I believe that's the third Valve patent to involve eye tracking. So they either have something interesting cooked up or they're just playing the long game, which is what I'll assume so I don't get disappointed.
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Ars Technica: Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in June
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Having a HMD with eye tracking out of the box would be pretty stellar. It needs to be a standard in order for foveated rendering to become an actual thing
I was hoping by now more headsets would have eye tracking out of the box since it to me seems like a feature that would really help with a number of things. I think at the moment the highest end HMD with eyetracking is for professional use edit: and has quite the pricetag of just 6000 dollars and a 1000 dollar a year service fee. (Its not meant for the average joe consumer)
no over hyping on my part, just discussion. I highly doubt any of the valve patents have made it into the index but it is interesting to see how valve thinks about VR hardware trough their patents.
I certainly think things like the lenses patents (which look suspiciously like the logo) and things like the color/pulse modulation have made it.
But, yeah, I wouldn't anticipate anything beyond what we already suspect. Eye tracking would be an awesome surprise, but I'm operating under the assumption it's not going to be there.
My expectations are super low on a tech level and anything special will be the cherry on top. I am expecting super high quality optics, though. If impressions aren't glowing in this area, I'm going to be disappointed.
But, yeah, I wouldn't anticipate anything beyond what we already suspect. Eye tracking would be an awesome surprise, but I'm operating under the assumption it's not going to be there.
My expectations are super low on a tech level and anything special will be the cherry on top. I am expecting super high quality optics, though. If impressions aren't glowing in this area, I'm going to be disappointed.
Basically, the patent is for a variable strobe duration based on HMD motion.
Theoretically this could let you set a target of something like 1px of motion blur at all times, and the strobe duration would get shorter the faster the movement is, in order to sustain that.
So if you are sitting still there could essentially be no flicker at all from the display, but in motion it would flicker more and more aggressively the faster HMD movement is, to keep motion blur at a fixed amount.
The shorter the strobe duration is, the brighter the strobes will be, so that the output brightness is perceived to be the same.
It would essentially be a comfort feature, rather than having the HMD strobing the image aggressively at all times.
That's quite encouraging to read, as it's very similar to what I have suggested could make strobing (ULMB) work with variable refresh rate displays (G-Sync) but may actually end up in a commercial product.
Oh, I'm so doing that. If the FOV is a good bit above 110 it's good enough, same ppi as the Vive Pro is good enough, 90Hz is good enough.
I do expect a lot from their controllers, though. I'm glad I waited, and didn't order a Pimax yet, now I'm gonna have a choice.
BTW, people are always talking about the resolution, but I think ppi is the way to talk about this stuff, as a wider FOV will decrease the ppi.
So a 135 degrees FOV with around 700 ppi would be great. Is my way of thinking wrong here?
Isn't the viewing distance in high tier VR sets about the same though?
I have no doubt that Valve Index will have 2 8k screens, 200 degrees FOV, eye tracking, brain interfacing, AAAA games, and everything else one could imagine.
You're not wrong.
I think he is literally meaning that ppd (pixels per degree) is better used than ppi (pixels per inch), not that he's sharing his opinion on ppi vs FOV.
Also everything mentioned for $299 including lighthouses 2.0.
I wouldn't say I have high expectations...what I will say is that there are definitely reasons Valve is releasing a VR headset. If you piece together what Gaben has said matched with some of the rumors, it's clear that Valve wants to do a couple things:
1. Go a different direction than both Oculus and HTC. HTC has seemingly (or temporarily) pushed emphasis onto enterprise hardware, Oculus/Facebook are going for cheapness and mass adoption as well as a more closed ecosystem. While Oculus is still almost entirely game-based, they definitely see spatial tech as a social/telepresence tool first and foremost....I mean, it is Facebook after all. Valve is going to stick with what they do best: gaming. They also aren't trying to drive prices down yet as the tech has not fully matured, which means the headset will likely have innovative features/potential. And it's going to be modular/open.
2. Gaben has stated that he is envious of companies like Nintendo, because the software and hardware match up in a unique way which allows for that "Nintendo Magic". To me it's pretty clear that this is what they're going for with the Index. They're designing their 3 VR games for the Index and vice versa. This means that the Index will do things that other headsets can't (we already know this with the controllers, but the fact that they're releasing an HMD as well says something). And that likely means their games will do things that others can't as well.
So while I will restrain my hype and don't necessarily expect major innovative leaps, I still think a lot of people will be surprised. And I ain't talkin' resolution, in fact I don't think resolution is that big of a deal (unless they did have eye tracking/foveated rendering). We know it will probably at least match up with the Vive Pro with other little secret sauce screen and optics tricks to vastly increase clarity over current gen consumer VR. So yeah, I'm basically ready for the reveal, dudes.
After reading a bunch of speculation on Reddit, I also think it's a possibility that the price may not be as high as some people here assume. I was thinking 700-800 for the whole shebang before, now I'm thinking 500-700, leaning a little more on the 600-700 side of that. I personally think 600 is the magic number unless they really want to add some crazy shit in there. In that case, I'll cough up anything under a grand.
1. Go a different direction than both Oculus and HTC. HTC has seemingly (or temporarily) pushed emphasis onto enterprise hardware, Oculus/Facebook are going for cheapness and mass adoption as well as a more closed ecosystem. While Oculus is still almost entirely game-based, they definitely see spatial tech as a social/telepresence tool first and foremost....I mean, it is Facebook after all. Valve is going to stick with what they do best: gaming. They also aren't trying to drive prices down yet as the tech has not fully matured, which means the headset will likely have innovative features/potential. And it's going to be modular/open.
2. Gaben has stated that he is envious of companies like Nintendo, because the software and hardware match up in a unique way which allows for that "Nintendo Magic". To me it's pretty clear that this is what they're going for with the Index. They're designing their 3 VR games for the Index and vice versa. This means that the Index will do things that other headsets can't (we already know this with the controllers, but the fact that they're releasing an HMD as well says something). And that likely means their games will do things that others can't as well.
So while I will restrain my hype and don't necessarily expect major innovative leaps, I still think a lot of people will be surprised. And I ain't talkin' resolution, in fact I don't think resolution is that big of a deal (unless they did have eye tracking/foveated rendering). We know it will probably at least match up with the Vive Pro with other little secret sauce screen and optics tricks to vastly increase clarity over current gen consumer VR. So yeah, I'm basically ready for the reveal, dudes.
After reading a bunch of speculation on Reddit, I also think it's a possibility that the price may not be as high as some people here assume. I was thinking 700-800 for the whole shebang before, now I'm thinking 500-700, leaning a little more on the 600-700 side of that. I personally think 600 is the magic number unless they really want to add some crazy shit in there. In that case, I'll cough up anything under a grand.
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This is what excites me the most. I know I just joked about HL and Portal, but the idea of one of those developed alongside hardware is really cool.
Well it's pretty much a given that they're developing a Half-Life VR game, so I don't think it's outlandish to expect a Portal, L4D, CS or TF VR game as 1 or even both of the others. The question is how "full" the games are and whether they're just "inspired by and in the same universe as" or if they're actually similar in mechanics and such (well clearly the gameplay mechanics will be different, but you know what I mean). We know the games won't be demos along the lines of The Lab...so yeah, there's definitely something to be excited about here. The next question is whether they'll release them alongside the headset. My answer is that they'll probably at least release one of them right away.
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Pixels per inch refers to the display.
Pixels per degree refers to the display and lens setup.
You could have two HMDs with the same display but different lens setups, and the one with the higher FOV would have a lower PPD with more noticeable pixels.
Or you could even have an HMD with a higher PPI display than another, which still has a lower PPD if the FOV is significantly higher.
With VR displays in particular, the metric should really be subpixels per degree rather than pixels though, since the pixel structure of the panels makes a big difference.
I thought this was some news breaking. You are on my shit list :)
Maybe some news? A bunch of VR journalist have been to a very secretive event they can't talk about, and one person claimed it was Index-related. The thing that gives me pause is that it was in San Francisco, and I can't remember Valve holding a big event outside Seattle/Bellevue.
What do you think? It would certainly line up the Index press demo listing, but San Fran makes me think Oculus, not Valve.
What do you think? It would certainly line up the Index press demo listing, but San Fran makes me think Oculus, not Valve.
I certainly suspect Valve is holding an event this week, but I'm very skeptical it would be in San Francisco. Seems much more likely that it's a final launch event for the Quest.
Obviously I could be wrong. Especially since it seems imperative Valve have a press event before orders go live. I just don't see why they'd complicate the process by holding it in San Francisco.
Obviously I could be wrong. Especially since it seems imperative Valve have a press event before orders go live. I just don't see why they'd complicate the process by holding it in San Francisco.
The only thing that gives me reverse pause is I imagine there are a lot more gaming and tech journalists in San Francisco than Seattle and maybe Valve would hold an event there rather than expect people to fly to them.
It's also harder to leak. Having dozens of VR journalists going on Twitter saying "just arrived at Seattle!" would be a pretty strong confirmation.
Maybe. Nothing about Valve will ever surprise me. Maybe it's also symbolic about holding the event right in Facebook's backyard. I wouldn't bet any of my money on this, but it certainly a real possibility.
EDIT: Either way, whether it's San Francisco now, or Seattle later in the week, it's gotta be happening this week.
Doesn't help that some of them immediately tweeted about a mystery event though. ;)
He's legit going to have a meltdown if there's a press event and he's not invited.
Poor Tyler.
I don't think Valve is going to invite him back any time soon with all the recent clickbait videos that he's releasing with his rants & the shade he throws at them on his Twitch livestreams.
Although I wish Valve gives him a free Valve index for all of his work (if he still checks his inbox, that is).
I don't think Valve is going to invite him back any time soon with all the recent clickbait videos that he's releasing with his rants & the shade he throws at them on his Twitch livestreams.
Although I wish Valve gives him a free Valve index for all of his work (if he still checks his inbox, that is).
Valve added an old (and not VR) HL2 mod to the Index press demo. I legitimately have no idea what this means.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/bgxbbg/firearmssource_now_part_of_index_press_release/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/bgxbbg/firearmssource_now_part_of_index_press_release/
Holy shit, I played so much Firearms back on the day, but never even touched the Source version.
An all time peak of 2 players (10 months ago). Gonna be riots in the streets when people find out this is VR exclusive.
EDIT: Seems like someone on Reddit has answered this great mystery: Firearms: Source has always contained a number of the same depots/branches as SteamVR. It's just people are now picking at things looking for anything.
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For the first time in a long while, I'm totally confused. Valve wouldn't bother with an old mod ported to VR.
Is the idea that this would lead to decreased eye strain? That's not an issue I have with my Vive, and the strobing is 100% invisible.
Top comment on that reddit thread sounds like a pretty plausible explanation:
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