First Impressions From Rift Owners

[Pingles]

Actually, I have a sliver of a gap just under my eyes which I have discovered gives me a perfect view of my keyboard.

Has been real handy for testing. In fact, I bet you could set up a window there if you wanted. One you could pop open when you need to.

[MrGreen]

You broke me

I ordered one

Resistance is futile.

[theriftreport]

Man oh man, just wandering around the opening section of HL2 is immense. I jumped out of my seat when one of the civilians walked right in front of me...for a moment I thought someone had broken into my house
I don't want to get to the combat bit.....just too much fun taking in a game world I know well...but this time being in it. It's like a slightly blurry dream of being in the game. Again, the scale is fantastic, the size of the train carriages, the video screens looming above...swoons...

[jf031]

Man oh man, just wandering around the opening section of HL2 is immense. I jumped out of my seat when one of the civilians walked right in front of me...for a moment I thought someone had broken into my house
I don't want to get to the combat bit.....just too much fun taking in a game world I know well...but this time being in it. It's like a slightly blurry dream of being in the game. Again, the scale is fantastic, the size of the train carriages, the video screens looming above...swoons...

Enable developer console if you haven't (Options -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> Enable Developer Console), press ~ to open up the console (while in-game), type in sv_cheats 1, then notarget. Notarget means that enemies will not attack you. However, very early in the game, there will be a point where you have to type notarget again (to disable it, and allow enemies to target you again) in order to advance the game. It will be pretty obvious at which point to disable it, because you'll be blocked in by enemies who just stand there. After that point, you can type notarget again (to enable it), and enjoy the gameworld at your leisure.

Man, I am so looking forward to getting my Rift and playing through HL2.

[theriftreport]

Man oh man, just wandering around the opening section of HL2 is immense. I jumped out of my seat when one of the civilians walked right in front of me...for a moment I thought someone had broken into my house
I don't want to get to the combat bit.....just too much fun taking in a game world I know well...but this time being in it. It's like a slightly blurry dream of being in the game. Again, the scale is fantastic, the size of the train carriages, the video screens looming above...swoons...

Enable developer console if you haven't (Options -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> Enable Developer Console), press ~ to open up the console (while in-game), type in sv_cheats 1, then notarget. Notarget means that enemies will not attack you. However, very early in the game, there will be a point where you have to type notarget again (to disable it, and allow enemies to target you again) in order to advance the game. It will be pretty obvious at which point to disable it, because you'll be blocked in by enemies who just stand there. After that point, you can type notarget again (to enable it), and enjoy the gameworld at your leisure.

Man, I am so looking forward to getting my Rift and playing through HL2.

Thank you so much for that tip, I will definitely do that and will save the combat for a bit later.

[mrklaw]

Does anyone else find that looking around inside the rift is blurry? Not moving your head, but moving your eyes around the scene in front of you. On mine it is particularly noticable in the top half of the screen. Moving the actual rift to try and change the sweet spot doesn't make any difference that I can tell. Straight ahead is just fine

[Pokey]

It's possible you have a flat spot in one of your lenses

Is it uniform blurriness for both eyes?

[Valez]

Approx. 6 hours spent in the rift, with small breaks.

Started with Blue Marble, which is a great first experience, for so many reasons (slow, relaxing, mostly distant objects which helps
with not optimal set IPD).
After that Tuscany, Bunny-Stories, MotM (going in one direction while viewing in another is a bit disorienting), FIRMa, Heli-Hell, Planet
(that sphere is huge, the car ride great - looking arround in the vehicle is really impressive), vrCinema (great scale).
Next I wanted to give Vireio a go, sadly Mirrors Edge won't start in SBS and tracking wasn't working. Dear Esther was
working, but something seemed really, really of.
After all that I calibrated TF2 and exportet the setting in HL2 and started it.
The G-Man intro is really glitched, best to close the eyes till it is over. As soon as it was over, I was blown away.
The wind was blowing some trash arround and it looked really cool. The screen with Breen was huge. But the best part
were the NPCs. Looking a combine in the eye (mask) is really cool. Running away from one after I hit him with a can in the head was
even a bit scarry.
Next I tried Doom3. The outside of Mars was very impressive. And it is just a great feeling when a life-sized Imp is hurling fireballs at you while
he is closing in. The fights are a LOT more intense and personal than on a monitor.
Speaking about personal: I was even unconsciously gesturing at NPCs.

Some short points:

-Motion blur
Was not that big of a deal. Barely noticed it, but the image is not very sharp to begin with.

-Resolution
Is ok, but 1200p (and maybe less unused space of the screen) for the consumer is a must.
Things just get to blurry and smaller objects (< 2m) are really hard to make out after 10-15m.

-Nose
I seem to have a big one. The kit really smashes into my nose.
I put some paper tissue on my nose, that helped a bit.
Increasing the distance to the screen helps also, but who whants to
lose some precious fov?

-Screendor
Is really bad. But I didn't notice it at all while playing.

-IPD
I have a IPD of 6cm, which is smaller as the default IPD used in
most Unity demos. The difference between this demos and a correct calibrated HL2 or
Doom3 is HUGE.
It would be good if there would be one place (registry?) where you could set your IPD
and all Oculus games would use this IPD.
Until such a system exist, setting the IPD with command line arguments or via dialog would be an important option.

All in all a really awesome experience, but also a wise move to improve the Rift before
officially hitting the consumer market. I am very excited for the things to come.
Thank you Palmer and Team Oculus!

[Valez]

Does anyone else find that looking around inside the rift is blurry? Not moving your head, but moving your eyes around the scene in front of you. On mine it is particularly noticable in the top half of the screen. Moving the actual rift to try and change the sweet spot doesn't make any difference that I can tell. Straight ahead is just fine

Beyond the sweet spot it gets very fast very blurry for me.

[FR3D]

My results (two days of use ) - so first and second impressions )

Build quality - very good (better than expected)
Weight - very good (better than expected)
Convenience -very good (better than expected)
Optics - medium (worse than expected)
Screen resolution - very bad (better than expected)
Screen conrast ratio - medium (better than expected)
Screen response time - bad (better than expected)
Had tracker - Good (better than expected)
Fov - Good (worse than expected)
Value for money - very good


The screen of the consumer Rift needs (my opinion) at least a 4 times higher resolution.

The best games for me are HL2(rift version) and vireio Skyrim - these are great experiences - even with this low resolution.

I've tried

Tuscany demo -very good to start with
Tuscany demo with Hydra - attention !!!
Helicopter - i was getting a litttle bit sick flying small circles and looking down on the island
Rift-Coaster - nice
Museum of the microstar - ok

Doom3 BFG - very good, but i cannot store the game ?! - needs a higher resolution
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/101 ... FG-VR2.zip (with head tracking now)

HL2 - official - best even with this screen
Skyrim - vireio - please disable shadows - water and sky are rendered wrong
(the dragons are huge - very cool too )


best regards

FR3D

[vittorio]

First impressions after 3 hours using the rift (posted in the arrival thread by mistake):
It vastly exceeds my expectations. I'm sitting here and I'm shocked how immersive the rift is, even though I had some impressions with my DIY "rift" (nexus 7 + good lenses + TrackIR 5).

In tuscany demo: Even knowing this is not real I first wondered where my arms are (strange and funny feeling), after some time its accepted that I am without arms and body today. Standing on the balcony is like standing on the balcony in real (can't describe it better). 3D is simply perfect.

In rollercoaster demo: The feel of height is great. For me very important, for the first time I really got the sense of speed, its awesome! My main interest is using the rift for simracing (particularly rfactor2)

Second impressions (2nd day after arrival), I tried Heli-Hell:
Overall a great experience. But in this demo you can fly into a tree with your helicopter, the leafs are only some inches away and it doesn't strain the eyes at all, perfect stereoscopic 3D, it's completely natural (something you can't get with a 3DTV ..). Then I instincively smelled on a leaf, LOL.

[3dvison]

Hi Vittorio,
I am a Diy rift builder also, Still waiting on the real one to be shipped.
I have been really hoping someone who has used a Diy Rift, would talk about what the real Rift is like over a Diy Rift.
Would you ever use your Diy now that you have the Dev.Kit.Rift ? Which has better lenses...Ect,Ect ?

[RABID]

you guys are KILLING me! mine will be here tomorrow. going to be a night of tuscany, rollercoaster, doom 3 and HL2

[vittorio]

Hi Vittorio,
I am a Diy rift builder also, Still waiting on the real one to be shipped.
I have been really hoping someone who has used a Diy Rift, would talk about what the real Rift is like over a Diy Rift.
Would you ever use your Diy now that you have the Dev.Kit.Rift ? Which has better lenses...Ect,Ect ?

I wouldn't call my DIY rift a DIY rift anymore. It is this setup + a TrackIR 5 added later:
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/9 ... post141962
Already this setup has blown me away when I used it and I thought I can wait now for the real Rift, I already know what it is.

But I completely underestimated the importance of the fast and low latency headtracker (although always stated by Oculus, John Carmack and others).
The headtracker tricks the mind. Regarding lenses, I paid 2x35€ at an optician but the Oculus rift lenses are better. They have less color distortion.
Overall the system is very well balanced.

The stereoscopic 3D rendering in all these demos (all unity based?) is perfect too, alot better then my Tridef trials.

Yesterday I raced in rfactor2 using the Oculus Rift + Tridef and TrackIR 5 -> It didn't trick my mind (missing fast and low latency headtracker, not perfect stereoscopic 3D rendering)

I really was shocked yesterday, particularly after the Rollercoaster demo. I can't remember any technical experience in my last 25 year which overwhelmed me that much (way better then the CAVE imho)

Nevertheless, the resolution needs a major improvement (factor >4 pixelcount imho), but this is already known.

EDIT: Regarding the qualitiy of the Rift lenses, I noticed that some demos like tuscany have color distorion correction in software.

[3dvison]

Thanks so much for the reply Vittorio , I needed it to keep my mind off of my Rift Order....And what do you know..BAM..My e-mail inbox says I should get my Rift by this Thursday...BIG SMILE

[crespo80]

Received yesterday and played all the usual demos and some games, here my initial thoughts:

- first thing noticed when strapping it in, even before the large FOV, was the screen door effect, so much in-your-face
- second thing, the blurring is seriously distracting
- the 3D effect is beautiful, but I think I have a low IPD for the 7" LCD (61 mm measured by myself and calculated by TF2)
- the fall in resolution towards the borders due to the pre-warp is very apparent in slow paced games like Half Life 2
- I have an aquiline nose and however I set both straps it hurts on the top of it
- I have 20/20 and, with A lenses all the way near, my eyeballs touch them and I have to distance them a bit, almost to the end (and still touches my eyelashes)
- I can clearly see all the borders, even up/down, even the top/bottom air breathers, it seems like watching through a circular scuba mask
- I can also see part of my real hands through the Rift's nose cavity
- cables are a real pain-in-the-ass, I can't see an average consumer dealing with cables from headphone, Hydra controllers and the Rift
- monitor extended mode in not usable, expecially when you have to set the Rift as primary, as lot of windows open in it and are hard to move to the other screen, clone mode is better but at the price of a low resolution on the other monitor.
- I feel dizzy (but not nauseos) when walking too fast or when walking ahead while looking to the side, or while strafing, this feeling lasts in proportion to the time spent in the Rift (i.e. 10 minutes dizzy in the Rift equals 1 hour dizzy after, 1 hour dizzy in the rift equals feeling dizzy all day long). Same exact feeling as when reading on a car.
- playing with VSYNC ON at HL2 is a no-go because latency increases a lot and worsen my dizziness
- when I placed the Rift on my sister's face for the first time (she plays FPS games but didn't know of the Rift) the first thing she said was "it looks like poop" (referring to the screen door) but soon afterwards she appreciated the immersion and 3D effect of the rollercoaster, and she felt dizzy too.

The dizziness is my number one concern at the moment, I cannot play for long enough periods of time, I hope I can enjoy Half Life 2 again in the Rift, but I'm not replacing my main 32" LCD for gaming, I'll wait for the 2.0 revision, but my dizzyness is not due to the lack of positional tracking so I cannot see how I can get past it

[crespo80]

double (I hit quote instead of edit... )

[MrGreen]

Debbie Downer got a Rift.

[IGameArt]

Just got my rift about an hour ago, after the initial jumping through demos and putting my friends in a few demos, i have to say that I'm impressed. I cant wait to start developing for it, I also can't wait for my stomach to settle down... Lolz. Dont rift on an empty stomach fellas!

[Parallaxis]

double (I hit quote instead of edit... )

So you expected to get over your dizziness and get your VR legs in less than one day? Really?

I'll bet you'll get over it in a week or two. Patience...

[Tirregius]

....but my dizzyness is not due to the lack of positional tracking so I cannot see how I can get past it

VR is entirely new to your brain. Your brain can adapt to all kinds of things. It needs practice. Give it time.

[RABID]

ok, got my rift today and have tried the rollercoaster, museum of the microstar, and Halflife 2. the 3D is very good, the tracking is fantastic and i am feeling no VR sickness at all...i think it might have to to with the fact that i normally play with a 3D projector on an 84" screen with nvidia 3D vision.
All i can say is if this is just day Zero for VR i cant wait to see whats next

[cerulianbaloo]

Got mine about half an hour ago, and took things short and sweet like suggested, and thankfully my nausea is quite minimal. I was even able to ascend the stairs in the Tuscany demo without issues.

So...first impression, holy god does this thing have a wide FOV, and my oh my how natural the sense of depth and stereo duplication is. I'm glad I'm in the camp that is not phased by the screendoor effect or low res. Even turning my head I was expecting terrible motion blur, but I guess it just wasn't bothering me. I barely noticed it. I was taken aback like many others just how convincing the sense of scale was. Looking up at the rafters in the Tuscany villa immediately reminded me of the rafters in a cabin I used to frequent as a child that my parents owned.

Next I tried out the VR theater but couldn't figure out how to get the test sample to play, but was also impressed with the sense of scale and feeling like I was in a life size movie theater. The last thing I tested (didn't want to chance too much side effects) was First Law. Again, great sense of being in an actual cockpit, and looking up at the slowly revolving asteroids was a trip. I didn't even get a chance to move before some nausea set in, although that may have been partly psychosomatic. I can't wait to try out more, albeit slowly. Don't wanna be in the hour plus long motion sick camp

[crespo80]

The sudden ON/OFF movements (either forward/backwards or strafing) cause my dizziness, and I'm OK if I use the left thumbstick as an analog controller and slowly go from walking to running.
But since I want to use the hydra as a mouse, I can't map the left thumbstick to be analog, it has to be mapped to WASD keys.
I now discovered the "walk" function of HL2 and it really helps a lot: I set it to be always ON and I use a key to deactivate it and thus run, and of course another key to sprint faster, so I have 3 levels of speed and that's really helpful and minimizes my dizziness, I can stand longer now

[Fredrum]

I finally got my Rift this afternoon and had a go as soon as I got home. I have only tried the Tuscany demo and the Rift Coaster so far.
I have been obsessing over this thing over the last 9 months but have been trying to keep my expectations down a bit as well as preparing myself that it could surely not be as great as they all say. There must be some mass psychosis fanboy cultism at play here.
Then I jacked in.
My. God. (although I'm not religious)
It bloody works. This was the most amazing thing I have experienced since...I don't know. I am not going to try to describe it as others already have done a decent job and it is true what they say, you just have to try it for yourself.
To me none of the current flaws took much away from the experience as a whole. It completely delivers on its promise.
It just transports you there.

Even my sceptical fiancee' was impressed even whilst she was not in a great mood and have been living with me constantly going on about this thing for months.

I am going back in now tonight to try out HL2(official) and my own Unity setup. Needed a break for feeling queasy after about 20 minutes.

Some other random thoughts.
Ok so this is an amazing way to experience a 3D environment but I really wanted to touch things. Grab things. Do stuff.
I really hope we can get some basic virtual gloves or even some Hydra MKII's or something. A standard for VR games would be great. And I think it should involve ones hands.

What was that lighter halo/circle/ring effect towards the edge of the lenses? I haven't heard anyone mention those? It was quite wide maybe 1/6th of the diameter of the view.

The lower air vent holes are great for peeking down on the keyboard.


Thanks Palmer and the Oculus team!!
Awesome job.

[Mystify]

Just got to try my rift.

Firstly, ow, my nose. My face must be shaped weird, it really dug into my nose and left a mark. I had to take a break due to nose issues before I ran into motion sickness.

I started in tuscany with A cups, and after wandering a bit I decided it was too blurry and switched to B cups. Which I then put all the way back because they were pressing on my face wrong. Despite this, I felt like I had a great FoV and could still see the edge of the screen. The resolution could serve to be higher, but the motion blur is what got me. I didn't notice much in the way of 3D, but I don't normally see that in real life due to a lazy eye. The two views seemed correct though, and looking felt very natural.

I then tried several demos. First 3D magic effects. I was rather underwhelmed, due to my lack of depth perception no doubt. Then aurora borlealis(I was going down my download list, which was alphabetica), which was interesting, but suffered from the resolution. bunny stories was interesting with its hand drawn aesthetic. Museum of the microstar caused me some issues. It felt off, I had a hard time looking at things. Turning my head felt like it was slow, but it was a 1:1 rotation, I could spin 360 and end up at the right spot, so that was probably indicative of another issue. I ended up feeling queasy by the end. I did have to take a break in the middle of it due to nose issues.

I've taken a break to write this. Overall, it was less impressive than I was expecting. The FoV was good, but I think I am particularly dependent on head translation due to my lazy eye, so that lack hurt me.

[spire8989]

Everyone that I've heard say that the Rift hurt their nose, had the top strap adjusted wrong. Something to check out at least.

As for the demos, odd choices. Why not VRTheater, First Law, Proton Pulse, HL2, roller coaster, or any of the other highly rated ones?

[Mystify]

Everyone that I've heard say that the Rift hurt their nose, had the top strap adjusted wrong. Something to check out at least.

As for the demos, odd choices. Why not VRTheater, First Law, Proton Pulse, HL2, roller coaster, or any of the other highly rated ones?

I got others, mbut as I said, I was working my way through the list, and that is where I stopped.

I tried to adjust the top strap around, but it didn't seem to do much. Can you be more specific on how its supposed to fit?

[spire8989]

Everyone that I've heard say that the Rift hurt their nose, had the top strap adjusted wrong. Something to check out at least.

As for the demos, odd choices. Why not VRTheater, First Law, Proton Pulse, HL2, roller coaster, or any of the other highly rated ones?

I got others, mbut as I said, I was working my way through the list, and that is where I stopped.

I tried to adjust the top strap around, but it didn't seem to do much. Can you be more specific on how its supposed to fit?

I look forward to hearing about those then, I don't have my Rift yet, just went to processing with the other U.S. people so I can't help with the fitting. It just seems that most people that complain about it later come back and say they had the top strap adjusted wrong. But like I said, I don't have mine yet, so I might just be wrong here :3

[Mystify]

I feel like I need the entire thing tilted on my face to the top leans back more, but I alreayd have the lenses in contact with the top of my eye sockets there, and the top strap seems to pulling the back strap up more than its holding the rift up.

Actually, examining the settings again, the dials work the opposite of what I thought. I thought I had put it all the way out, and it was all the way in, which makes more sense. I will try putting it out a bit to relieve the pressure

[3dvison]

When you find the sweet spot of the lenses, adjust the top strap so it supports the front of the Rift in that position and your nose supports it less in that position.

Not a great reply on my part, I only got mine yesterday..

EDIT..You posted while I was typing...Yes you may want to adjust the lens farther from your face...Even go to a B or C cup if you need more room.

Also, the side straps don't need to be too tight either. Not like you would a scuba mask.

[Mystify]

yeah, adjusting the lenses out helped I think to adjust things more, but its a lot better now.
Tried the rest of the demos I downloaded. The roller coaster was boring. My reaction to it was exactly what I thought it would be; roller coasters are not a visual experience.
First law was kinda fun, but I had a hard time finding the enemies in the first place, then they would die really quickly. Also, everything tends to be at mid-far range, and hence is hard to see in the rift
proton pulse was fun at first, but I soon realized I have a really hard time hitting moving things in a 3d space with a ball like that. It also drifted quite a bit- I found myself nearly 180 degree from where I started when I took it off. Also, the tracking seemed to freeze for a moment between levels loading, which was not pleasant.

[3dvison]

I would say not so much what my first Impression is, but what the first thing is, I would like to add to this setup.
After first use, the thing I want the most, is to just be able to stand up and turn 360deg without the wires being in the way. I don't even care about leg & arm tracking right now. Just standing up with a wireless 360 controller in hand and the freedom to turn 360deg would make me happy..

[Mystify]

I think I need to figure out my IPD and how to set it for these things. I don't feel like the scale is right. I just tried minecrift, and blocks did not feel like they were 1 meter, and I felt short, when by all rights steve should feel tall to me. Looking at the ground didn't feel like it was at the ground ,but rather floating some distance above where the ground should be.The result is I feel like I am watching a screen strapped to my face, rather then being immersed.

[3dvison]

Looking at the ground didn't feel like it was at the ground ,but rather floating some distance above where the ground should be.The result is I feel like I am watching a screen strapped to my face, rather then being immersed.

The only time I had that feeling, was if I had the lights on in the room while using the Rift. With lights on, I could see the light leaking in around the nose cutout area of the Rifts face mask. The light leakage would gave me a reference point between the virtual floor and the real floor and that is what gave me the floating above the real floor feeling.

[Mystify]

Tried turning out the lights, but I still felt like the ground was in my lap

[3dvison]

Tried turning out the lights, but I still felt like the ground was in my lap

Are you standing up ? Standing made a difference for me. If I was sitting my mind was telling me, when you look down you should be seeing your lap .

[Mystify]

Tried turning out the lights, but I still felt like the ground was in my lap

Are you standing up ? Standing made a difference for me. If I was sitting my mind was telling me, when you look down you should be seeing your lap .

I tried standing for a bit, maybe I need to do it with more commitment.

[3dvison]

Mystify,
Not sure which game/demo it was , but it did Look like it was being drawn wrong. Like your legs are too short and the floor looks too close to your face or in your lap as you said.

[Mystify]

I'm not sure. Minecrift felt the most off. Everyone felt short in HL2, but that may be because I am short, and hence I am used to most people being taller than me; the relative height difference is weird.