Exactly my point indeed.
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So basically you want to be able to switch between two type or so of lens easily without retooling. Like one for 170 FOV and one for 140 FOV.
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A hand made (customized) lens would probably cost 10 times more unfortunately…
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Did it look any cleaner? Less SDE? Also if pimax corrected the profile in software, you would get a more natural fov. As you say, it would zoom out the image, so you would need to factor that into your distortion correction.
Yes. If Distortion correction was done in software for a more conventional lens you wouldn’t have the problem of the fov looking wrong.
Well it would still s*ck, because you’re compressing everything into a much smaller virtual image. You’d not see things around you but in the same 100 degrees in front of you. Maybe nice for watching movies but not for gaming. Thinking of it, @Neoskynet seems primarily interested in movies so maybe that explains why he was positive about this?
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The problem is that pimax doesn’t have the software to do the Distortion correction properly for a Vive lens or for a 4K lens on the 8k. If they did, it would look fine.
Even the Vive Pro lens should accommodate 140° the software just isn’t programmed for it.
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Fair enough. Just thinking modularity which is supposed to be their key selling point. Like your rasberry Pi concept
The question is how well have they optimized the lense distortion on the M2. Let’s hope they improved things in house with the new test gear. You will know for sure when you put it on this week
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I don’t see a movie mode for better focus on the thing you are watching as a bad idea. I think it’s actually a good one as long as it’s been worked on after the current 170 mode release.
Ok well so it seems that the experiment @Neoskynet did, replacing the 8k lenses with the 4k lenses, was a nice one for theory but not valuable at all in reality. Nobody would want to use 110 degrees lenses in a wide FoV HMD (except for movie viewing maybe). So comparing the 4k lenses with the 8k lenses then also seems quite unfair. The difficult part is making wide FoV lenses …
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But understanding the basics of optics, you cannot override the lenses’ possible convergence. The 4K lenses are not concave (diverging prisms). These lenses are plain convex lenses that needs a specific focal point and focal lenght to “send” you the perceived image into your eye. And with convex lens, there is something called refraction, which makes wide FOV very difficult to achieve. This is one of the reasons Fresnel lens exists.
Lens optics are quite advanced stuff.
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You have completely misunderstood that! Watch again from 53:45!
I said that when Pimax allows the people to play everything they want (and even play around with the settings) then someone would perhaps try Skyrim VR in 8K (I mean REAL 8K resolution with SteamVR Supersampling) and then it will stutter like hell.
I never said that Skyrim is not running on the 8k. Just watch it again 
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The Vive Pro lens was created for a much smaller FoV, about 110 degrees (?). So that’s what it will ALWAYS yield, a 110 degrees wide virtual image. You can render any degree image into that virtual pane, yet the pane itself will always be 110 degrees. So even if you’d render 210 degrees into it, you’d see that wide Fov image in front of you, not around you.
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I know that, my suggestion is to lower the fov and correct for it in a way that’s conventional for a second set of lenses. You could accommodate for convergence for example by printing an adapter such that the lens sits at the proper distance and is in focus.
Exactly! I think there is a big confusion here between rendered and perceived/achieved FOV.
On a PC monitor, you can render 80 degrees or 150 and it wont affect your experience much except giving you a wider angle. In VR its crucial to have the correct FOV rendered matching the real life FOV that you actually see. Especially once you start to move your head.
For people who dont understand this part, I recommend you to install vorpX and adjust the software (in-game) rendered FOV slightly wider. You will see it the first second.
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Why do you get to decide this, and how. Also why would i expect the image from the 8k to be radically sharper than 4k and totally free of sde and pixels when the larger FOV from the beginning meant it would be around same density as 4k.
You place a lesser priority on FOV, and that’s fine, but when you talk about having 6000 angry backers you need to consider how many angry backers there will be if they push out a 140 degree headset. I will be one of them. Frankly, it would be a different headset to what i ordered given the main selling point is the fov, thats what they sold it on, not pixels per inch.
we have known for a very very long time that the 8k will not be totally free of sde, merely that it would be greatly reduced.
It sounds like you want a headset that would be better for what you use VR for, and want pimax to accommodate you. A headset that takes a 4k image and applies it to a much smaller fov for higher clarity. And that could be great. But that’s not the headset pimax wanted to build, and its not the headset people signed up for.
And i really really do not think the results of a what, 50 backer survey should speak for 6000 people?
Now if they can make the lenses interchangeable and offer lower fov lenses later, im cool with that. but im not cool with it coming at cost of protracted dev time, and def not ok with it being the default option.
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Sweviver, remember the 4k focus mod? If you set up an adapter to hold an aspherical lens( let’s say the 4k lens) at its proper distance from the screen, and you run with the profile optimized for that lens, it would be just like running a conventional VR hmd today.
Yes you would lose fov and only have 110 degrees but both eyes would have their own 4K panel with the increase in pixel density that comes with it.
You should not be surprised that the 8K looked bad when you put a Vive lens on it. It probably wasn’t at the proper distance and the 8k Distortion profile is not meant for 110 degrees.
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The point is it doesn’t have to come at the cost of Dev time. It doesn’t have to mean they have to make new lenses. They don’t need to delay a damn thing.
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Totally agree. People backed for the FOV and less SDE.
This is mainly a gaming headset. A gaming headset with enhanced immersion.
Hence the Lighthouse tracking, controllers and full game support.
It was never intended to be a virtual desktop headset for work.
It can definitely be used for movies and virtual desktop, but its just not made for it from the start. Thats why we dont have 1:1 pixel rendering, and not 4K native resolution. The lenses and panels are aligned and customized to give you an immersive “surrounding” in VR, not to give you a super sharp flat image in front of you. For that purpose, Im sure you will enjoy the 4K headset much more.
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But with such lenses, what’s the difference then between the Pimax 4k and the Pimax 8k in terms of SDE/resolution/FoV? You’d basically have just a Pimax 4k, but one with IPD adjustment and Steam tracking of course.
Now it WOULD start to become interesting if someone would use lenses that can see the whole 6" panel. You’d then have (by far) the highest PPD and really low/non visible SDE.
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