The Oculus SDK 0.4.3 has introduced a new feature that is generating quite a lot of controversy on the network, it is the vignette effect, which consists of slightly blurring the image on the left and right edges. It is an optional feature of the SDK, and developers may or may not use it, at their discretion, or even expose it in the options for the user to decide. But what is good and bad about this vignette?
There are opinions for all tastes, but the use of this vignette implies something very clear and obvious: the FOV or viewing angle is slightly reduced, since now we do not perceive a vertical line where the screen ends to the left and right of our vision, but we observe a slight gradient that makes the transition to black is not as abrupt as before. One of the two sides openly criticizes any reduction in the FOV, no matter how small, since if there is one thing we all want it is a higher horizontal FOV.
But on the other hand, there are some voices that are rising in favor of the vignette, since they find it much more natural for the image to gradually fade to black instead of noticing that abrupt cut in the form of vertical lines. Some even claim that it is now more real and that it favors the decrease of dizziness, the loss of FOV being practically insignificant. With the DK1 it was not a problem since the screen was larger and the lenses did not reach the horizontal limits of the image, so that the lenses themselves made the vignette effect. As for the future commercial version… well, at the moment we cannot know if the lenses will make it necessary to use this effect.
At the moment we can see it in the desktop demo in the Oculus control panel and in the Tuscany version compiled with the latest SDK. During the next few days there will be more demos that update to the SDK 0.4.3 and many of them will allow activating and deactivating the vignette at our whim, so… what do you think about this new functionality? Do you like it, do you think it should be forced on all demos? Maybe you prefer the vertical cut lines as they were until the previous version? Should it be something configurable to the user’s liking?
