier. The desires of a few hardcore fans do not reflect the reality of what is best for Oculus, consumers, or virtual reality as a whole.

[blazespinnaker]

Lol.

Don't let the names fool you though. They've already shipped. It's called the Dev kit. They're going to ship again, apparently this will be the DK2. And then maybe after that there will be something called the Consumer Rift.

And then after that there will be another Rift, what's it going to be called? Consumer NT?

They're just names.

Reminds me of how gmail was in beta forever, or those websites that were half done and had the "under construction" animated gif. No, it's not under construction, it just sucks..

[cybereality]

No, it's not under construction, it just sucks..

HahahahahA!!!!!!

[zalo]

or virtual reality as a whole.

What's interesting (that I hadn't considered in a while before reading this post) is that Virtual Reality isn't as fragile or in as dire straits as it was a couple years ago.

This is due (almost entirely) to the careful manicuring and PR work that John Carmack and Oculus have been doing, so don't stop now. However, it probably wouldn't kill VR if a new rift were to be released hastily with the same framerate and twice as much resolution (like releasing the current devkit as a consumer product would've a year ago). The software support inertia that's already present is pretty staggering.

But they could kill VR if a new rift with gobs of new features were to be released, even if it were the 4th quarter of next year. And that's what gets me really excited

[android78]

This is bound to add to the confusion:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/29/light ... o-android/
So there will be a separate rift released (same as current resolution?) which will be for use in conjunction with android device?

[Popopinsel]

This is bound to add to the confusion:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/29/light ... o-android/
So there will be a separate rift released (same as current resolution?) which will be for use in conjunction with android device?

I think they got that twisted and took the planned embedded SoC with Android OS as "[...]a special variant of its product for Android mobile." But correct me if I'm wrong (@Palmer).

Btw there are plenty of tech sites telling this story, I just saw it on winfuture.de. We could need some clarification here...

[Kra]

Btw there are plenty of tech sites telling this story, I just saw it on winfuture.de. We could need some clarification here...

That's what you get for reading blog sites expecting real journalism. None of these guys are fact checking past their source (Engadget). Can't fix bad reporting when it has an unrestrained voice.

You can bet that even if Oculus released a statement to clarify, unless fans spammed into their inbox, it would get completely ignored and instead take the short misinterpreted uninformed story from Joe Blow Blogs.

[blazespinnaker]

Geez. Considering it was their Conference, (Gamesbeat) sure hope they got it right....

Still, they got the iOS thing wrong. And it IS venture beat.... rag that it is.

[remosito]

make something happen, anything.

We are going to ship something when we can ship something good enough, and not a day earlier. The desires of a few hardcore fans do not reflect the reality of what is best for Oculus, consumers, or virtual reality as a whole.

Very well said!

[Dilip]

This is bound to add to the confusion:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/29/light ... o-android/
So there will be a separate rift released (same as current resolution?) which will be for use in conjunction with android device?
This is bound to add to the confusion:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/29/light ... o-android/
So there will be a separate rift released (same as current resolution?) which will be for use in conjunction with android device?

Same seems to be confusing to me too. In many posts Palmer said the SoC version with android is for future Rifts. So may be SoC and Android will be part of Consumer Rift 2.0 or 3.0, but this article says it will be two different parallel products like Rift PC and Rift Mobile. So what’s the reality will it be two different products? or Generation Progressive Iteration of only one single product? Or something else?

What do they mean by lighter version?
isn't current version is already light? or do they mean no base station?
Or
Does it mean only HDMI out and no other cables at all?
Or
There will be HDMI+DVI+USB then where that lightness will come from?
will it be less dpi low resolution display they mean by light so that mobile hardware can handle VR?
but then won't it be SCREENDOOR FULL like current DK?
Are they going to reduce magnification to counter the screendoor and keep things tidy?
This Lighter version has triggered heavy set of questions for me

Half knowledge Kills and we have plenty half informed self proclaimed tech gurus posting anything they wish.

[colocolo]

same are german blog sites telling...what i have noticed about them, that they are most of the time not up to date and missinterpretating things.
Why should a mobile version be even lighter? what about the battery?
sounds like blog people went crazy with inventing fairytales...

[Needle]

From many of the recent news, I tried compiling a list of the present and future models of the Rift:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... Ndnc#gid=0

Of course, this itself is just my interpretation of all the statements out there, and Venturebeat, Engadget or any of the other sources may be exaggerating, misinterpreting or otherwise just plain wrong. Just trying to clean out my head a bit.
I'll probably snag all 3 upcoming Rift models as they come out (if I am correct in assuming there are three - DevKit2, Consumer1/PC and Consumer1/Mobile.)

[brantlew]

What do they mean by lighter version?
isn't current version is already light? or do they mean no base station?
Or
Does it mean only HDMI out and no other cables at all?
Or
There will be HDMI+DVI+USB then where that lightness will come from?

Cable management is a rarely mentioned feature that is definitely going through some major improvements.

[TheHolyChicken]

Cable management is a rarely mentioned feature that is definitely going through some major improvements.

Sounds great - my Rift's cable is starting to get little 'bumps' along its length, and I'm concerned about where the cable joins the Rift itself. I know I should use the cable holder at the back of the Rift's strap, but you lose so much cable length that way!

[virror]

MAybe the Android rift has a smaller screen and smaller fov? Would make it smaller and lighter, ideal for mobility.

[blazespinnaker]

Sounds great - my Rift's cable is starting to get little 'bumps' along its length, and I'm concerned about where the cable joins the Rift itself. I know I should use the cable holder at the back of the Rift's strap, but you lose so much cable length that way!

I gave up on that. I taped the control box to the Rift itself and got extensions for all the other cables (power, usb, hdmi) and then taped them together. At least if they go, I can replace them..

After spending over $300 (3 * 100 each) on frayed power cords for my mac, I live in fear of busted cables, and that cable that plugs into the Rift looks like it's just ripe for going given the workout I was giving it moving around.

[Drewbdoo]

MAybe the Android rift has a smaller screen and smaller fov? Would make it smaller and lighter, ideal for mobility.

Just FYI for everyone in this thread, Palmer cleared up the confusion with this article on reddit, stating that they got that wonky - there won't be two rifts, one with android and one without, but instead, any future SoC rift would also act as a regular rift which could be plugged into a computer.