Tuesday, May 21st 2013 / Gaming

Day Ten With The Oculus Rift - Mars City

Today I wanted to try out a few more demos but after looking through most of the lists of what was available to download I have to say I was a little disappointed that most of it looked either pretty basic, or doesn't quite have proper support for the Rift yet. I did manage to try a few small demos but in the end I had another 10 minutes on Doom 3, now in Mars City just after all hell breaks loose.The day started with my kids wanting to have a go on the Oculus Roller Coaster, so I let the two oldest have a go. I'm not even sure how much of the 3D effect they really see since their IPD will be below the default but they seem to like what ever it is they see.After work, I had a go on the roller coaster too and I have to say it's not as extreme as I was expecting. I went round a few times then put in the console command 'slomo 2' to speed time up and run the roller coaster at double speed. This did enhance the falling sensation but still felt quite comfortable. I have to admit I haven't tried it standing up ;-).Next I downloaded a very small demo simply called Sci-Fi Corridor. It's a Unity demo someone built a while back to demonstrate their modelling and texturing skills, it makes a good little Rift demo because it's relatively small but packs plenty of small 3D detail which you can look at from all angles.Unfortunately there are few visual bugs, and it is after all a very limited demo so once you've been in it for a minute that's about it.Then I loaded up Doom 3 BFG and continued on from my save. The aiming feels a bit weird since it's different than in Half-Life 2, you have to aim vertically using your head, but horizontal aiming is done with a combination of head movement and mouse movement. It also seems as though the laser sight does not always line up with where you're shooting.One of the things that was pretty cool with Doom 3 at release was it's scripted sequences with lots of things moving about. This bridge sequence looks pretty cool, especially in VR.Here's a shot of the health dispensers, which at the time were cool because of the interactive screen but Half-Life 2's blows them away. The moving parts all whizzing around on Half-Life 2's health dispensers look so cool in VR!Just round the corner was this very subtle bit of detail but it actually looked pretty cool with the Rift on:I was pleasantly surprised when faced with having to climb a ladder in Doom 3 BFG, it doesn't suffer from the same odd warping I've seen in Half-Life 2 where the ladders seem to curve above my head.For those people who have said they did not notice the lack of depth on walls, here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. If I walk another foot away I can see the depth of the normal map and it looks ok, but from just the right angle it looks like a completely flat wall with a texture painted on it.This dead guy that falls down above your head looked pretty cool so I thought I'd show you this.And finally, after encountering about 5 of these things I finally managed to get a shot of one of the monsters as it was attacking me. Kept scrambling for my screenshot key and in the end just rebound it to Q to make it easier to reach from my WASD keys :)For the next few days I will be posting much smaller updates as I want to get back on track with my work on my own game(s)! I intend to try out some more Doom 3 tomorrow but want to see if my old d1e1m1 map will work in Doom 3 BFG:Also, if anyone wants to check out all the screenshots I've been posting in Oculus native resolution on your Rift, here's a full gallery of them all: