A virtual new era of gaming - Oculus Rift

    The new era of gaming has arrived, The Oculus Rift. Its the next generation virtual reality. But what is the Oculus Rift? The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality head-mounted display developed by Oculus VR. It was initially in a Kickstarter campaign during which the Oculus VR company raised US$2.4 million for further development of the product. When its going to be released is sometime next year in 2016, the Rift will be the first consumer-targeted virtual reality headsets. Imagine playing horror games with this!

The original Oculus Rift.

Features

    The features consists of two eye sights with 1080x1200 pixels per eye (2160x1200 for both eyes) and has full 6 degree of freedom rotational and positional tracking while having a refresh rate of 90Hz. Unfortunately the Rift is currently for Windows platforms however new platforms will be added soon within the next couple of years. While the original version is on the market for developers, a consumer version is on the way to making shelves across the world.
    Increased sensitivity of head and position tracking and a high resolution will mean a better and more realistic experience. In addition the headphones on the Rift will use HRTF audio which users can hear sounds better in three-dimensional space. Wireless operation is another consideration for the consumer version as it will also provide free movement of the head and comfort of the device. As said above the consumer version is on shelves next year.

The development kit 2 in action.

Other Devices that go with the Oculus Rift

   The constellation is part of the Oculus Rift when brought. It controls systems such as the position of the user's head and made up of an external infrared camera. The Rift contains, built inside, a set of perfectly positioned infrared LEDs that blink in certain patterns and with this blinking the constellation can precisely pinpoint the position of the object being tracked to the millimetre accuracy. 

   In addition The Oculus Touch is a set of controllers designed to be the moving controller of the kit. These are motion controllers that have a joystick, buttons and two triggers; much like the Playstation or Xbox controllers. Amazingly, the Oculus Touch gives a sense that the user's hands are in the game because once again it is tracked by the constellation so the user sees them in virtual reality. Also amazingly, it will be added with a new system for finger detecting gestures when the user holds the device. So in the virtual world you can communicate with your fingers or hands gestures and you can see it!

A set of Oculus Touch controllers in use.

Supported Games

   The number of supported games of the Oculus Rift are about 24 however this number is set to rise next year. A game that is fully-funded is called the Insomniac's Edge of Nowhere while Oculus VR is also funding third-party games and their own projects as well.

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