I din't get why you would need glasses for vr if you are nearsighted. In that case you would only need help seeing things far away sharply. But the lenses are right in front of your eyes. So how is that a problem? On the other hand I always presumed that farsighted people would have a problem since they cannot see stuff near them sharply. Svennoj, you said it is about the focal point of the lenses?

Some more hype for Resident Evil. It's amazing how different characters feel in VR




Combat is so intense!


So relax with a bit of pinball in between


Or soar like an Eagle, this will get even better with eye tracking (fully head tracking controlled)




Such a weird game, left an impression


It would be epic but won't happen I bet, DriveClub full game for PSVR2 would be amazing. Sadly no rain nor dynamic time on PSVR.


More like this pls


Work up a sweat in Beat Saber


And many more! So hyped for PSVR2!

Yes the lenses make it so the actual screens are focused at 2 meters (or maybe more) away from you. The 2 inch LCD screens appear to be huge floating screens on the other side of the room. Hence the Vergence-Accommodation conflict which is something you ahve to get used to in VR, or rather with stereoscopic projection.

It's the same as 3D cinema, screen far away need glasses if short sighted. 3D objects that appear right in front of you still have the same focal point as the screen they are projected on. So you don't need (can't) change the focus of your eyes to nearby. Basically there is no depth of field in VR, everything is always sharp at the same focal length. A finger right in front of your eyes is the same focus as the background.

Eye tracking can help identify what you are looking at and simulate depth of field that way by applying dof techniques to the image. But it can't change the focal point. There are experimental variable focus headsets, but that's future generation stuff.

https://phys.org/news/2022-09-variable-focus-thin-lens-augmented.html
Researchers have developed a thin lens with a continuously tunable focal length. The new lens could one day make visual fatigue from augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) devices a thing of the past.

For now the focal point is fixed and set to far away.

The ELI5, the lenses refocus the light from the screen, so that it appears to be ~2m away.  

Basically different shapes of lenses change where the light converges. Your eye changes shape a little bit if you are looking at far away objects or near objects. 

Even though the screen is ~2 inches from your eyes, it refocuses the light so that it converges at ~2m. 

If you're looking through a focused lens, your eyes basically need to match the lens. 

Some of the VR headsets were supposedly focused at infinity. As I said before, most of the current ones as far as I'm aware, are focused at around 2 meters. Not exactly sure what the reasoning for that is. Probably a combination of reducing eye strain, and probably that it's a good fit for physical movement. It's about 2 arm lengths away. 

As SvennoJ mentions, there is new tech on the horizon that would allow the headset lens to change focal length. 

That would actually be great news if PSVR 2 if focused at around 2 meters. They did change the lens design as this patent suggests
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/02/sony-has-patented-a-method-to-fix-god-rays-in-vr-headsets-like-psvr2/
The tear down video clearly shows the fresnel lenses while psvr 1 had traditional curved bulky lenses.

At 2 meters I can still see much more without glasses. (Even better when high, thc seems to relax your eyes, makes it possible for me to read the subtitles on TV without glasses. Although horror games in VR while high might be a bit too much!)

I guess it's user specific what the actual focus distance 'feels' like. All I can find that relates to focal distance on it is this:

What is PS VR Cinematic mode?
This is a mode to view the PS4 system UI and all non-VR games and applications on a virtual screen. This screen has varying sizes from Small (117 inches), Medium (163 inches) and Large (226 inches), placed virtually at 6 – 10 feet away (the size of the screen may feel different depending on the individual).
So PSVR was 2 to 3 meters.

FOV wasn't 'constant' either as without glasses I could place the screen closer giving it a larger fov, like sitting closer to a tv. My glasses stopped the headset from going fully in, so while sharp, the fov of the headset was slightly smaller (still quite a bit larger than the frame of my glasses though)

PSVR 2 has a wheel to change IPD by actually moving the screens in the hardware (see tear down video). This will be a nice improvement over the software IPD setting of PSVR (which many never used to properly calibrate the headset). I never bothered to change the IPD when not using glasses on PSVR1, but should have since the 'screen' moved in further which changes all the optic angles. The lenses were closer to my eyes without glasses on.

Thank you for all the helpful responses. I get it better now :)
Super hyped for GT7. Last racing game I played was probably GT5 on the ps3. This in vr is going to be crazy!

UPLOAD VR:

https://uploadvr.com/playstation-vr2-review/