I’m going to really show my inner geek with this post (oh who am I kidding, it’s not like I’m trying to hide my geeky side). I’m about to share with my experience with the Oculus Rift, a new virtual reality platform. My husband bought the Oculus Rift developer kit right before Christmas. When he ordered it and tried to describe it I was skeptical. Virtual reality just sounded kind of cheesy to me. Any experience I’ve had with virtual reality has been mediocre. Let me tell you, the Oculus Rift is really freaking cool!
Now I will tell you that now video or no description I can give you will do the Oculus Rift justice. It really is just one of those things that you have to experience for yourself. We’ve had several friends over to our house to show them. And I’m not saying this because I’m being compensated for this post (I really wish I was being compensated for this post!). I’m not being paid for this post, nor is this post sponsored in any way. This is just my experience that I want to try to share with you all.
So let me walk you through one of the simulations I went through that sold me on this device:
Ok close your eyes (wait, scratch that thought you won’t be able to read the rest of this). Imagine you are swimming around at the bottom of the ocean. You can hear the fish swimming around you. You can hear bubbles swirling around you. You are swimming around the coral and see smaller tropical fish dart by you. You see a red glow in the distance. You swim over to the red glow to get a closer look. You see steam rising up and realize you are approaching an underwater volcano. You are mesmerized by the glow of the volcano. And as you are staring into the volcano out of nowhere a shark comes up bearing huge teeth and attacks your face!
Seriously this is what happened to me. I knew the volcano was virtual reality and I remember thinking to myself this is no big deal I can’t get hurt by this. And then the shark came and attacked me and I swear to God I screamed like a child and tossed the Oculus Rift off of my head. It was insane!
There are lots of other simulations, like a walk around Tuscany, walking on the moon, roller coasters, there are some creepy video game simulations and more.
The cool thing about the oculus rift is the 360 degree head tracking. Where ever you turn your head you can see a different part of the simulation. And it’s really best to use the oculus rift with a good set of headphones so you really feel immersed into the virtual world you are in.
The consumer version of the oculus rift won’t be out until sometime this year. And the consumer version will be better quality than the developer version as it will be 1080p instead of 720 and it will have added motion tracking to help alleviate some of the motion sickness that developers have experienced while using this.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this. I really wish you could experience this to see how cool it is. Here is a video of a guy going through the ocean simulation I was describing.
