Oculus Rift Catch-All

Yeah, 2 works pretty well for room stuff, though they recommend 3

I think the thing that sold me was the tiny number of 1 star reviews that mention problems with hand tracking that pushed me over the edge. It just seems silly for me to take that chance on something I am paying hundreds of dollars for.

Having a 3rd sensor is less about accuracy and more about expanding the space you can play in to include closer to the floor and behind you. With just 2, your body would block the hand sensor if you put your hand behind your back. With the 3rd, it can still track it.

That actually might be a cool technique! Sculpt around and onto my body

Two sensors you have to make sure you're facing in the right direction. With three well-positioned sensors, you can forget about it (until your headset cable gets twisted around you.)

That's when you look into wireless options, or a ceiling cable-suspension system.

JeremyK wrote:

Put some time into Beat Saber user made songs and really it just gave me a greater appreciation for the included songs. Users either have no clue how to properly balance their difficulty or they just don't care to try. I've never been great at the game. With the included songs I can handle the normal difficulty and with practice I can complete the hard ones. Expert is beyond me and honestly I just don't enjoy them at this level.

Like you, I have a hard time finishing the expert levels with the included songs. It's fun trying to get past those, but after a certain number of failures I just punt and move on to the next one. I'm impressed with how distinct the difficulty levels are in those songs. It's clear they've put in the time to play test and balance the levels for the varied skill levels.

JeremyK wrote:

User created songs rarely seem to include anything beyond expert and when they do I seriously question what they consider normal/hard difficulty. All in all it just made me sad that as well as this game has done it really hasn't been supported with a ton of content from the developers. Just a couple songs added in the last five months from what I can tell.

Yup, you hit the nail on the head. There's little guidance on what makes a level Easy, Normal, Hard, or even tougher. The available editors let you create levels for each of those difficulties, but don't enforce any sort of standards. A few people have posted "Best Practices" on the internet, but it's not a definitive set of guidelines.

I'm guessing most of the custom mappers start with the idea it will be easy to crank out a level for their favorite song but quickly discover it's much more time consuming than expected. Once finished with the first few cycles of editing and play testing they're satisfied to upload it and be done.

The real trick to producing a good level requires play testers of different skill levels:

  • A noob that can say "Easy and Normal were fun, but that Hard level is too much for me." (which indicates you've finally got it right for Easy and Normal)
  • An average person that can get past Hard, struggles at Expert, and fails at Expert+
  • A savant that wants to own the leader boards on all levels of difficulty
  • Or - the ability to play the game from the perspective of each of these people

Few content creators have the luxury of that kind of feedback or the ability to be correctly self critical. That makes it all the more difficult to produce high-quality content.

LiquidMantis wrote:

I've found that the tracks made by Freeek are well charted, but I'm only playing on hard and expert -- gunning for Stupidhaiku...

Agreed, Freeek has created some great content! If he creates one for a song I like I automatically download it.

DeThroned wrote:

EDIT: Gorilla, great work on the song! I got a B on Expert. I agree that it's nice not to play EDM songs over and over. You have almost inspired me to try creating a song but I don't know the first thing about it. It may be something I'll look up tonight.

Hey, thanks, I appreciate the positive feedback! I'm open to constructive criticism, too.

If you do explore creating levels, I found Freeek's tutorial videos to be helpful. Just go in knowing it's a ton of work. Before I uploaded the Joan Jett track I created two other custom levels that I ended up discarding because they sucked. The 10 hours I put into those I chalked up to learning how to use the editor and discovering how "not to do it."

I put another 15-20 hours into I Love Rock N Roll, but 20-50% of that time was wasted figuring out what patterns worked, which ones didn't, what was fun, what flowed, and what didn't.

Now that I've convinced myself I know what I'm doing, I estimate I could produce a single level (probably Expert or Expert+) in 5-10 hours. From that, I could reduce it to create the other difficulties in another 3-5 hours.

So, while I encourage you to give it a try, be sure to go in with proper expectations. I find it to be a rewarding exercise - an act of creation, perhaps like knitting - that requires patience and perseverance.

Blech. So I connected my new oculus rift last night and... nothing. It had no instructions or quick start so I plugged it in. Nothing. So I went to the oculus website and found the section about Oculus setup. I downloaded the setup (4 MB) and ran the setup. It started a 4.83GB download, yikes! 20 minutes later, "installing Oculus software" with no progress bar. 20 minutes later same thing. It looks stuck... cancel? no, don't cancel. 30 more minutes go by, no change. Cancel. I run setup again and it re-downloads the 4.8 GB file(s), wow! I look up on the web "oculus won't install software". The results: "run in admin mode" "make sure your graphics drivers are current" etc. There is still no change from "installing Oculus software". Its been 2 1/2 hours so I quit to play WoW before bed.

I wake up in the morning and decide to try again, 4.8 GB starts downloading. I look up web help. One post way down says "dont connect the rift or sensors, the software installed will prompt you for it". I disconnect the peripherals and like magic, 15 minutes after the 4.8 GB download, the setup is running. I create an account + plug the things in. It detects, so now we are cooking. I go through some tests that check and start getting a weird "you have a problem with your equipment that is preventing setup" errors off an on. It is really finicky with how I have to step back for the sensors to pick everything up and then reach forward to hit next or type in my height. I get to the stage a few times were it says "controller connected. hold the trigger for a few seconds." I hold the trigger and it seems to fill up the green ring over time but it tells me that the test timed out. So I figure I need to create more space that I don't necessarily have between the sensors and between the sensors and the touches and headset.

I could have sworn I saw a video of someone using it while sitting at their computer desk. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they had their sensors out and off their desk *shrugs* I get my RX 580 tonight. I may also pick up a PCIe USB 3 port card to see if that helps. I also get the feeling that the sensors need to be away from walls or they need space around them

Yeah, unfortunately the initial setup can be frustrating. It's easier with someone giving a hand, or at least using a wireless keyboard and mouse. The sensors have something like a 60˚ FOV, so you do need a bit of distance for good coverage. They're fine up against a wall, or even framed in for that matter, though.

FWIW, I gave up on the oculus setup utility after it continued to insist I move my sensors into the wall. Never had any problems other than it asks me if I want to set up my rift.

I use it at the desk all the time. I do have three sensors on tripods though.

Yeah I just saw something that said that the sensors should be slightly above head level and tilted downward.
That seems like something that should have been front and center when you open the box, no?

Scratch all of that. The Oculus setup is nigh useless. You don't need it. But that isn't what I came here to post...

OMG OMG OMG WTF WOW! This is amazing! Why did nobody tell me?

Its like I have a magic snorkel mask that transports me to other worlds.
The immersion is incredible. I used to argue staunchly against first person perspective being more immersion. But this is way different. Looking at a painting through a window vs. sticking your head through the window into a new world different.

I am getting my feet wet with sculpting so I am just making silly blobby stuff but the feel is awesome and I am ecstatic to say that the first thing Medium asked me was if I was left or right handed

This may help me with my acrophobia. There is a balance between the fear that standing on an extremely high ledge and my brain having some grounded sense that I am sitting in a chair at my desk.

Rollercoasters are the eat opposite. They throw extreme stuff at you that doesn't exist in reality. But it can easily make you sick and the designs tend to flirt with that capability. I can't believe neuroscience isn't all over this platform unless they already know. How crazy is it that the pit in your stomach feeling from hills and hard corners comes (if I had to guess about 25%) from what is fed to your brain from your eyes?

Along those lines, a few of the rollercoasters had 60ft jumps or basically crash landings. But the effect is so strong (possibly traumatic) that they black out the screen for a second on impact.

Some of the effects are so strong I almost want to smell them.

I got my wife to try it. She was really impressed. Though it brings up another point with regards to accessibility: UI's. She was completely lost without my assistance and for one thing I had to use the menu on my computer screen to get her out of looping the same environment and getting frustrated.
So there is a ton of work there especially since there will be a lot of people in the non gamer category that will struggle with the triggers and buttons that they cannot see. Or they have enthusiasm for seeing their hands on the controllers in the world but don't have a gamer's coordination so they hesitate or press the wrong button consistently.

The other crazy thing is that my wife asked to try the rollercoaster. She handled it pretty well. I told her if she feels sick to press the menu button to get out or (and then because she is my wife and brilliant and finishes my sentences) she said "or I can just close my eyes." I love her . She was really impressed. Mostly by the fact that she can turn her head around and the "world" keeps going.

I wonder if people have different moments when they first experience VR. My big thing was that I could look down and I could look closer or reach out for something. My wife was impressed that the world didn't end if you weren't looking forward. I'd love to hear GWJer impressions on what stood out to them at the start. Plus perhaps, does that become routine over time/exposure?

fangblackbone wrote:

I'd love to hear GWJer impressions on what stood out to them at the start. Plus perhaps, does that become routine over time/exposure?

Honestly, a lot of my first impressions were along the lines of "Huh, this is surprisingly low-res", and that's with a Vive Pro. 1440p monitor it is not.

But on the positive side, the standout moments are often specific to one game or experience within a game. Seated "in-the-cockpit" games were an early standout, e.g. Ultrawings or House of The Dying Sun - being able to look directly up through the canopy while in a steep banked turn, to spot the thing you're turning towards, was revolutionary (and more than a bit pukey at first).

Mountain tops at night in Skyrim.

Watching that bullet whiz directly past your nose in Superhot.

Project Cars 2 - holy hell - being able to look at an apex as you're going through a corner is revolutionary. I felt an instant improvement in my driving performance under VR as a result.

Back on the negative side, I'm finding the limited FOV becoming more and more noticable, particularly in action heavy games that operate in a full 360 environment. The disconnect between your natural FOV of your eyes (210 degrees) vs under the helmet (110 deg for my Vive Pro) is so vast that in games where the action takes place outside of the FOV (e.g. Skyrim, FPS games), you really feel the loss of peripheral sense - feels like trying to play tag with a diving mask on.

Thanks Jonman!
I have to admit that I have been itching to try a racing game but I promised myself that I got this for art. So if you can recommend a pick up and play racer that won't eat up too much of my time, that would rock. (I am salivating at the prospect of looking out the back seats or rear view mirrors while racing around the track) . I'd wager a dune buggy title is on the "definitely going to make you sick" list. Do you get bothered by there not being any foot pedals?

Watch for Project Cars 1 to go on sale. Its been as low as like $7.50 before on Steam and (Im told) has the best balance of control options, in that its about as good with a gamepad as with a full racing setup.

I dont know of any reason to get PC2 instead, but I also havent really looked.

fangblackbone wrote:

Do you get bothered by there not being any foot pedals?

No I don't, because there are! I'm too old and well-off to be playing racing games with a controller anymore! FFB wheel & pedals FTW!

fangblackbone wrote:

So if you can recommend a pick up and play racer that won't eat up too much of my time, that would rock.

Project Cars 2 is the one that I'd recommend in a heartbeat. Driving model is solid, and the VR implementation is far and away the best I've come across in a racing game. Decent array of car classes too.

Race Room Racing Experience is a good shoutout to test the waters. The VR implementation is such that you don't get dropped into full VR until you're sitting on the starting line, BUT, the game is free-to-play with a handful of tracks and a couple of cars, so that's a low cost on-ramp to VR driving, and once you're racing, the VR is solid. I haven't managed to make it work reliably multiplayer (haven't tried very hard), but SP works fine.

I haven't bothered to jump through the hoops of installing ReVive to make Dirt Rally's Rift support work with my Vive, but as one of my fellow Racing Dorks remarked "just close your eyes every time you roll the car".

polypusher wrote:

Watch for Project Cars 1 to go on sale. Its been as low as like $7.50 before on Steam and (Im told) has the best balance of control options, in that its about as good with a gamepad as with a full racing setup.

I dont know of any reason to get PC2 instead, but I also havent really looked.

Because PCars1 is still a giant mess of bugs. Pcars2 is merely an average sized mess of bugs.

It's also much, much shinier - if you're rocking a decent graphics card, they're night and day.

If you're buying purely for the VR implmentation, that's also night and day. Pcars1 is barebones for VR.

Wow. I haven't played PCars2 but I thought PCars1 was just as shiny as it was possible to get. I stopped playing because the AI was so atrocious, making any series with fragile cars (most of them) impossible. Still... $7 instead of $60

Ignore me!

So I am really torn now whether I should be getting the S or the Quest. I do love having the ability to take my Go to other peoples houses and show it off but the graphics prowess of PC VR is always so attractive. I got lots to think about!

I am fortunate enough to have the space and the CPU power for PC VR but I really feel the pickup and go aspect is so appealing.

Yeah its a tough call. Oculus is pushing their curated developers hard to make sure they support both the Rift and the Quest but it requires sacrifices and extra work on the devs part. You'll pretty much always have a lesser experience there.

Also there will just generally be fewer games. Right now on PC, game developers can fairly easily support both Rift and Vive while supporting Quest will be more like a port from PS4 to Switch (as a crude example) As a result, unless the Quest sells like gangbusters (like the Switch), you won't see the wide porting of PC VR games to Quest.

Counterpoint, go anywhere with the Quest. That's just super attractive.