Minecrift is the impressive Oculus Rift mod for the ever-popular Minecraft (2011). The mod has supported the Oculus Rift DK1 on Minecraft version 1.6.4 for some time. Now, developer StellaArtois has received the DK2 and is working to update Minecrift to support both the Oculus Rift DK2 and the latest version of Minecraft.
For those living under a rock, Minecraft is the indie smash hit that throws players into a procedurally-generated world made of cubes. Players can break and place cubes to create homes, forts, and plenty more. Some play for the Lego-like building functionality, and others play for the adventure of Survival Mode. Whatever reason people are playing, at more than 16 million copies, Minecraft has become the best selling game of all time on PC. Across all platforms, Minecraft has sold nearly 54 million copies.
Minecrift is an ambitious mod which turns the title into an impressive virtual reality experience, developed by Mabrowning and StellaArtois. Beating Minecraft developer Mojang to adding VR support to the game (even before Mojang’s owner, Markus “Notch” Persson, pulled away from the idea), Minecrift has allowed users to step into the cubic world with the Oculus Rift DK1 on version 1.6.4 of the game for some time.
The mod features an incredible amount of configuration options, allowing users to hone the experience to their liking. It even supported positional tracking on the DK1, for users with a Razer Hydra, long before the DK2 was announced.
Now, developer StellaArtois is readying an update to the mod which will add support for the Oculus Rift DK2 (including native headtracking) and also, quite importantly, updating the mod to work with Minecraft 1.7.10, the latest version of the game. Because Minecraft is constantly updated over time, users wanting to play in VR have been stuck on version 1.6.4 of the game. The forthcoming update to Minecrift will allow users to enjoy the game’s latest features in virtual reality.
StellaArtois shared their first impressions of the Oculus Rift DK2:
Pros
- Low persistence? WOW. This just works.
- The screen resolution is a lot better. Not perfect, but a lot better. 1440p or 4K will be AMAZING.
- The DK2 with the new SDK and dynamic prediction—this has reduced perceived head-track and positional latency to just about NILL. Stunning.
- Positional tracking? Oh wow. This just WORKS. Very nice. It feels so much better than our attempt to use the hydra for positional tracking. Now where’s the ability to add additional tracking cams? The tracking frustum is a little too small currently when the camera’s close to you.
- Zero yaw drift.
- I didn’t notice the additional weight really, although it definitely needs to be lighter for CV1
- Better ventilation
- Very nice quality kit, I love the Oculus branding flourishes on everything (yes, I am an engineer by profession!)
Cons
- The chromatic aberration correction looks like it needs tweaking – it’s still quite pronounced.
- Bizarrely with display overdrive on I seem to get worse smearing than with it off. Maybe I have a bit flipped somewhere…
StellaArtois notes only that the Minecrift DK2 update will come “soon.” We’re looking forward to it!
