So you’ve probably heard by now that Valve is set to reveal a SteamVR Dev Kit come GDC 2015 next week. Well, some folks poking around their website found a photo hidden in the source code that reveals what might be the first glimpse of the VR headset.
See Also: Valve to Reveal “SteamVR Dev Kit” Next Week at GDC 2015
So the story goes: Reddit user MeisterD2 skimmed through the source of the page that first mentioned the SteamVR Dev Kit and uncovered a link to a photo called 00_HeadsetOutline.png. Although the link was dead, MeisterD2, thought the name was suspicious enough to warrant mentioning. A day later, another Reddit user, Pluckerpluck, figured they’d try loading the image just to see if anything had changed and, voila:
Now, this very well could be the silhouette of another headset, or even of a concept rendering of a device that doesn’t even exist yet, or even generic iconography of a VR headset. But, there’s a particular amount of detail in the outline (especially in the cables) that seems strange for a mere concept rendering or iconography, and we know it isn’t any headset we’ve seen before, given the curious trifecta of plugs (which I would guess are USB, HDMI, and a Sync cable). Furthermore, if you look at the very bottom right of the photo, you can see that the artist responsible didn’t fully cover up the cable trailing off the back of the headset—leading us to believe that this was not a shape that a graphic designer came up with to represent a generic headset, but instead a silhouette made from a real photo (or photorealistic render).
And if you turn up the contrast just enough…
Just kidding. That’s actually an awesome themed render that artist Damien Labonte, whipped up, along with this humorous mockup of a 3DHead-powered Valve headset. Just so we’re clear, the silhouette is real, but the headset probably won’t take after the robots from Portal 2. We’ll learn more next week when the company reveals the unit at GDC 2015.
