Oculus Rift-Compatible (Albeit Crippled) Second Life & OpenSim Viewer Released

HyperGrid Business has news of a third party viewer that integrates the Oculus Rift VR headset with Second Life and OpenSimulator worlds: The latest viewer update from CtrlAltStudio’s David Rowe, which you can get right here.

The viewer has limited functionality with Second Life: "This is a preview viewer, which can be used to walk and look around inside the virtual world, but is missing user interface functionality." But Rowe deserves credit for getting the VR ball rolling, especially ahead of Linden Lab, which promised a Rift-compatible viewer by the end of this Summer, which ends in like 6-7 days. (Nudge nudge, Lindens!)

According to HGB's Maria Korolov, the viewer's early tests indicate that the SL user interface doesn't play nice with the Rift:

For example, anything at the edges of the screen will be outside the field of view. In addition. static text looks like it hangs in the air in front of the user, blocking the view of what’s behind it, and is also hard to focus on.

Sounds like the SL user experience will have to be significantly re-architected to work well with the Rift. Then again, I always thought it was a bit silly to have so much static text in what is supposed to be an immersive virtual world experience, so I'd say some re-architecting is long past due.

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Comments

[Iggy]

The Ahern welcome area, with all its gadflies, pervs, and trash-talkers, in glorious 3D.

[David]

To clarify a couple of things ...

The viewer works as normal with a full user interface until you toggle into “Riftlook” mode (akin to mouselook) for viewing with the Oculus Rift headset and in which there is no UI (but you can look around and move about).

The SL user interface hasn’t been tested with the Rift; rather, Maria was pointing out some of the difficulties of user interfaces in the Oculus Rift in general, i.e., that they require a different approach in a viewer. For just such reasons, the SL user interface is intentionally not shown while in Riftlook.

[Lukas]

I'm definitely interested and excited to one day try out the Oculus Rift headset in SL, using my SpaceNavigator for movement.

From my perspective, the key to success would be to maintain immersion while using the Rift. I don't know possible this would be with the current technology, but my personal preference would be to utilize either (1) a transparent, heads-up display of the SL UI which would appear within Riftlook or (2) a pseudo-realistic visualization of having the Riftlook view first pan down at a virtual tablet device displaying the UI before making it full screen and interactive. Either method would have to be easy to customize and toggle on/off.

And, in a perfect world, using the UI would all happen without my having to lift my hand off of the SpaceNav, using it to interact with the virtual tablet in the same way as one would in RL using a stylus with a Nexus 7 or an iPad.

[Inara Pey]

"Crippled" is a little harsh, as it suggests intent rather than circumstance.

David makes it very clear in his blog post and in the viewer title (the big "Alpha" at the end of it) that this is a first stab at getting the OR headset working in SL.

As to how the viewer UI, having to re-architect has always been a must for the Rift (it's currently the one major thing about the project which fascinates me).

In terms of how it might look once integrated, I have a hint from Simon Linden, in which he indicates the Lab is currently looking at also running the viewer in full screen mode & having the menus floating above you, so look up to see / use them.

[Todd]

Just Wow,

If you have a dev kit go get this right now!!! Just spent the last 20 minutes seeing what actually being in my store felt like...and then flying above it (although motion sickness kicks in when your zooming around off the ground)

So yeah, if crippled means magically transporting yourself inside a world you've only been able to glimpse at through a flat window then yes.....it is all kinds of crippled :D

[Terry]

Should have my dev kit next month....! Really want to try this out in SL... I like the idea of a virtual tablet for menus, vs. the menus floating above, looking up to access. For me, that would just break the immersion, as I like to look up, down all around.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Someday, somebody in the MMO / MMUSH world will get the bright idea that a 'mouselook / firstperson' view that still has a visible UI might be handy...

And then the future will happen.