Wanted to add my input, as I'm one of the first 5,000 developers to gets hands on with the OR, and I've had the DK1 now for 16 months and have had time to explore the tech.
TL;DR: In my opinion, fixed vantage point cameras have no real place in VR. The best VR you are likely to get with Construct 2, if anything at all, will be a 3rd party tool that will project your 2D game export into a 3D environment like sitting in a movie theater, watching a flat screen. They have programs that do this with movies, and your desktop, so I don't see doing it with a game to be too far off.
Some background on the OR and why you have to actually put one on your head to understand it:
The biggest thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that the OR is an entirely new beast. For anyone who has tried one, you know what I mean.
Beyond having head tracking capabilities, it is also the most immersive/realistic stereoscopic vision technology on the market.
The biggest difference here is that all the 3D tech such as IMAX 3D or 3D TVs, or the 3DS render both images (one for right eye, one for left) on top of one another. That means your eyeglasses and brain have to separate out the 2 images from the stream using polarized glasses or shutterglasses, or putting your head at exactly the right spot while playing the 3DS. On top of all that, all current 3D tech has a fixed vantage point, so you always see through the eyes of the camera, rather than the camera being where your eyes are looking.
Unlike traditional 3D glasses, OR gives each eye its own image without ever putting them on top of each other so there is no ghosting or shine through such as you can run into with shutterglass 3D tech. You also can turn and tilt your head which you can't do with polarized glasses. Unlike the 3DS where you have to be at just the right angle to see the 3D effect, the OR is fixed to your head so you always have the correct angle.
Your eyes process the 3D just like real life, so if you have your face against a chainlink fence in a game and focus beyond it, the fence becomes blurry - and if you focus your eyes on the fence, the area beyond the fence becomes blurry ( Hiding in bushes in VR is pretty awesome ). Good old fashioned brain rendered depth blur in games that don't actually have depth blur.
Even without head tracking, the 3D is much more advanced than any 3D you've used before, and can and will trick your brain into thinking you are there. Standing at the top of a tall stair case, or at the edge of a cliff and looking down will make your stomach sink or give you vertigo (to an extent).
Why C2 isn't a great VR fit:
- Would have to render in stereo (one image for each eye), which C2 does not support. You would need a z-axis for depth in order for C2 to render 2 different images for each eye. That means the entire C2 engine would need to reworked to become a 2.5D workspace at a minimum to simulate actual depth.
- Rendering 2 separate cameras in 2.5/3D is resource intensive, and people already complain about performance with 2D C2.
- Even with a z-axis for depth on objects, the best you'll really be able to do is project your 2D game onto a plane or inverted sphere in front of you.
It would be in your face and take up all your vision, sure. But it's not really a true VR experience as if you turn around, all you'll see is black empty space. See TheWyrm's post for what to expect:
Also this is someone getting their 3DS working on an Oculus Rift => http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/15/oculus-rift-3ds/
It's cool enough, but feels really gimmicky compared to true 3D environments. To be honest, it's the same difference between going to the IMAX 3D and playing your game on the screen in 3D, versus looking down at your own hands while in the theater and seeing that kind of 3D depth. The 2.5D approach just feels very shallow by comparison to what a 3D environment can accomplish in VR. It looks good, takes up your vision, definitely worth playing, but you lose almost all of the immersion that VR has to offer, which is the biggest appeal.
I mean, if given the choice, you would rather watch/hear a movie where bullets fly past your head and flames actually engulf you rather than have the cliche "spear poke towards the camera" thing they do in every 3D movie. AND you don't have to keep facing forward, look whatever direction you want. It does wonders for immersion.
It's hard to explain, but you can feel the warmth of fireplaces, the sun in your eyes, the drop in your stomach when you go on a roller coaster, etc.
Rambling:
> Someone will probably make a way so you can view any 2D applications/games/movies as if you were viewing it on a massive TV/imax. (Although you'd probably want the oculus to be higher resolution first.)
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I have no doubt in my mind that this will happen. I use 3 monitors at work and at home, and with an oculus rift I could have something ridiculous like 80 borderless monitors. In fact, I think the entire notion of flat desktops might end with the rift - the desktop of the future might look more like a "headsphere', and that's considering current control schemes (keyboard and mouse).
The rift will revolutionize book reading, movie watching and working.
This already happened a year ago, it's pretty spot on for making you feel like you are in a theater. Program is called VR Cinema. And if I see C2 making it's way to the OR any time soon, it'll be in a format like this. 2D projected into a 3D environment. As far as that's concerned the best you get from that is you get to play your game on a giant theater screen. I know that sounds cool, and it is cool, but you haven't seen 3D VR yet.
I think it will always have to be in a 3D environment of some sort, due to head tracking. If you just display the game typically through the display and don't account for head tracking, then anytime you move your head you feel like barfing. Imagine moving your head in real life and your vision not moving, your brain hates it.
They're supposedly lighter than some models of headphones, and people wear those for long sessions. I have no trouble imagining them being used by powerusers in office jobs.
It's comfortable enough, it's basically like wearing big headphones, eventually you start noticing that they are cramping on your head and feel weird, but typically once you are in an immersive environment, you don't even think about it anymore.
Also, the main thing keeping people from wearing it for 8 hours is going to be motion sickness. Unless you are immune to motion sickness, you will feel sick within 10 minutes of playing the OR for your first time. It gets easier as you use it more regularly. I can use it for about 4 hours a day.
TheWyrm, I see your point: the face-to-face interaction a family or a group of friends is used to is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. I don't foresee you putting on one of those for watching a romcom with your girlfriend, for instance.
It won't replace intimate interaction - it may augment it however. That said, social interaction is definitely going to be one of the biggest uses for VR, think exactly like the episode of futurama where everyone goes on the internet.
For now it's still not universal and a lot of people still complain of motion sickness. This is probably the worst problem they have to fix before fancy "wireless" 2D AR interfaces.
The motion sickness is the biggest drawback to the tech taking off. I also suspect we won't see a consumer version until they fix the inherent ipd (inter-pupilary distance) issues which are getting standardized pretty quick.
Essentially the ipd and lenses must be profiled for each user, because everyone's eyes are different distances apart, everyone is a different height, everyone has different levels of focus (near-sighted, far-sighted, etc) so in the early days, when you loaded up a game, there was no ipd settings. So your eyes didn't match up with the virtual person you were supposed to be, so it triggered motion sickness since you felt like you were looking through someone elses eyes.
After you get past the ipd and focus issues, then you also have to have a PC that is powerful enough to give you a solid 60+ fps, because real life is pretty high frame rate and your brain is used to that.
whalan84: The motion sickness is more than just lag because of an old computer.
Certain FPS with "head bobbing" will make you nauseous right away. Some others won't.
This is the thing people fail to realize about VR too, it's immersive to the point that most things that make you sick in real life are going to make you sick in VR. Spinning around in a tube rolling down a hill? You're gonna get dizzy and barf in VR and that's not a shortcoming of the tech, that's just being human like you said.
If you could run around at 20mph in real life with your head bouncing up and down, spinning about really fast like in quake, you'd probably barf too.
As well as turning floor plans in to a 3D space to visualise yet to be built homes. It is definitely opening up many possibilities for new concepts outside of gaming.
I've loaded up several architecture/house demos, one called 'Red Frame' will blow your mind at how detailed and realistic a virtual home/environment can look.
Gaming is going to be awesome, but I really see it taking off in so many directions, especially therapy.
Have social anxiety? Load up areas with a specific amount of people, increase as you become more comfortable.
Have a fear of heights? Start on a smaller platform and work your way up to the top of a sky scraper.
The first thing I did when I put on the rift was stare at dust specks floating around me and let the sun shine in my eyes for 30 minutes, things that you never look twice at on a monitor in 2D.
If VR doesn't take off, it will be ONLY because not enough people actually put one on their head.