I dreamed as a kid for so many years about becoming a game designer but in the past few years that’s died off because it doesn’t seem pheasable.
I’m very interested in this new Oculus Rift, which is the first device that people will be able to get at home for a decent price for Virtual reality gaming. The rift itself is a displaying device that tracks th emotion of your head and offers you a full immersed 3D experience within it’s screen. And it’s all set up so that you feel within the world by making the screen look longer than your field of view. I really recommend looking at it, it’s incredible.
Then along with it is a device called The Omni Bivertuix. (not sure on the spelling)
That allows you to stand up and walk/run within the game using the Rift aswell.
At the moment there is only a handfull of games that work on the Rift and the Rift is only in a development kit at the moment but thousands and thousands are being ordered regardless.
I’ve heard in a video that with a Pro Package of Unity you can get a drag and drop toolbox for a player controller for the Rift.
Do you think that perhaps now is a good opportunity for someone to try and make simple games for the Rift and see if there’s a way to sell them later on to Rift Users?
I’m just a beginner at Unity and about intermediate in Blender so.
Just wondering if people think it might be a good idea to focus more on learning gamedesign to hop on the train of this new system?
No, it is a stupid gimmick. There have been headsets and controllers similar to these in the past and they never live up to the hype. Most reviewer felt they where awkward to use and didn’t create any sense of immersion.
But that’s just it, the old headsets were thousands of dollars and people didn’t like them, but the oculus is cheaper than the new consoles coming out and everyone is commenting on how immersed it makes them feel. x:
There’s lots of youtubers playing with it lately and loving it, lots of people playing them at conventions and only saying good about it,
and pretty much everyone that uses it says that when they take it off they really feel like they’re transporting to a different world.
i mean… the Rift has got Immersion down pat x:
The rift on the other hand is the real deal, feasible, better, gives the best 3d experience beating out current tv and theater technologies, head tracking and full peripheral vision removes the box in front of your eye effect. Improvements on lcd technology for mobile devices changed everything, before it just wasnt possible on a consumer level. The same goes for haptic feedback.
The rift has many industry leaders on board because its NOT a gimmick. John Carmack himself left his company temporarily to work as the CTO for the Rift, Gabe Newell and Valve are standing behind it along with nearly everyone else. At conventions, the rift has the longest line out of any other booth.
It is no gimmick.
OP: If you are just starting out, no dont get the Rift. Also game design shouldnt be seen as non-feasable. You just have to think realistically about it. No studio will hire someone with no experience or games under their belt as a game designer. HOWEVER, they will hire environment artist… and what can environment artist do? Hop on over to become level designers, and level designers easily can become generic game designers (technically they still are) or pick another specialization. I think what many find out though is that often the environment artist have the most fun, usually you are paid more than the average game designer, and there are usually less of you as opposed to a larger number of designers.
That said, you dont need a rift. The current dev version is limited, better to just wait till a better version comes out and in the mean time work on learning and building. Focus with level design and environment art only. Build up from there. The rift wont help you, it will just distract you. You have to focus on the fundamentals.