Workshops: Oculus Quest is a new intriguing way for virtual reality

Let's keep one thing in mind: Oculus Quest is not the wireless and PC-free version of the Rift you may have dreamed of. The Snapdragon 835 SoC Power Quest is much closer to a medium-range mobile phone than the Nvidia GTX 960 graphics card (and the Windows PC that surrounds it) needed to perform a captive Rift. The Quest's field of view and maximum refresh rate both seem more comparable to those of the Oculus Go notebook, which is a bit of a downgrade from the Rift (though we still have to confirm specific numbers for the Rift). one of these devices).

Let's move on: None of this seems to matter much when you move into a seemingly solid virtual reality space without the need for external hardware, cameras, or external sensors.

At Oculus Connect this week, we were able to try out four different game demos on what were described as near-final versions of the new Quest hardware (previously known as the Santa Cruz prototype). What we saw was generally a solid movement and manual tracking in RV environments that were visually comparable to the bottom of the Rift games. Not too bad considering the asking price of $ 400 starting next spring.

Adapting Oculus Quest to your face is very similar to setting up a Rift helmet, up to the adjustable velcro straps on the sides and the top strap for added stability. The unit was relatively easy to forget once it was on (at least for the five to ten minute demonstrations we performed) without the need to constantly adjust the adjustment or the focus, even if we move quite a bit. Oculus did not talk about the final weight, but he felt rather like a rift on our heads, but without a phone call to the side, of course.

The demos

Our first demo, Superhot VR, was a very direct port of the first levels of the original game, which is still one of the best VR titles. The game's red and white color scheme and large stylized polygons make it an ideal choice for the quest's reduced material power. If you squint, you may be able to see a little less detail in the 3D models of the Quest version, or show a little more fuzz on the edges of objects. Overall, however, it's an incredibly faithful port.

While Superhot VR was designed to be played primarily in one place, in the Quest demo, I enjoyed reeling directly to enemies and hitting them in the chest or shooting them at close range without worrying about tangled wires. At one point, I became too excited to run towards an enemy and almost hit a real wall (the Oculus Guardian system arrived just in time to save me).

Our second demo, Tennis Scramble Project, shows immediate comparisons with Wii Sports tennis, with cartoon style avatars hitting a ball on the net. This demo showed a solid head and hand tracking during fast ball stroke movements, with no noticeable stuttering to get you out of the moment.

Total control of the position of the racket made it perfectly natural to control the timing and angle of the shots to a certain extent. Nevertheless, the whole process seemed to be based on semi-ready animation tracks for the ball rather than a really dynamic physical simulation. Racquet movements that should have easily resulted in high-arc lobes often resulted in low blows above the net, for example, without much rhyme or reason. The demo also showed a disconcerting shift from server-based animation in the opponent's avatar, which I could see swinging his racket only one or two seconds after the ball's return.

It is worth noting that the tennis simulation here also seemed to reorganize according to the size of your play space. In my large demonstration area (a square of about 20 feet apart), I had to do a step or two and really support me to reach the blows placed far from my side. My opponent (our own Sam Machkovech), who plays in a smaller space, said that all the bullets that were inflicted on him were easy to reach without taking a step, even if they seemed "wide" in my opinion.

The third demo, Face your fears 2, was by far the weakest proof of concept of Quest material shown. Graphically, the game is full of dark and muddy textures that aim for "realism" but find themselves in a mysterious valley that highlights the artifice. As far as gameplay is concerned, the simple "adventure" of looking for the object yourself was only an excuse for many cheese jump alerts, mostly involving large spiders that I trotted in the face.

This is one of those games where you stay in place and use the analog stick to travel very slowly in a VR environment to avoid motion sickness. I could also walk in "real space", but the mix of these two motion options worked very well. If, for example, I tried to go to the other end of a corridor, I should stop when the Guardian system warns me of a real wall . Using the analog stick to overcome this point while trying to refocus me in the real world has turned everything into a disconcerting mess.

Shooting at the arena scale

My last Quest demo of the day was the most intriguing: a multiplayer version at the arena scale of the Wild West Rift's zombie shooter. Dead & Buried played in a huge 4,000 square foot play area. The developers had set up this space with large boxes taped in the real world, which were then recreated as a destructible blanket in the world of virtual reality (the broken boxes became translucent in VR). ).

Teams of three clashed behind this blanket, kneeling down and presenting themselves in a high-tech and immediately engaging version of the laser tag. Tracking inside Quest was very effective, compared to the relatively empty spaces of the other demos. Reaching a hand to feel these barriers, the physical and virtual versions were only a few centimeters. Not too bad for a standalone helmet.

The tracking was very difficult a few times when I squatted too close to the ground. At this point, the virtual world stopped updating for a few seconds and I had to stand still before things could be recalibrated. Representatives of Oculus pointed out that this demo was at the forefront of technology or that it was the subject of research on internal monitoring and that it would not be ready for launching but that she was still disconcerting.

the Dead & Buried The demo also gave us insight into Quest's limited "mixed reality" features, which show you the real world as a series of wavy black outlines representing people and objects in your environment. It's a trippy effect, full of noise and depth-sensitive artifacts, which are especially evident when you're moving. Still, this seems like a pretty decent way to spot you briefly in the real world without having to remove the helmet.

What we do not know

There are still many unanswered questions about the quest. The most important of them is the battery life, which Oculus refuses to discuss apart from the promise of "making sure it's perfect for long gaming sessions ". We could not see the hardware system menu interface, or see how the initial room-level tracking configuration was working either. Between the demonstrations, we noticed that Oculus Connect employees often had to recalibrate the units by looking around the room. Hopefully this will not be the case with the final retail units.

We also do not know how the purchase of games on Quest will work for the moment, although we know that it will not be possible to directly access the thousands of Rift games and applications without transferring the work of the developers. Oculus co-founder, Nate Mitchell, told us that players who had purchased a Rift game could get free Quest port, but that decision would fall to individual developers.

What we found, however, was a very convincing medium-term that finally offers a full-scale VR tracking at the room scale in an easily portable format and at a much more user-friendly price than headsets requiring gaming PCs high-end (or even specific smartphones). Oculus Quest will certainly not replace the Rift for people who demand unparalleled fidelity and performance of virtual reality. Yet with fewer trade-offs than low-end mobile phones and less money needed than high-end headphones. Quest may well reach this great place for those who want to see what RV stories are.

Sam Machkovech contributed to this report