Das neue Rift Core 2.0 Update für Oculus Rift bringt einige Veränderungen für Nutzer der VR-Brille mit sich. Dazu zählen praktische Funktionen sowie eine neue individualisierbare Home-Umgebung. Eines der wichtigsten Bestandteile des Updates ist Oculus Dash. Es erlaubt dank neuen Menü-Optionen per virtuellen Monitor verschiedene PC-Anwendungen direkt in der VR zu starten. Dazu passend wurde am 11. Januar 2018 ein neues Beta-Update für SteamVR veröffentlicht, das native Unterstützung für das neue Dash mit sich bringt. Innerhalb der kommenden Wochen sollte das Update auch für die Standardversion erscheinen.
SteamVR Beta – Neues Update bietet Support für Oculus Dash
Das neue Beta-Update für SteamVR integriert Support für Rift Core 2.0 auf der Plattform. Dadurch wird ab sofort das Rendern von Oculus Dash innerhalb der Betaversion von SteamVR unterstützt. Die Nutzer einer Oculus Rift werden zukünftig nicht mehr aus ihrer aktuellen App in einen weißen Raum geworfen, wenn sie Dash starten. Die virtuellen Monitore und Menüs erscheinen stattdessen direkt innerhalb der geöffneten VR-Anwendung und lassen sich dort nach Belieben nutzen.
Ein Update der SteamVR-Anwendungen durch das neueste OpenVR SDKermöglicht ein optimales Compositing zur Tiefendarstellung von Dash in der Anwendungen. Die kompletten Patchnotes befinden sich hier.
Oculus Dash ist Bestandteil des neuen Rift Core 2.0 für Oculus Rift, das bisher größte Update für die VR-Brille. Durch Dash ist die zeitgleiche Nutzung diverser Windows-Programme in der VR möglich. Dazu zählen das Surfen im Internet per Webbrowser, Hören von Musik und vieles mehr.
Bisher ist das SteamVR-Update nur für Nutzer der Betaversion zugänglich. Wann der Dash-Support auch für die Standardversion live geht, steht aktuell noch nicht fest. Jedoch soll ein entsprechendes Update innerhalb der nächsten Wochen erscheinen.
Wir werden euch über die Veröffentlichung des Updates für die Standardversion auf dem Laufenden halten.
Oculus Rift users playing games on SteamVR will soon be able to more fluidly access Oculus Dash, part of the Rift Core 2.0 update which gives users an overlay menu allowing them to access social features, browse their desktop, and more.
The latest beta version of SteamVR now properly supports in-game rendering of Oculus Dash for players using Rift headsets, according to release notes. Instead of taking SteamVR players into a blank room when launching Dash, the update allows the floating menu to appear directly inside of the current VR application, allowing for more fluid and immersive use. Users can pin various windows from Dash so that they appear persistently inside of a VR application while in use.
SteamVR applications updated to the latest version of the OpenVR SDK will allow for proper depth compositing between Dash and the currently running application.
Players opted into the SteamVR beta will have access to the update function right away. Those running on the stable branch will likely see it incorporated in the next update. Only Rift users can access Dash since it’s part of Oculus’ platform.
The update shows Valve’s continued commitment to supporting the Rift on SteamVR with the hopes of maintaining an open VR platform for users and developers.
Like SteamVR’s overlay menu, Dash gives players easy access to platform functions like accessing friends list and Oculus store. It also gives players access to the applications on their desktop without taking off their headset thanks to the Oculus Desktop feature. Dash launched in beta as part of the Rift Core 2.0 update back in December.
Oculus has now confirmed the launch the ‘Rift Core 2.0’ update in public beta; it’s hitting Rift headsets December 6th. The anticipated updated will bring a major overhaul to ‘Home’—the place you see in the headset when you’re not inside of a VR game—as well as ‘Dash’, a revamped universal menu which also lets you run traditional desktop PC apps in VR.
Update (12/03/17): Oculus has confirmed in a recent tweet that it’s Core 2.0 beta is officially coming to Rift December 6th.
Follow the instructions below to download the beta branch, which should automatically update on Wednesday morning Pacific Time. You can revert tot he stable branch at any time by toggling off the option.
Original article (11/28/17):Oculus announced today on their official blog that the Rift Core 2.0 beta is coming “soon,” and with it will come an updated Oculus Desktop app which the company says offers an improved layout, now with a Wish List feature for marking games and apps that interest you. The Wish List will offer notifications when saved apps go on sale.
Those excited for the virtual desktop functionality, which promises to allow users to run traditional desktop PC apps inside the Rift at any time, even while inside VR apps, will need to update to Windows 10. Users still running Windows 7 and 8 will still be able to use Dash to browse their VR app library and for some other functionality, but won’t be able to use ‘Oculus Desktop’ virtual computing function, or run Dash as an overlay on top of VR apps, the company says. Oculus indicates this is for performance reasons.
Image courtesy Oculus
Players will be able to download the Rift Core 2.0 beta automatically once it’s available by opting into the ‘Public Test Channel’ through the current Oculus Desktop App (Settings > Beta > Public Test Channel switch). The company also suggests updating your video drivers for optimal performance with the update.
The blog post also shared several new images showing various Home spaces:
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Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
The Rift Core 2.0 experience is built primarily around Touch, and while Oculus says “most, but not all” previously support functionality will work with the gamepad, the company says you should use Touch if you want to “take full advantage of all the features in Rift Core 2.0,” including customizing your Home space.
The opening keynote at the fourth annual Oculus Connect developer conference delivered several new product announcements from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, VP of Virtual Reality Hugo Barra, and others. This included new standalone VR hardware, a new price for the Rift, and many software and game reveals.
At $199, Oculus Go is a low-cost, all-in-one standalone headset launching in early 2018. On stage, Hugo Barra claimed that the headset was designed to deliver the “best visual clarity of any product we’ve ever built”, using a “fast-switch LCD” at 2560×1440 and an “all-new, custom optical design”. The lenses are an evolution of the ‘hybrid’ optics found in the current Rift. Sharing the same controller input set as Gear VR – a single controller and rotational-only tracking – apps will be “binary compatible”, working on both systems. Essentially, Oculus Go is an enhanced, standalone version of Gear VR.
Project Santa Cruz developer kits coming in 2018, we go hands-on:
Image courtesy Oculus
Described as the “first, complete, standalone VR system with full inside-out tracking and hand presence”, Santa Cruz developer kits will be available next year. The company revealed various improvements to the latest prototype, including brand new 6-degrees-of-freedom controllers, similar to Touch. Unlike Oculus Go, Santa Cruz is designed as a high-end, standalone system, with full positional tracking on both headset and controllers, but will be limited by the performance of its on-board mobile PC. Check out our hands-on impressions here.
‘Oculus Dash’ is a total interface overhaul, supports desktop apps:
Nate Mitchell, Head of Rift, described how Oculus has been rebuilding the core software from the ground up over the past year, introducing various improvements to ‘Rift Core 2.0’. Most significantly, Oculus Dash is a total overhaul of the Rift user interface, designed specifically for motion input. It combines the existing functionality of Home and the Universal Menu, while allowing access to traditional desktop apps. Mitchell claims Dash will offer “best in class performance and visual quality,” for PC apps in VR, setting the platform “on a path to replacing real monitors entirely.”
Oculus Home also completely rebuilt:
The Rift Core 2.0 update also brings a brand new Oculus Home space, with a more realistic visual design, with “state of the art lighting” and “dynamic soft shadows”, powered by Unreal Engine 4. This is customisable with toys, furniture, artwork and achievements, and is designed to be a persistent, social space, with the potential to create shared spaces in the future.
Rift receives permanent price cut:
Photo by Road to VR
Hugo Barra, Vice President of Virtual Reality at Oculus announced a permanent price cut of the Rift and Touch bundle to $399. The package still includes the same hardware bundle of headset, two sensors, two Touch controllers, and “six free apps” – although there are actually several more free apps available on the Store.
While it’s all too easy to lose ourselves in the countless VR worlds at our fingertips, sometimes we just need to access the desktop and get things done in Windows. Thanks to a few innovative apps, this is possible without removing your headset.
With the beta launch of Oculus Rift Core 2.0, which introduces ‘Dash’, a new universal menu with a new way to access your Windows desktop, it’s time to take a fresh look at the current virtual desktop solutions available for Vive and Rift.
As explained in our hands-on with Rift Core 2.0, the original Rift menu system has been completely overhauled, resulting in a more capable interface with powerful functionality. Oculus Home has become a customisable living space with obvious similarities to SteamVR Home, and will eventually support social interaction. Oculus Dash is a replacement for the old Universal Menu, but feels considerably more integrated, as it is no longer a separate blank space, but rather a three-dimensional, transparent overlay that can run inside any Oculus app.
Part of the new Dash interface is Oculus Desktop, which allows direct access to your Windows Desktop. Unlike SteamVR’s Desktop shortcut, which still feels like an afterthought (it continues to exhibit poor performance and is confused by my secondary display connections that aren’t even enabled), Oculus Desktop feels pretty seamless, with crisp image quality and smooth performance. The most impressive feature is the ability to grab any window or app on the main desktop view and pull it into the virtual space, repositioning and resizing it as you see fit. This was a key feature of the now-defunct Envelop, but Oculus Desktop does it even better, as in their own words, they’ve “built true virtual displays at the hardware level” meaning that performance is maintained even when surrounded by desktop apps. YouTube 60fps videos, for example, play flawlessly in these virtual displays, as do non-VR PC games.
Accessing the Dash while in Oculus Home makes it appear as if Dash is part of the Home space, but this is not the case—Dash can be brought up anywhere, while using any VR app (although developers need to make some tweaks to allow it to pop up inside of their app, rather than taking users to a blank room).
Image courtesy Oculus
If you start repositioning desktop windows in interesting ways while Home is active, it can appear similar to Microsoft’s ‘Cliff House’ for Windows Mixed Reality, whose apps lock to the virtual environment—Microsoft’s solution is positioned as a place to get work done, allowing apps to float in completely different areas of the virtual environment, but this is limited to ‘Universal Windows Platform’ apps. Oculus Desktop is potentially more powerful, as it supports the repositioning of any desktop PC app, but it doesn’t allow apps to lock to the environment, instead always appearing relative to the user’s central position.
In theory, independent virtual displays is a neat idea, but in practice it can be awkward at times. Oculus’ implementation, while slick, isn’t fundamentally more intuitive than what we’ve seen before, and I still find myself stumbling over simple tasks. This is partly because moving windows independently in space while still seeing them in the main desktop display is confusing, partly because it’s a beta and certain things don’t work quite right (the ‘show hidden icons’ of the system tray didn’t seem to function, certain dialog boxes are problematic, mouse support isn’t the best, etc.), and partly because we’re still limited by first-generation headset resolution. Oculus Desktop produces the clearest image I’ve seen from a virtual desktop solution, but it is still not practical as a monitor replacement, requiring excessively large virtual windows to comfortably read text, or to effectively use creative apps that require high precision input
Virtual Desktop
Supported Platforms:Steam (Vive, Rift, Windows VR), Oculus (Rift)
Experimenting with desktop interaction since 2014, Virtual Desktop has established itself as one of the leading apps in this category. Today, it is a polished product, offering smooth performance, excellent image quality and some useful extra features. As a means of using your PC desktop inside of a VR headset, it is lightweight and straightforward, simply representing your monitor resolution (or multiple monitors if you have them) in a floating frame. It offers voice activation for certain commands, and support for multiple 3D video formats. Unlike Oculus Desktop or Bigscreen, it also features an effective 360 degree photo and 360/180/90 degree video viewer (which also supports YouTube 360 video URLs).
Image courtesy Virtual Desktop
As you’d hope from a paid app, it continues to be well-supported by the developer, and has received several useful updates over the past year. Its motion control support includes an alternative ‘touch screen’ style intended to be less tiring and more precise compared to the common ‘laser pointer’ mode. It includes an HDR-optimised cinema room for watching movies, and has seen various video improvements, including a software decoding fallback, playback speed settings, and more accurate fisheye projection. It can also function as an excellent replacement for the standard SteamVR desktop mode, adding a new shortcut to the SteamVR launcher.
A recent update to Virtual Desktop adds support for Cylindrical Timewarp Layers, a feature which improves screen clarity for Rift users, meaning visual fidelity should be about on-par with what you’d get in Oculus Dash.
