Game Developers Conference 2013 organizers have announced the recent addition of two talks from Valve that discuss porting Team Fortress 2 to VR goggles - plus research and development challenges for head-mounted displays and tracking systems.
These talks are part of the Programming and Design tracks of the GDC main conference that will take place March 27-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.
These efforts have included "what stereo support entails, rendering 2D user interface in a 90 degree field of view display, dealing with view models and other rendering shortcuts, and how mouselook can interact with head tracking in a first person shooter." Ludwig will also share ideas on how a game specifically designed for virtual reality could avoid many of the issues that Valve faced when porting Team Fortress 2.
The talk will include "technical content involving head-mounted display hardware and its interaction with the human perceptual system," with Abrash examining one real world discrepancy to which human perception is sensitive. Those curious about the possibility of a platform shift to virtual and/or augmented reality are encouraged to attend.
For more information on these or others in the show's growing lineup, check out GDC 2013's official Schedule Builder, which continues to add new talks every week. The deadline for discounted Early Bird passes is February 13th. GDC 2013 itself will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
I did some work with this subject a few years ago. I can't get to IGF but I'm curious to know how Valve dealt with the VR sickness syndrome. it's a bit like travel sickness in that your eyes are giving you different information to your alimentary canals ; the bit you use for balance. There were a few folks out there testing moving platforms at the time and one fairly successful attempt was made by a chap in the United States. Unfortunately he couldn't get the funding to make his ideas commercially viable, despite his ewuipment being used in Army training. If anyone is interested I'll dig out my research and you can contact the folks involved. email me at andy.stennett@sky.com
