Point of reference... I'm a DK1 and DK2 owner and what is commonly referred to as a VR enthusiast around here. I haven't had the pleasure of trying Crescent Bay yet so my comparison will be to DK2.
Yesterday, I was invited to try Vive at the WEVR studio. Their demo space appeared to me to be smaller than the 15' x 15' demo rooms that Vive has recently been shown in, however the slightly smaller area didn't seem to have any negative impact on my experience. Once I strapped into the HMD and had the sensors in my hands it was time to experience "TheBlu: Experience"
The demo starts you off on the deck of a sunken ship and you can wander around for what feels like about 2 minutes before a giant whale swims inches from your face and then off into the distance. As soon as the demo started I wanted to start looking for the screen door effect and FOV...etc. As others have pointed out, if you are looking for the SDE you still can see it, however as soon as I stopped consciously looking for it I didn't notice it anymore. FOV seemed about the same as DK2 to me, and I am fine with that.
I began to walk around the deck of the ship and that is when the real beauty of the Vive HMD kicked in. The lighthouse tracking system works flawlessly. I moved left, right, forward and backward all with no noticeable loss of tracking. I raised my hands towards my face and I could see silhouettes of them in VR moving exactly as my brain expected them to. When I reached out to try touch one of the tiny fish swimming by the water reacted and so did the fish. At this point I became brave enough to walk towards the edge of the deck and peer down into the abyss. As I got to the edge of the ship deck my brain instinctively told me to stop and be careful not to lean too far over the railing. I found this interesting because I was nowhere near a wall in the real world so there was nothing physically stopping me from walking right through the railing and sinking down into davy jones locker. I would have to say this feeling was probably the closest thing that I've felt to "presence" in all my VR experiences. As I was gazing down into the abyss I heard the whale getting closer and I looked to my left and it was almost right on top of me. As the whale passed I walked right up next to it and looked into its eye. For a second as I stared into its eye and down its body I stopped thinking about being in a VR space and was able to marvel at the scale and detail of this creature that I was sharing a moment with. When the whale swam away the demo was over, but I will forever remember the experience.
Overall, the experience was fantastic. I'm not sure what GPU was in the computer that they used for the demo (probably a 980 or Titan), but it pushed 90fps with no issues. The only real negative of my experience was the wires....man there are so many of them still, I'm glad that one of the WEVR staff members held them all while I was wandering around the ship deck. If I didn't have someone making sure my area was clear then I am sure I would have tripped and gotten tangled up. I look forward to the CV1 release of Vive with wireless controllers, but I still worry about the HMD cable being a hazard. Due to the location of their demo space I was able to hear everyones conversation in the real world so I wasn't fully able to notice and appreciate the sound design that they did.
I want to thank WEVR for giving me the change to demo their software as well as the Vive HMD. I'll be at VRLA tomorrow and I've already signed up to do this demo again so if there is anything other than audio that I should look for on my second chance let me know and I'll report back.
TLDR; Vive is fantastic....and WEVR made a great demo. Check it out as soon as you can!
Submitted March 21, 2015 at 12:38PM by axlbundy12 http://ift.tt/1FSpPHW
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