I just tested out the Oculus Rift DK2, and I am blown away. It is going to be a game changer, unlike Google Glass that had good hype up marketing but the product that will never be released to the public never delivered. Facebook made a really good decision in acquiring Oculus. I can’t wait to start developing for the Oculus Rift! I will continue to update this post as I spend more time with the Rift. I’m also excited to finally use Microsoft Visual Studio, which is supposed to be the hands down best IDE.
When I tried out the first demo Unity engine, I was blown away, it was just so cool. I can easily see every kid wanting one for Christmas. In addition, I tried out a horror app which was rather lame, and a roller coaster app that didn’t impress me much. However, as time goes on, more and more cool material will be available for device, and I am happy to part of the movement. One thing that slightly worries me is that Valve, the company that owns Steam is also planning on making a device similar to the Oculus Rift. It will be interesting to see if Playstation and Xbox decide on using virtual reality devices, and what device they choose. I am very worried about which device wins over the market share, since it should be easy to port my project code from one device to another.
So far I have spent the majority of the time configuring it and trying to install various things on it. One thing that is particularly annoying about running various applications is running apps that are not ‘Direct to Rift’, meaning that the application runs as an extended external monitor. With DK2, they added the ‘Direct to Rift’ option that does not treat the device as an extended monitor and is a lot more seamless. The third day I had it, the visuals looked really blurry. I thought there was something wrong with the device. It was really frustrating, I tried using the Rift with different operating systems and different graphics drivers but nothing seemed to get the job done. Then one day, I look at the lenses, and remembered that this problem happened when I tried out the near sighted lenses. Then I realized I had put on the lenses backwards! I’ve tried out Half Life 2 on the Oculus Rift and I am very impressed. There is a lot of talk about these types of devices being used for pornography experiences. I don’t know if I am willing to throw away my morals for profit, the whole idea weirds me out.
As for my Google Glasses, as I have mentioned before I considered it a gamble in case it took off. They are now stored away with the hopes of being a rare item on Antiques Roadshow one day.
