SL Oculus Rift Integration Seems to Need Serious Tweaking

Linden Lab gave Gizmodo's Jordan Kushins a hands-on, in-person demo of Second Life integrated with the Oculus Rift, and things went, well, wincingly:

Though the picture was pretty clear, the lag time to align graphics with my head movements was enough to make me feel nauseous. At one point, swathes of black obscured my vision...

"Also," he adds (and I can relate to this quite a bit, having tried the Beta version, as pictured above):

When you're wearing something over your eyes that completely obscures your vision, you can't see the keyboard. When you can't see the keyboard, you have to be a super solid touch-typist to manipulate your avatar, which requires tapping the arrows and spelling out sentences to chat (if you're not using vocal commands). It's obviously not impossible, but there is a fundamental disconnect that seems important to address with a work-around.

Sounds like Linden Lab needs to hire Loki to add his work-around.

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Comments

[Eddi Haskell]

I still am not convinced that 10 years from now -- even if a Virtual World is experienced in holographic 3D with a wrap-around visor that is some descendant or update of the current Oculus headset -- that many of us will want this immersive an environment 24 x 7. Sure, at times it will be fun -- but Second Life (or wherever we are in 10 years) will still primarily be viewed on a monitor that is shaped like a rectangle in front of us, with a keyboard and some input device like what we use today. And I think that we users will form our own world that lets us move between headsets (if we wish) and traditional formats since most of us must pay attention to what happens in the real world. The future of Second Life or Virtual Worlds is NOT purely Oculus. Oculus will be a wonderful option for us, and will enhance our experience, but is not by itself our only future. And if Linden Lab or High Fidelity or whomever does not get this, we will develop this ourselves. This is what is concerning me -- just because a technology is hot and is attracting VC dollars does not make it our only future.

[Catten Carter]

We use Oculus a lot at work, and the exerience differes a lot depending on the person. Personally I'll have to use it for hours and hours before feling even slightly nausia, some at work can go even longer, even with 1st person shooters, and then some can't even be with it for a second. I think it depends just as much on the personal tolerance as to the integration.

[Adeon Writer]

Retrofitting VR isn't ever going to be pretty.

[joe]

How can you hope to use something better than the Oculus ten years from now when you are blind by then?