Upcoming VR content
Added 2020-01-24 17:47:00 +0000 UTCI believe I didn't get around to mentioning this yet. A few months ago I was finally able to afford my first ever VR headset for the PC, shortly before buying the first new motherboard in 10 years. Since the Oculus and Vive cost a fortune I wouldn't have been able to touch one of these: It was thanks to a company called Direkt-Tek, who's selling a shockingly cheap headset via Walmart. As I'm not from the US I couldn't buy it directly from them, so I got a VR-Tek WVR1 from a reseller on Ebay, for only 35$ with shipping included! Yes... there actually exists a headset at this incredible price:
The 1080p version is pretty pixelated, there are few tweaks needed to get it working under Linux, and currently I can only use it as a standard display. None the less, it allows me to watch any stereoscopic content with side-by-side eye separation in fullscreen! This includes photos, videos, and even games (so far only Xonotic supports this).
Now comes the part relevant to my activity: Having this headset also means I can produce some forms of VR content. I don't have head tracking so I can't develop actual VR games, but I can easily create VR compatible renders in Blender! The software allows stereoscopy to be enabled in the output panel while eye separation can be adjusted in the camera settings alongside other properties such as FOV.
This is something I've already experimented with, and so far the results are very satisfying. I'm planning to show some previews from one of the VR animations I've started in the coming months. For now I'm letting you know that animations for people with VR headsets are on the table, and something you should expect later this year.
