any tech-savvy VR community?

[masterpj]

I am very into VR!
I own an oculus touch with 3rd sensor, 3 cyberglove data gloves for VR (one with Cybergrasp) and you can also find me in VRchat every now and then (find it on steam it's free)
Right now I am working on a 3D sculpting enviroment for VR supporting the cyberglove with the hauptic feedback in unity 3D.

If you are investing in VR goggles I would suggest waiting out for the next generation which is just around the corner with steam releasing the lighthouse 2 technology and knuckles controller.
If you are a developer I personally recommend HTC vive because they opened up their tracking to third parties. The tracking is also way more accurate and allows for bigger spaces.

If you want a good experience and want to save cost because of the future generation of it coming: buy oculus with touch
You find me on steam here: http://steamcommunity.com/id/masterpj555

There was a VR community that was recommended to join which the founder of oculus and some others in the htc vive development are taking part in it. If I remember what it was I will gladly link you.

[Yerkat]

Hi there.

I personally currently have a GearVR and PSVR. Also tried the Rift CV1. I might get a Vive for development soon. Interestingly the best image quality to me is with PSVR even though it has less resolution, perhaps uses better optics or different pixel system on the screens or better software filters.
With GearVR with an S8 phone and PSVR both the red, green and blue light become very noticeably separated at 30-40 degrees from the center of the vision. They claim to use software compensation in cost of sharpness but I don't see much fixed.

Where have you read that the next gen VR is near? Last I've heard Oculus and HTC were interested in in making a standalone cheaper VR headsets which wouldn't really shine in specs. I wouldn't call those headsets next gen although you could argue that they technically are. Oculus I've heard is also working on eye tracking and hand mocap and both Oculus and Valve are working on better positional tracking and wireless connection to PC. While these are all nice I haven't heard of better quality on the headsets themselves. I also haven't heard about any advancements in reducing screendoor effect, chromatic aberration, FOV and fresnel lens ray artifacts. One company, Starbreeze, is working on a 210 horizontal degree "8K" headset but by simply increasing the resolution and size of the headset when my GTX1050 is already not very comfortable with current headsets let alone an 8K. I don't think just using bigger screens is a solution to an already expensive, bulky and performance intensive device on your face hence why I assume both HTC nor Oculus are not working on something similar.

Also I don't think the current visual quality of VR headsets is good enough to sell to consumers who are not gamers: the screendoor, chromatic and fresnel artifacts and tunnel vision is still too much of an issue for long usage. I'm afraid by trying to make the technology mainstream at this point in time they risk losing money and losing the opportunity to do it again in the future when it really will be ready, by creating a "crying for wolf" scenario.

Don't want to be negative and I'd be glad if there was an advancement in any of the above issues but I'm trying to stay realistic. But maybe I haven't followed the news properly.
If there is something visually better coming I can wait on getting a Vive.

[masterpj]

Hi there.

I personally currently have a GearVR and PSVR. Also tried the Rift CV1. I might get a Vive for development soon. Interestingly the best image quality to me is with PSVR even though it has less resolution, perhaps uses better optics or different pixel system on the screens or better software filters.
With GearVR with an S8 phone and PSVR both the red, green and blue light become very noticeably separated at 30-40 degrees from the center of the vision. They claim to use software compensation in cost of sharpness but I don't see much fixed.

Where have you read that the next gen VR is near? Last I've heard Oculus and HTC were interested in in making a standalone cheaper VR headsets which wouldn't really shine in specs. I wouldn't call those headsets next gen although you could argue that they technically are. Oculus I've heard is also working on eye tracking and hand mocap and both Oculus and Valve are working on better positional tracking and wireless connection to PC. While these are all nice I haven't heard of better quality on the headsets themselves. I also haven't heard about any advancements in reducing screendoor effect, chromatic aberration, FOV and fresnel lens ray artifacts. One company, Starbreeze, is working on a 210 horizontal degree "8K" headset but by simply increasing the resolution and size of the headset when my GTX1050 is already not very comfortable with current headsets let alone an 8K. I don't think just using bigger screens is a solution to an already expensive, bulky and performance intensive device on your face hence why I assume both HTC nor Oculus are not working on something similar.

Also I don't think the current visual quality of VR headsets is good enough to sell to consumers who are not gamers: the screendoor, chromatic and fresnel artifacts and tunnel vision is still too much of an issue for long usage. I'm afraid by trying to make the technology mainstream at this point in time they risk losing money and losing the opportunity to do it again in the future when it really will be ready, by creating a "crying for wolf" scenario.

Don't want to be negative and I'd be glad if there was an advancement in any of the above issues but I'm trying to stay realistic. But maybe I haven't followed the news properly.
If there is something visually better coming I can wait on getting a Vive.

The pimax will beat all with the highest resolution of 4k per eye and widest FOV and it's releasing next year compatible with the lower cost but more accurate lighthouse 2 technology.
Oculus seems to be migrating more to the mobile platform which is obvious as they lack the embracement of third party hardware/ controllers utilising their tracking (they haven't opened up their constelation api despite promise in 2015 which steam has done).

I signed up for lighthouse development sometime ago because I do see that the tracking offered with the vive (which is open) is going to be the future.
The pimax 8kx sadly requires a 1080TI and bumpmapping and other techniques that normally upped visual quality with minimum loss sadly isnt an option.
The pimax is actually the lighest vr headset out there. and supports eye tracking.. even the new steam headset which uses the new tracking will be lighter (older one used many discrete components for the sensors)

CV1 uses lens which focusses based on alignment vertically which causes haloing effect where as HTC vive lenses are manufactured circular which causes a different kind of haloing when a bright object is seen on black.. (circular haloing)

PSVR has lower resolution and lower FPS but what it has is sony backing it up with lots of exclusives under their belt.

[Yerkat]

The pimax will beat all with the highest resolution of 4k per eye and widest FOV and it's releasing next year compatible with the lower cost but more accurate lighthouse 2 technology.

I confuse Pimax with the StarVR all the time.
This is how I feel about both: who cares if it beats in specs if you can't run it? Even if it is actually somehow made available in the $600 range and can do upscaling from a lower resolution to 5K-8K with internal hardware rather than expecting that operation from the GPU (so it will eliminate screendoor artifact without requiring more GPU power), you still have to render 100 degrees or more horizontally. This is one important point everybody seems to be missing. Even at Oculus/Vive resolution rendering a wider FOV requires more of the scene to be visible and rendered which requires more GPU power. And compared to a 2D screen, it's not just millions more pixels, but more than twice of the scene be visible and rendered. I feel like the "requirement for 1080TI" is putting it lightly, more like bare minimum to look decent.
Maybe I'm not getting it but right now Pimax and StarVR both seem overhyped impractical devices, at least for gaming and the worst part is I don't see how it will change ever. As GPUs become stronger developers will add more polygons and more pixels and other simulations for a 2D screen game with around max 90 degree FOV. To run that at higher FOV and resolution you will need to lower to overall graphics settings every time. Only once 8K becomes the standard for monitors and TVs (in 10 years, maybe?) I see this becoming less of an issue, but still an issue because of the ultra wide FOV.
I'm not going to pretend like I have a better solution, but maybe they could focus on using screens with less subpixels gaps or diffusers to bleed the pixel gaps rather than starting a pointless pixel race and others apparently giving up by just trying to think of other ways besides gaming of making a profit with the existing limited tech.
Very wide FOV render difficulty could be partially solved by rendering the full FOV at a very low resolution and then again the 110 degrees at normal resolution and doing a smooth interpolation between the two via a fragment shader on the GPU. Since your eyes have a limited rotation angle in both horizontal and vertical axis the very low blurry section would always remain in the peripheral vision and not be noticeable.
They'll probably add this at some point but the fact that these large companies which raised millions in investments are instead bragging about who has more pixels and how the most high end GPU is required to run them instead just baffles me.
Just a bit of rant and expressing my frustration with current situation with VR...

[masterpj]

I confuse Pimax with the StarVR all the time.
This is how I feel about both: who cares if it beats in specs if you can't run it? Even if it is actually somehow made available in the $600 range and can do upscaling from a lower resolution to 5K-8K with internal hardware rather than expecting that operation from the GPU (so it will eliminate screendoor artifact without requiring more GPU power), you still have to render 100 degrees or more horizontally. This is one important point everybody seems to be missing. Even at Oculus/Vive resolution rendering a wider FOV requires more of the scene to be visible and rendered which requires more GPU power. And compared to a 2D screen, it's not just millions more pixels, but more than twice of the scene be visible and rendered. I feel like the "requirement for 1080TI" is putting it lightly, more like bare minimum to look decent.
Maybe I'm not getting it but right now Pimax and StarVR both seem overhyped impractical devices, at least for gaming and the worst part is I don't see how it will change ever. As GPUs become stronger developers will add more polygons and more pixels and other simulations for a 2D screen game with around max 90 degree FOV. To run that at higher FOV and resolution you will need to lower to overall graphics settings every time. Only once 8K becomes the standard for monitors and TVs (in 10 years, maybe?) I see this becoming less of an issue, but still an issue because of the ultra wide FOV.
I'm not going to pretend like I have a better solution, but maybe they could focus on using screens with less subpixels gaps or diffusers to bleed the pixel gaps rather than starting a pointless pixel race and others apparently giving up by just trying to think of other ways besides gaming of making a profit with the existing limited tech.
Very wide FOV render difficulty could be partially solved by rendering the full FOV at a very low resolution and then again the 110 degrees at normal resolution and doing a smooth interpolation between the two via a fragment shader on the GPU. Since your eyes have a limited rotation angle in both horizontal and vertical axis the very low blurry section would always remain in the peripheral vision and not be noticeable.
They'll probably add this at some point but the fact that these large companies which raised millions in investments are instead bragging about who has more pixels and how the most high end GPU is required to run them instead just baffles me.
Just a bit of rant and expressing my frustration with current situation with VR...

Right now the software isn't there but the eyetracking allows it to selectively render sections of your vision in varying detail.. always rendering the most poly's in the center of your vision and thus cutting down tremendously on graphical demand. Hardware is off course also reducing in cost with time.. mining rigs have soured the graphics card market a bit but as tech develops price drops quick. Right now pimax is at prototype 2 of 4 and the problem is that 2 still uses LCD which has a little bit of blurring at high motion.
At 4k per eye you will still percieve pixels if you try hard but things will be very readable.. we need 16k per eye if we don't want to see any pixels (even if you'd try hard to see them). I've seen people work in VR and it shows the technology has come far... over network as well! With the new trackers by vive you can buy at 100 bucks a piece you can also intergrate custom tracking in your applications with ease by attaching it to perifferals in your house... or to your chest and legs to get more freedom of motion.

Investing in this technology is actually a good thing.. as the interest grows so does the value of this market and the desire for investors to pump money in advancements in just about everything to only increase the experience!
Early on not it's a good thing people are buying it! Remember when HMD's for a resolution of 1024x768 were like several 10's of thousands of dollars? It changed quick with the investment of big corporations like htc

However I can play VR for hours a day without suffering strain.. you just need to give yourself some time to adapt to it.. Right now locomotion is actually the bigger deal but there have been interesting demos on steamvr that utilise walking in place to get rid of the sickness for some. Sadly all threadmill kickstarters so far pulled a fast one on people and went full corporate only.

The widening of fov gets rid of the "screen door effect" more and more so it is most certainly important. The blending of pixels can be a good but remember that blurring also increases eyestrain

Lastly I recommend you try oculus or htc vive with their "semi hidden" super sampling feature. Which increases quality a lot even at the resolution it's at right now. Give VR some time (especially solutions like HTC or oculus ) over the less comfortable mobile solutions.. you will grow on to it and love it. You need to give yourself more then just 1 day for these 2.

[Yerkat]

Right now the software isn't there but the eyetracking allows it to selectively render sections of your vision in varying detail.. always rendering the most poly's in the center of your vision and thus cutting down tremendously on graphical demand.

I'd love to be linked an article, I read one by a team of researchers adding such a feature to Oculus or Vive but being a bit vague on how well it worked (others in the industry claim not so good) or how much performance improvement they got. Haven't found much info about this on Pimax as well.
http://forum.pimaxvr.com/t/eye-track...ndering/3168/4
Right now it feels the Pimax company is promising more features without the research to know both how well it works for practical use as well as to have the knowledge on how to actually implement it. Wouldn't be the first kickstarter hype project that raised millions but failed to produce the product it claimed and nobody could know where the stretch goal money went.
Weren't they the company who lied about the resolution in one of their existing headsets?

Another reason I am skeptical, how adding higher res screens and FOV doesn't introduce serious issues yet a small company is the one working on one while the more experienced and bigger companies like HTC or Oculus aren't even talking about developing such a prototype even if we assume they can't get it in the $600 range while another small company by some miracle apparently can.

At 4k per eye you will still percieve pixels if you try hard but things will be very readable.. we need 16k per eye if we don't want to see any pixels (even if you'd try hard to see them).

Wait, do you mean perceiving pixels because of pixellation or screendoor effect (gaps between pixels?).

Investing in this technology is actually a good thing.. as the interest grows so does the value of this market and the desire for investors to pump money in advancements in just about everything to only increase the experience!
Early on not it's a good thing people are buying it! Remember when HMD's for a resolution of 1024x768 were like several 10's of thousands of dollars? It changed quick with the investment of big corporations like htc

It's not that simple as more people buying equals good. If Tesla made decent rather than pretty good electric cars people would still not take that industry seriously and it would be even harder for other companies to convince the general population that electric cars can be very good. I hope I could explain better what I meant earlier with this example instead. Elon said this himself.

The widening of fov gets rid of the "screen door effect" more and more

Can you explain why? I'm trying to think how there's a correlation between the two. If anything at same pixel density wider fov should increase the gap.

The blending of pixels can be a good but remember that blurring also increases eyestrain

Why does filling light between pixel gaps increase eyestrain? If there's an article or a resource explaining all these technical details you can just link me to that. I don't want to be the guy asking you to write all the existing articles in one forum post.

Lastly I recommend you try oculus or htc vive with their "semi hidden" super sampling feature. Which increases quality a lot even at the resolution it's at right now. Give VR some time (especially solutions like HTC or oculus ) over the less comfortable mobile solutions.. you will grow on to it and love it. You need to give yourself more then just 1 day for these 2.

I was considering getting a Vive until you mentioned that next gen is around the corner. Is there any info other than that of the Oculus Santa Cruz prototype which right now only seems to have improvements in other areas other than visual quality? or maybe you were referring to Pimax?

[masterpj]

Scroll down on the fove which already describes this selective rendering.. it was the first headset with eye tracking.. This tech won't be exclusive to them.
https://www.getfove.com/
The pimax actually has a lot of eyes on it from htc I bet and actually make appearances letting people actually try it. I know kickstarter is dubious but I have a good feeling that this will work out.

Vive and oculus are being silent.. so far the only thing vive has said is a new headset is in the works.. Their lighthouse 2 technology isn't backwards compatible.. while things using it are. ( https://www.digitaltrends.com/virtua...sensor-update/ ). So to use it new headsets WOULD be required... its available to developers already (I can order the developer kit for the tracking right now on: https://www.triadsemi.com/product/ts4231/ and have access to all the development software related to it.
https://uploadvr.com/new-base-stations-htc-vive/
They won't just slightly update the headset since that would create confusion under the customers...knowing valve they would make an entirely new product to counter that.

Since the tech is lower cost they could make a better display at a lower price.
Pimax started early on this but companies like vive and oculus while in secrecy wont say they do because people would hold off on their purchases and it would hurt consumer trust.

And yes gaps

Regarding blurring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne0cmvl8GqM

Screen door effect is the ability to see the left/right up and down borders of the VR headset.. or field of vision is WIDE.

Oculus I have no idea.. I doubt they will compete as they are shifting more to the mobile units. Super sampling is software wise it virtually ups the resolution with more strain on GPU and it really helps.

[Yerkat]

Scroll down on the fove which already describes this selective rendering.. it was the first headset with eye tracking.. This tech won't be exclusive to them.
https://www.getfove.com/

From what I've read the camera in Foveye is not fast nor accurate enough to track the eyes for proper foveated rendering. But maybe things have changed, let me know if there's any news on this other than more lab experiments and pure research.

I know kickstarter is dubious but I have a good feeling that this will work out.

Amen to that. But I'm more of the skeptical kind, a chinese company doing something seemingly basic which other more experienced and bigger players haven't for a long time makes me very cautious.

They won't just slightly update the headset since that would create confusion under the customers...

I'll have to disagree here. Why would it create confusion? And depends what you consider a slight update.

Pimax started early on this but companies like vive and oculus while in secrecy wont say they do because people would hold off on their purchases and it would hurt consumer trust.

That's a very good theory, but just a theory still with no evidence to back it up. But again, it's a good theory to explain the current situation.

Regarding blurring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne0cmvl8GqM

Oh, thank you for the review link, I missed this one.
But I missed where he addressed that pixel blurriness causes eyestrain which you said earlier when I was suggesting companies should be using a diffuser to eliminate screendoor. Did you misunderstand me?

Screen door effect is the ability to see the left/right up and down borders of the VR headset.. or field of vision is WIDE.

Screen door effect is the ability to see gaps between individual pixels, ability to see the edges of the VR vision is called the tunnel vision effect. I'm sure you know this and just got confused.

Linus seemed to be running a graphically very simple game in 210 dergee FOV on a very high end MSI laptop. I wonder how it would perform with a less casual current gen game.

BTW have you had a chance to test the Wearality Sky? Mine is going to be shipped in a week.

[masterpj]

The older hardware doesnt work with the new tracking lighthouses... the component has entirely changed.. no more IR flashes... just the laser sweeps. The fact it wont demand the ir sync blinks anymore means the range also increases and you can use more then 2 lighthouses 2 increase range EVEN more. If suddenly they would make a new version that isnt altered in any way.. people going to make mistakes we are talking about non tech savy consumers too after all.

A diffuser will also get rid of sharpenss and the benefits of super sampling. I don't think it's a very good idea.
Phones are "OK" but don't have anywhere near the power or tracking capabilities of the more capable pc systems. Having to wear an entire phone also means the headset would be much heavier.. the tether problem can be fixed with a tpcast if you have the money for it. Not just that but you have the screen split up in software giving much less of the resolution then what you'd get from a proper vr headset.. which has 2 screens split up.

[Yerkat]

I mean the changes in the screen and lens used, not the tracking system, you explained the difference very well already.

A diffuser will also get rid of sharpenss and the benefits of super sampling.

Not really.
If sharper image simply helps you see the gaps between the pixels that sharpness is useless.