Well, here it is: My own Oculus Rift. After working with a colleague’s DK1, my own DK2 arrived today. Unfortunately, there is no OSX SDK yet, so all I got to do with it was to try out the Tuscany House demo that comes with the Windows SDK. Here are some first impressions:
- The better resolution helps a lot but you still have the feeling of looking through a sieve. I wonder what Sony’s Project Morpheus quality is…
- Despite the “persistent display” technology, I got sick way quicker than with DK1, no idea why. But as long as you stand still and just look around, the immersion effect is probably the best I’ve ever seen (and I worked in a 1mil Euro CAVE once).
- The small head tracking camera is the major winner in this update! All my colleagues made the same comment on how good it feels. The immersion effect is great, i nearly tried to punch through my office desk when trying to grab something in front of me in 3D!
- The cardboard box sucks, I would gladly have paid 10 bucks more and gotten the nice plastic crate that came with the DK1. I see myself carrying this around a lot so the cardboard box is a major disappointment.
- The Windows drivers feel very alpha/beta right now. Got a couple of blue screens and was unable to activate the new method in how the display is directly controlled from the application. Also had some very harsh orientation switches (like 30 degree jumps) when the head tracking camera looses sight.
- They thought of everything: There are like 6 different plugs for the power adapter and they even have a HDMI to DVI adapter (which I was initially afraid I would have to buy on my own). They even packed a wiping cloth for the lenses because someone will inevitably push them into his eye balls… : )
- The horrible big brake out box is gone and the whole DK2 feels less of a prototype.
So, glad I got it, but not being able to integrate it into my modeling core project due to the delayed OSX release is a bummer….
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