Robotics specialist and ex-Valve VR expert join Oculus Rift team

Two industry veterans have been brought on to the Oculus Rift team to work on its technology. Oculus VR has announced that Steve LaValle, a renowned researcher of robotics, and former Valve VR expert Tom Forsyth have both joined the team.

Courtesy of Gamasutra, Oculus announced the news on its blog, with the following comments:

"Steve's leading research and development on some of the toughest VR challenges including sensor fusion, magnetic drift correction, and kinematic modeling."

"Tom’s last two decades found him working at some of the industry’s most innovative companies including Valve, Intel, and RAD Game Tools. Tom just recently left Valve, where he was working on Team Fortress 2 in VR with Joe Ludwig and Michael Abrash."

Tom Forsyth also had this to say, "The Rift is a great bit of kit and combines a bunch of different technology together in a very clever package. It was amazing working with it on Team Fortress 2 and seeing the extra immersion people felt inside a game they already knew so well. I'm really looking forward to helping other developers work with this tech as we go towards a consumer version."

Steve LaValle has created a development blog for those wanting to follow his work at Oculus.

Valve let go of 25 employees back in February, two of which were able to take their work with them to form Technical Illusions where they continue building their vision of an Augmented Reality headset.