"Mike Griffith" (photobygriffith)
08/16/2013 at 16:17 • Filed to: Oculus Rift, Sim Racing, Gaming
1
4|
"Mike Griffith" (photobygriffith)
08/16/2013 at 16:17 • Filed to: Oculus Rift, Sim Racing, Gaming | 1
| 4 |
We all have, at one time or another, wished we could be Michael Schumacher or Sebastian Loeb and drive absolutely bonkers cars at ridiculous speeds. Well, racing simulators are (probably) the closest you're going to get, so listen up.
Current simulators include !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and, depending on who you're talking to, Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport. The PC games, namely iRacing and rFactor, have taken realism to a whole new level, with ridiculous amounts of detail in steering feel through force feedback and near-perfect car and track models. Some of the community-made mods for rFactor even include head movement and realistic motion blur, completely changing what you thought was a "game" into something a lot more serious. The steering wheel market has bloomed in the last few years, with high tech (and high priced) controllers that include !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
Where do you go when the graphics are stunning and the physics are nearly perfect? Virtual reality.
The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is a "virtual reality headset for 3D gaming", meaning it connects to whatever game you're playing and makes the view mimic your head movements in real time. A.K.A. it's magic . Just take a look at this gameplay footage from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to see for yourself how awesome this thing is going to be. (Skip to 0:45)
There are even tools and add-ons in development that will allow your hands to be used in-game, like opening/closing your visor or flipping someone off as you pass them.
The Oculus Rift is currently only a development tool, but anyone who wants to try it and help the devs with bugs can purchase it from them for $300. Seems expensive, but considering you're buying a small HD screen with motion-tracking technology, it seems relatively cheap.
Now to see if they'll send me one for testing...
Fred Smith
> Mike Griffith
08/16/2013 at 16:24 |
|
I definitely agree, but I'm hearing the low resolution devkit OR is notably jarring with iRacing (which already has full OR support out of the proverbial box). The HD production OR should fix this, of course.
Joe_Limon
> Mike Griffith
08/16/2013 at 16:24 |
|
All those wasted screens :'(
Kake Bake
> Mike Griffith
08/16/2013 at 16:30 |
|
Jesus, that helmet looks like it could snap that guy's neck.
Bakkster, touring car driver
> Mike Griffith
08/16/2013 at 16:58 |
|
Don't forget Motion Cockpit View for iRacing which also adds head movement to iRacing (though not with a rift, both use the same interface to move the view).
I would argue that, at least without a very sophisticated VR device, that motion blur (and field of view blurring during gameplay) in video games is not realistic. Blur happens in your eyes, based on what you're focusing on. Without knowing what you're focusing on, the game doesn't know what to blur for realism. This gives you problems like blurring the dashboard at high speed, even when you're looking directly at it.
But from everything I've heard, OR is fantastically immersive, even with the crappy resolution. I'm somewhat hoping that the retail version gets made before I want to upgrade to triple monitors.