Montreal, QC – Virtual Reality is one of the most immersive experiences you can get from a virtual world created by computers but how can we experience it? In the past, there have been many attempts of device to simulate the virtual reality but none of them is advance enough due to the technical limitation with size and latency.
Oculus Rift VR is one of the modern devices I have experienced today. I have been waiting for a long time to get my hands on the device and play around it ever since the announcement of the Oculus Rift technology. I lost count how many years but nevertheless, I finally tried it in my lifetime along with two demos brought in by KO-OP Mode, experimental games and Felix & Paul for virtual reality.
Spacedog!
The demo Spacedog by KO-OP Mode was fun and simple. The objective of the game is to navigate the ship with the combination of controls from the AKAI controller as seen the picture below.
In my experience, the game has no clear instruction but you will eventually figured it out from randomly pressing the controller buttons. You will realize you have to adjust the knobs and button combo according to the in-game control display to progress.
My critic is the game is a short demo to experiment controlling the game while being inside a Virtual Reality device where you cannot see your hands at all. Without the hands inside the game, it makes it hard to know which control you are touching. This is a problem since we are missing one piece of sense. We can’t see our hands!!! Even I am looking inside the Virtual Reality device, I feel like blind touching for the buttons the entire time.
Felix & Paul
Strangers by Felix & Paul demo was astounding of what can a Virtual Reality device do today. The Strangers demo is a simple 360 recorded stereoscopic video with surround sound recorded inside a room with a guy playing a piano. While I was wearing the Oculus device with a noise cancellation headphones. I can say this experience is unlike anything, I feel like that I am sitting right inside the room with a guy who plays the piano. I am no longer feeling that I am still sitting at the campus room. It is a dream.
I frankly believe for this Virtual Reality project from Felix & Paul fits perfectly well, they don’t need anymore features except maybe an improved display.
The Oculus display resolution is still very low compare to a phone resolution which render the image a bit less clear and blurry with movements.
These issues maybe isn’t big for Felix & Paul, but it is a big problem for gaming like the demo from the game Spacedog by KO-OP Mode.
The VR device still needs a lot of improvement in order to blur our senses of awareness completely that we are wearing a device in a fake pre-rendered world. Strangers demo was very close to put myself in a sense that I am no longer in the campus and I also constantly look down for my hands again.
Missing Hands in Virtual World? No problem!
Just not too long after my demo experiences with Oculus Rift, Control VR was just introduced in E3 2014! This amazing technology advancement is the perfect fit with the Oculus. You are no longer have missing hands inside the virtual world.
Control VR is a next-generation wearable technology that turns your hands into the ultimate intuitive controller for PCs, VR and beyond
They have kickstarted this project on the day of the announcement and they are doing well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A21Y6nVHZM
Control VR is a next-generation wearable technology that turns your hands into the ultimate intuitive controller for PCs, tablets, virtual reality and robotics.
Control VR provides users with a fully immersive sense of virtual reality. This patented technology far exceeds predecessors by utilizing the smallest inertial sensors, ultra low- latency and ergonomic design.
Complete control of any visual display currently on the market using unlimited hand gestures, without being confined to a camera’s line-of-sight. The latest evolution of human-technology interaction is now limitless – freely control the world like never before.
However, I will be keeping close watch at Control VR along side with Oculus VR. I cannot comment on Control VR since it is fresh and I am waiting to get my hands in those VR gloves.