4 Sending Output to the Rift: Working with the display

 

This chapter covers

  • Targeting the display, in windowed and full screen mode
  • How the Rift is different from a conventional display; why it matters to you
  • Performing the required distortion on pre-rendered images

The Rift contains a specialized display system, consisting of the rectangular LCD or OLED panel typical of standard monitors, but also includes lenses to modify the perception of that panel and an enclosure to mount the panel in a fixed position relative to your eyes, as well as partition the panel so that each eye sees only one half of the panel.  The beauty of this display is that it mimics real human vision with a large field of view and different images presented to each eye.

Getting images that can be properly displayed on the Rift can be a bit daunting at first.  From the perspective of the operating system, the Rift is seen as simply another monitor.  But from a rendering perspective it isn’t just another monitor. When rendering for the Rift you need to account for its unique design and in this chapter we will take a closer look at what distinguishes the Rift display from working with a conventional monitor and we’ll show you how to address some of those differences. While we won’t be able to address every issue in this chapter, we will be taking solid first steps towards rendering to the Rift.

OS specific concerns

Window decorations

Creating a Full Screen Window

How we counteract the lens distortion

Why not just use better lenses?

Setup OpenGL

Oculus SDK platform specific types

Oculus SDK texture setup

Oculus SDK distortion setup

Rendering frames