What is virtual reality?

Virtual reality is a three-dimensional computer generated environment which a person can interact with and explore. The person becomes part of the virtual world that he is seeing and is able to touch and manipulate the objects included in this environment.

In order to see this virtual environment and to be immersed within it, the person needs to wear glasses or a head-mounted display (HMD). Some systems even enable video and sound to increase the user’s experience. On the picture below is a demo of Hololens of Microsoft. As you can see It is really amazing.

Variety of uses

Here are the applications for virtual reality:

• Architecture
• Medicine
• Arts
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Video games

Virtual reality is a powerful technology and can help to make new discoveries which will have good impact on our day to day lives. For example it is used by the army to train soldiers and to make them stronger in order to avoid the old mistakes on the battlefield. It is also used in medicine to do surgical simulations in order to train doctors.

Nowadays, there are many virtual reality devices. But the most of them are not already very well appreciated by the consumers. The most popular are the Google glasses, the Oculus VR, the Sony Morpheus which is for the PS4, Hololens of Microsoft and the Samsung Gear VR. Sony and other manufacturers are also working hard on VR devices, because they know that it is the next technology. But among all these devices, the Oculus is the only one that seems to be perfect.

What is Oculus VR?

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that lets players to feel immersed in virtual worlds and games. With the ultra-low latency 360° head tracking, it allows the player to look around the real world like he would in real life. This headset is unique and much appreciated by gamers and developers because it transforms the virtual world into a real one, you feel really immersed. It creates a comfortable and natural experience by creating a stereoscopic 3D view with excellent parallax, depth and scale. With the Oculus Rift, the virtual world is stretched beyond your peripheral vision through the field of view. Indeed the field of view this VR headset provides is approximately 100°.

With all these features, don’t think that it must be an expensive headset. On the contrary, it is affordable and lightweight as possible. Since its first version, many developers has loved the idea and have already adapted their games to it. They are many games already supported by the Oculus Rift and many more are being developed. So if you have Half Life, Bioshock, Hawken, Trackmania 2 or Team Fortress 2 you can test them with Oculus Rift. Other games such as Project C.A.R.S, Titanfall and many more will be supported soon. Ubisoft has even announced recently that they are developing many games for 2016, the year Oculus Rift will be available.

Until now only two versions of Oculus Rift have been built. Those two were built to give developers a chance to make or adapt their games before the release of the consumer version in Q1 2016. Many virtual reality enthusiasts have also bought the developer versions of the Oculus Rift.

The first version of Oculus Rift has been built through a successful Kickstarter campaign. According to the founder, Luckey Palmer, everyone has to experience virtual reality.

Facebook announced on March 25, 2014 that they’ve bought Oculus VR for $2 billion.

Oculus Rift development

If you have a great idea of virtual reality game or you want to make an expo, or even reconstruct an old place virtually and you think the support of Oculus Rift will make it funnier or better, don’t wait, and head to their developer section.They have everything you need to develop games for the Oculus Rift. The documentation is well detailed and the SDK is easy to integrate within your game engine. The most used engines by game developers are all supported. So if you build games for Unity, or Unreal Engine you won’t be disappointed. You will just have to download the integration SDK, install it, and you are ready to go. There is also a forum for developers where you can find any information you need or post a problem you are having with your Oculus Rift project and they will solve it with you.

I know that we can’t all be game developer, or make a game because it is complex but you can submit your idea to a game studio or skilled developers to make it a reality. That’s something Razor Theory developers make every day. They are skilled and can make your supported Oculus Rift game. They can also develop great mobile apps and build website.