The tool now includes a native support for Oculus runtime, so it can read the geometry data from Oculus headsets without needing SteamVR. By talking directly to the Oculus runtime, it can collect some additional data, which are not exposed through SteamVR, e.g. the hidden area mask mesh.
Thanks, great endeavor!
Didn’t know that the Valve Index also uses canted displays. This could be good, also from a Pimax perspective, as it could mean that more and more games might have support for canted viewports, so no need for patallel projection!
Unfortunately Valve decided to make Index using parallel projections by default (it is not even configurable in UI) and now, as we learned with Alyx, did not even supported it in it correctly (and this was a real bummer for me). Plus the everlasting “bug” with incorrect culling (which has also been discussed here - and is known since SteamVR Home), make me a bit pessimistic concerning Valve’s intentions.
Sniff, a missed chance then…
Hope that they will bring spherical displays at some point, with a rendering api to support it.
Optimally: An HMD with two half tennis ball like displays, without lenses
The displays can be transparent or opaque for AR and VR mode. And 16k resolution per eye, 1 kHz frequency and a matching computer integrated into the glass holder with 8h battery operation. All that below 100g. Can somebody build that please? Would buy if the price is right!
Might actually prefer that ti the Gaben neural interface - the old school, non invasive fashion.
Much like with Skyrim, you can actually go for quite a significant time in Alyx, using canted rendering, without noticing the related artifacts.
I just gave setting SteamVR to “raw” camera mode for the Index another quick go, and for the area I was in, the only two issues I noticed were:
Yes, there is some popping at the far right edge.
Decals with parallax (bullet holes, those chunky barnacle vomit puddles) “float”. The actual parallax shading works perfectly, for both eyes, and looks stunning – it is just that the the entire decal shifts around in the right eye, in response to one’s moving one’s head (…probably rendered in a separate pass, that does not take canting into consideration, so it’s 10 degrees off (…or 20°, for Pimax)).
Otherwise everything seem just fine, including dynamic shadows, and cubemap reflections. (LATE EDIT: Umm, ok - I have to backpedal on the dynamic shadows: Their right-eye view does diverge, just like all the decals; …and the decals have the disparity regardless of whether they have parallax mapping or not.)
…but Valve’s negligence to something that directly affects their own products, is indeed a dishearteningly bad sign.
The question is, does it really matter for Index? Maybe they just designed the headset with canted panels, then realized it does not really matter (performance wise, or quality wise) and decided to flip the switch unconditionally to be safe with everything else out there.
I would say. To play it safer. The setting is available but requires an edit. Likely figure with the smaller fov the performance hit is minimal. So to not confuse folks with another setting option. Just leave it on.
Yes. Between the lower FOV, and half as severe canting, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I were to learn than the parallel projections overhead for the Index is minor enough to be easily dismissed.
Add to this, that any extra total FOV the Index has over the Vive, comes right out of a corresponding reduction in stereo overlap. :7
