[HN Gopher] When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet
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When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet
Author : nkurz
Score : 93 points
Date : 2020-12-16 05:44 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (glinden.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (glinden.blogspot.com)
| kiseleon wrote:
| I bought my Dell Visor (Windows Mixed Reality) headset for ~$230
| in early 2018. It's fun, but my computer can only run things at
| low/medium quality (i7-7700, gtx 1060 3gb). I'm in a situation
| where there is literally no reason for me to buy a new headset
| until I have at least a new GPU.
|
| It really doesn't help that you're basically stuck buying the
| facebook-locked Oculus (either the Quest with a more limited game
| selection or the Rift S which requires a good PC), spend a bit
| more and get a Vive Cosmos, or you can spend boatloads of money
| and buy the Index (or buy an old Vive and piecemeal the Index
| parts you want since the lighthouses are compatible).
|
| Any VR that is not roomscale will feel limited, and any VR that
| doesn't use some sort of tracking for the headset/controllers (IR
| based, usually) will feel clunky and will lose track of the
| controllers constantly. I tried (and loved, despite its
| limitations) Google Cardboard and Daydream, but those definitely
| never took off. Playstation VR isn't roomscale so you can't move
| around in the environment, so it's inherently limited.
|
| The Windows Mixed Reality inside-out tracking works for 95% of
| what you need to do -- overhand throws don't work reliably since
| your controller leaves the tracking area, so you have to throw
| things by doing awkward pushing motions most of the time.
|
| So again -- I'm faced with: - Upgrade to a more expensive headset
| to get better tracking but still have low/medium quality
| ($300-1000). - Upgrade my GPU to max out the quality on my
| current headset ($300-1000). - Do both ($600-2000).
|
| In all honesty, for the limited amount of time I spend in VR (1-2
| hours once or twice a week, mostly for exercise with Beat Saber
| or BoxVR) -- None of those options appeal to me. I'll just keep
| using my headset until it dies, and then we will see where we are
| at. There's not enough new features coming out (or enough new VR
| hardware in general coming out) to justify an upgrade every year
| or two, especially when it relies on my PC having sufficient
| specs to power it.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Just a small correction. The Quest can access all PC software
| that the Rift S can through Oculus Link.
| Impossible wrote:
| _Estimates of total hardware sales vary depending on what is
| considered VR hardware, but most estimates I 've seen have
| worldwide unit sales at around 5-6M in 2020._
|
| His sales estimates are a little low, unless he's only including
| PC VR. PSVR alone has sold ~5M units by most estimates. In the
| most recent Steam hardware survey, about 2% of users that
| completed the survey have VR devices, which is roughly another 2M
| users. That doesn't include Quest and Quest 2 sales (many people
| never use the link cable), or the few Rifts out there that aren't
| on Steam. So while it's highly unlikely that 6DOF VR devices have
| sold 10M units, its likely cleared 8M units and could easily
| surpass 10M in 2021.
|
| The biggest issue right now is lack of software. There isn't much
| to play at all in VR, and there are very few great VR titles and
| only a handful of good ones. For HN commenters that want the
| infinite screen experience, I unfortunately believe that will be
| relatively niche (you sell to a bunch of programmers) and none of
| the current players are really focused on enterprise as games
| have been the stickiest thing so far. Quest 2 is pretty high
| resolution and eventually a tracked keyboard and infinite office
| will ship, so it might still be the best option for a while for
| people looking for VR productivity.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Maybe he's referring to yearly sales of 5-6M
| Impossible wrote:
| Ah yeah, you're probably right. I read it as total sold
| units. He's probably right about total units sold in 2020, or
| maybe a little bit on the high end. Because we don't know
| Quest and Quest 2 sales and they're harder to estimate it's
| hard to know
| mncharity wrote:
| Perhaps part of the problem was a premature switch from
| exploration to exploitation?
|
| When Facebook bought Oculus for $$$$, the collaborative community
| which had been pushing the envelope, exploring for possibilities,
| rapidly died. People took it as a hint to switch modes. And eye-
| tracking rent seekers, already in low-volume high-cost
| exploitation mode, weren't then incentivized to support
| exploration.
|
| Gaming had dollars, and so became a dominating focus. But it also
| had challenging constraints, which further pruned exploration. Do
| you want higher resolution, to allow text and programming in VR?
| Well, a panel existed, but gaming standards of immersion and such
| were too GPU intensive for the market at that resolution, so ...
| feel free to diy it yourself. In an environment where diy was no
| longer a supported thing. Programmers - a niche market.
|
| Facebook et al, even Chinese OEMs, aren't interested in niche, or
| in making "commodity" hardware. Consumer platforms, and lock-in,
| and unicorn dreams. Even while that further cripples exploration.
|
| Nreal light AR glasses are a laptop-comparable 1080p 3D screen at
| 2 meters. As with their dev kit, consumer availability is now
| first in China, SK, and Japan, then later in Europe, and
| eventually in the US. So asia now, and maybe US late next year.
| And the glasses are developed on linux, but you can't have that -
| no unicorns there.
|
| Here's this amazing tech, and instead of an exploratory ferment,
| we wait for a few large companies to navigate patent thickets, to
| eventually meet the severe constraints of creating mass-market
| consumer devices. And then we'll dig in to exploring.
| randyrand wrote:
| As soon as 6dof VR video is easily available.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I can't put on a VR headset for more than 5 minutes without
| getting a headache. Also VR headsets have a resolution that is
| still too low to be worth trying imo, so I feel it's about
| another decade away from mass adoption.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| I don't think it's been mentioned enough that VR doesn't
| fundamentally bring anything new to the -gameplay- table. There
| are some 'experiences' that are better, like piloting games since
| they play to the "sit here and look around" model, but that
| places VR in the same category as a really awesome flight stick,
| steering wheel, or the Kinect.
|
| Mobility is a huge problem that needs to be solved. Until then,
| VR will be a peripheral like the Kinect, great for one-off
| interactive experiences involving your full body... but never
| able to deliver truly transformational gameplay.
| Kiro wrote:
| Sounds like you haven't tried Superhot. Even Beat Saber is a
| mechanic unlike anything else. Right now I'm having a great
| time in Blaston and that's also gameplay that would not be
| possible in another medium.
|
| Mobility was solved with untethered devices. Just put it on and
| start playing immediately. No dedicated area required.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| When I say mobility, I'm referring to mobility within the
| game. Within a non-VR shooter I can, in one continuous
| motion, run into and knockdown a guard, shoot his friend,
| jump through a window, run across a room, leap over a crate,
| parkour up a wall, grab a rifle, and shoot another flanked
| enemy.
|
| VR gameplay isn't remotely comparable. Perhaps it's due to VR
| linking us with our real-life limitations. In real-life, I
| doubt many untrained people can turn 90 or 180 degrees, raise
| a rifle, sight in, and fire accurately in a under a second.
|
| I'm not saying there aren't great VR games but VR doesn't
| appear to add new elements to the genres or gameplay beyond
| "now try this without an accurate mouse/keyboard/controller"
| or "you can now see a virtual representation of your hands...
| and use them to awkwardly manipulate the environment".
|
| When you say "Blaston.. (provides).. gameplay that would not
| be possible in another medium", I think that's what you're
| referring to.. the awkward manipulation of the environment.
| Blaston is a very simple 3D game that absolutely could be
| played without VR but wouldn't be nearly as goofy and fun.
| Perhaps that's it, perhaps the "akwardly
| manipulating/traversing the environment" is the unique
| gameplay that VR adds (similar to Kinect). The human element
| I guess you could say.
|
| It seems as though the trade-off is a boost in immersion for
| a simultaneous reduction in game and gameplay complexity.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > I don't think it's been mentioned enough that VR doesn't
| fundamentally bring anything new to the -gameplay- table
|
| Disagree with this strongly.
|
| VR brings realistic physical motion skills in to replace thumb-
| twiddling on controllers. When I play VR table tennis I am
| exercising my _gross motor skills_. It is a 100% different
| experience and type of skill acquisition to anything you will
| get from flat gaming. There are actually pro table tennis
| players who now train in VR because it is so realistic and of
| course they can fine tune to the nth degree what they want to
| work on. Alternatively, games like Space Pirates have you
| literally swaying and ducking bullets coming at you in 3d
| space. There is no comparison at all to me moving a joystick to
| achieve the same thing.
| coding123 wrote:
| I think it would have had Oculus not been owned by a shitty
| company. I have a hard time directly giving FB money. I'm not
| going to reward FB for anything.
| croes wrote:
| Yes and no. Without FB Oculus would already be dead. With FB it
| keeps being a niche.
| brixon wrote:
| For non-tech people they think the exact opposite. Facebook is
| a name they know and understand.
| ajcp wrote:
| When VR starts delivering on the "virtual" part of the "reality"
| concept whereby my girlfriend, uncle, or neighbor can put on a
| headset and say "why go back?"
|
| or
|
| When VR doesn't merely solve for an "immersive" experience, but
| rather provides for a better way to interface with 3D "space"
| than does a 2D monitor.
| blackearl wrote:
| I don't think I'll play a 2d rhythm game after beat saber
| lucasmullens wrote:
| Aren't most successful rhythm games already 3d? I guess I'm
| agreeing with you, DDR, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band all are
| sort of 3d, just not VR.
| ajcp wrote:
| I'm with you there, but that's one application to one sphere
| (gaming)of VR application.
|
| That being said maybe that's all "3D interface with 3D
| objects" is right now?
|
| So might be more accurate to say: When our current 2D
| interfaces like file systems/operating systems, entertainment
| (movies/tv), socializing, etc are addressed a 3D objects in a
| 3D space.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| I worked for a VR/AR platform helping 3rd parties port apps onto
| the platform for a couple of years. Low traction seemed to be a
| combination of the following related problems:
|
| 1) ROI for the platform's premium was not worth it, due to... 2)
| lack of must-have apps, due to... 3) poor ratio of difficulty
| designing a great user experience vs low number of outfits trying
| to build that software, due to ... 4) fragmentation in technology
| (AR & VR) which results in different user experience in each
| platform, and low rates of adoption especially given dispersion
| over different platforms, consequently there was far less
| financial motivation for a company to invest long term resources.
|
| With VR/AR, the obvious killer app is 3D model generation,
| because you could turn efficient workflows into money, but the
| amount of effort that has been thrown into desktop publishing is
| so much that the bar for a VR/AR app to get over is very, very
| high. If your audience is professional 3d modelers. The mouse is
| such an excellent precision instrument, it's going to be a long
| time before we have a 6 degree-of-freedom input device that can
| match it for precision and ease of long term use. The existing
| CAD companies with funds sit on large portfolios of software, and
| a fantastic VR/AR experience would devalue them, so they don't
| have a lot of motivation.
|
| Long story short, it's going to take longer than the PC
| revolution, because the adoption-conformity numbers are not as
| good. I'd guess another ten years?
| vadansky wrote:
| > The mouse is such an excellent precision instrument, it's
| going to be a long time before we have a 6 degree-of-freedom
| input device that can match it for precision and ease of long
| term use.
|
| From my experience don't most professional 3D modelers use some
| sort of pen tablet like a Wacom? Now I'm thinning I would love
| if Wacom pivoted to the VR/AR space and made a special 6 DOF
| pen you can use. I hope they don't go the way to Kodak and just
| get stuck being a pen tablet company while artists make the
| jump the VR (eventually?)
| Ruthalas wrote:
| Good call, Wacom is doing exactly that:
|
| https://developer.wacom.com/en-us/wacomvrpen
| monkeydust wrote:
| Really got into VR earlier this year with Quest 1.
|
| Managed to put together a small skunkworks team to develop an
| application to view data - goal was to gain insights through
| manipulation and viewing data in an immersive space. We had a
| novel approach to do this.
|
| Problem is COVID-19 hit so getting other people to try it became
| impossible and most target users do not have their own headset.
| We used video's to showcase but its obviously not the same.
|
| Project on ice (for now) but we felt there was definitely
| something there. What we developed was not the final killer
| product but it got people talking a lot.
|
| Its (VR/AR) time will come, that's for sure, but we need more
| 6DFs, lighter, capable standalone headsets.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Yeah - COVID has really destroyed my VR evangilism. We aren't
| even supposed to be within 1.5m of each other, let alone
| sharing phyiscal headsets. Showing a room full of people VR is
| dead now. I'm not sure how to recover that ... it's going to be
| a while at very least.
| lwansbrough wrote:
| It was pretty clear to me back in 2015-2016 that VR was going
| absolutely no where. All you had to do was try on any headset and
| evaluate it honestly.
|
| The graphics sucked, the lag sucked, it gave some people nausea
| and others an unwanted sense of vertigo. Prices for high-end
| equipment were (and still are) ridiculous and unattainable for
| the mass market. Even if you could afford it, do you also own a
| space big enough to set it up? And if you did, was it convenient
| to have to be in that space to use it?
|
| The premise of VR as a foundational technology is totally flawed.
| VR is for experiences that take you out of reality, but most
| people aren't looking for that on a daily basis. Entering VR is
| comparable to going to the movies: it's something to do once
| you've exhausted better options.
|
| To those who say the technology can never get there, I disagree.
| The market will explode once the first real AR/MR device arrives.
| People won't care what it looks like or that it has a pervy
| camera if it's the most amazing piece of technology they've ever
| used. It will be like the first iPhone - an "Aha!" moment in
| amongst a sea of products that just don't get it. It won't
| require lighthouses or setup or spatial mapping or wires or the
| social isolation of being at home, it will just implicitly
| understand the world wherever you are and will be available to
| you when you need to use it. Like a phone in your pocket.
|
| And I'm sure with the equivalent of a sleeping mask such a device
| would be VR capable as well.
|
| It's coming, but it won't be a product from a startup (anyone
| remember Magic Leap?) and not for maybe 5-10 years.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| The Quest line has been a major step up. You should consider
| updating your 5 year old opinion in a product category that is
| nascent.
|
| Also, I believe a lot of hype around VR is that it is a
| necessary first step before VR.
|
| Finally, while I agree that AR is the "mobile phone" type of
| revolutionary product, I still think VR is going to be wildly
| successful. To me, the limiting factor is the builders tools -
| it's so expensive to put together good interactive VR content.
| [deleted]
| lwansbrough wrote:
| > You should consider updating your 5 year old opinion in a
| product category that is nascent.
|
| I no longer have a Facebook account, so this is impossible
| for me, right? But let me check Google. Bulky, isolating,
| still requires controllers. Yep, nothing has changed, as
| expected. People who have staked their livelihoods on this
| technology are mad about my initial comment but the fact
| remains: nobody is buying these things, and the product
| hasn't changed meaningfully since the last iteration.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Counterpoint: you have entrenched your opinion and are
| unwilling or unable to update it, despite acknowledging
| that your inputs are 5 years out of date.
|
| To point to specifically inaccurate or misleading
| statements of yours:
|
| 1. "still requires controllers" - incorrect, hand tracking
| is a thing, and on its way to a user friendly input. It's
| not clear why controllers are a negative - do you similarly
| criticize the PS5 for having a controller and not
| meaningfully changed?
|
| 2. "The product hasn't changed meaningfully" - here,
| 'meaningfully' is a weasel word. 50% more pixels, for a
| device where pixel density is important for usability. A
| 25% ($100) price drop, in a device that is now
| significantly cheaper than gaming consoles. The ability to
| drive better graphics with a tether to a video card. (BTW,
| this is a < 2 year product cycle for a bleeding edge
| device.) What do you consider meaningful?
|
| 3. "nobody is buying these things" appears to be incorrect,
| literally and directionally. Expectations are for 3M units
| sold in 2020. Pre-orders were 5x for Quest 2 versus Quest
| 1. Perhaps you meant to say "me and my friends haven't
| bought one"?
| aronowb14 wrote:
| Totally agree with the sentiment in this post. I've been working
| in VR for about 5 years now and came to this conclusion a couple
| weeks ago. There simply are better alternatives to mostly every
| VR application.
|
| Also, I do think the "Killer app" for VR has already been found:
| education. The US Military, Airforce, and NASA has been using VR
| for decades for training for example, and will continue to use
| them. There are several startups working on adapting VR education
| to other high-end use cases like surgery and enterprise training
| as well. I think those will still be niche, but will probably
| make for a couple companies with longevity in the end.
|
| There are some unexplored but interesting pieces to the VR puzzle
| that also haven't been either invented or put together yet:
| better hand tracking, better haptics, better eye tracking, better
| displays, and lighter headsets for example. Potentially some
| combination of these will result in a 'must have' application for
| VR. Who can say when this will happen though.
| rchaud wrote:
| I picked up a GearVR headset w/ my Galaxy S7 phone in 2016, and
| was really impressed with the graphics and immersion in the games
| I tried. There really wasn't any kind of killer app, like say
| Pokemon Go was in the summer of that year. After a few weeks of
| use, the novelty wore off and I haven't used it since.
|
| Considering the massive success of group games like Jackbox.tv
| and Among Us, I think the killer app for VR has to have a group
| competition or co-op element. Single player VR stuff was cool but
| felt pretty isolating.
| lo_fye wrote:
| It started to take off in October, with the release of the Oculus
| Quest 2, which is out of stock all over the place. It has nearly
| doubled Oculus' userbase on Steam in just 2.5 months despite
| their various other headsets having been out for years.
| medium_burrito wrote:
| I have a Quest2 and motion tracking is great, but the
| resolution/blurriness bothers my eyes a lot, to the point where
| it gives me a headache. Now it could be with not wearing
| glasses, but I tried it with contacts and it still bothered me.
| My wife meanwhile has no issues. Is this a common issue?
| istorical wrote:
| It's likely that the resolution/blurriness are not
| responsible for your headache, but rather the lenses and lens
| spacing, and your particular IPD. Quest 2 has low-granularity
| control over IPD settings, so you may just be a bad fit for
| the device. Check your IPD online using a webcam and credit
| card and see if its close to one of the three available
| settings on Quest 2.
| outworlder wrote:
| There are apps that can measure your IPD in seconds with a
| good degree of accuracy.
| ajconway wrote:
| Have you tried adjusting the IPD? Unfortunately, there are
| only 3 fixed positions.
| jbarberu wrote:
| I haven't tried Quest 2 specifically but had similar issues
| with Rift and HTC Vive (we had them at work). I have
| different prescription for right and left eye and was seeing
| blurry no matter how I adjusted the lenses, to the point of
| losing stereoscopic vision rendering the headset pretty much
| useless.
| croes wrote:
| That's not a take off but still a niche. The Quest 2 is more
| likely to just replace other VR headsets.
| reason-mr wrote:
| Still on the same old tired track with this. Stores can't
| keep Quest2s in stock and have you tried to actually buy an
| HP Reverb2 lately? Developers are making decent amounts of
| money out of VR titles. Users who have the headsets love
| them, and the various reddit VR groups are extremely active.
| Still, nothing to see, and it's not getting adoption. Pls ..
| croes wrote:
| Quest 2 and Reverb2 have low production numbers compared to
| the PS5 and XBox, so it's not surprising they are quickly
| out of stock. And VR is missing the you-do-not-want-to-miss
| App.
| [deleted]
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| When there is a desktop OS used for being work-level productive
| that can be used at high resolution to accomplish actual work in
| a manner that is cost-competitive to a multi-monitor setup.
| grawprog wrote:
| I have to admit, about the only thing that's really looked
| appealing to me as far as VR goes is Tabletop Simulator. The
| concept seems really cool. I haven't tried it, but looking at it,
| my guess in reality it's a bit awkward to use and probably ends
| up being more frustrating than fun.
|
| Current VR just seems not quite immersive enough to feel real or
| worth using for most things but slightly too immersive so that it
| ends up being unnerving after a while.
|
| The lack of tactile stimulation doesn't help either. I think if
| they could come up with some kind of gloves that could simulate
| pressure and touch, that worked reliably as controllers, VR would
| become more popular.
| flerchin wrote:
| VR has been a fun thing for my kids during this long pandemic. I
| don't foresee it getting much use once they can do team sports
| again.
| aaron695 wrote:
| The reason we are not apes in trees is our ability to reduce
| dimensions, not increase them.
|
| If you don't get that, then you won't understand the What, How,
| When of VR. (Hint, it's a long way off)
| ykevinator wrote:
| I left vr in 2010 because there was no commercial opportunity
| except video games and even that was not getting more than niche
| traction. If you google be headsets you'll see that the occulus
| is basically a redo of 20 year old tech. It's still baffling why
| Facebook paid so much for this.
| johnklos wrote:
| VR will become mainstream when you can play Mario Kart in VR.
|
| Forget about photorealism - cartoony, Nintendo Wii style graphics
| are much more forgivable on VR hardware. Currently, VR is bad
| considering the cost.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I still have my Nintendo virtual boy from 1996. It was
| discontinued and someone bought it for me for a steep discount,
| around $20.
| outside1234 wrote:
| I don't think VR is every going to take off - it is just too
| isolating and most people don't want a completely new world. They
| want to socialize in this one.
|
| But AR - that's different - and I think it will happen the second
| we can get a full day of use out of it in a normal glasses form
| factor. (With enterprise scenarios driving earlier larger form
| factors)
| tolbish wrote:
| > most people don't want a completely new world. They want to
| socialize in this one.
|
| The popularity of video games proves that is demonstrably
| false.
| egypturnash wrote:
| _Chris Pruett, who runs part of Oculus, speculated about that,
| saying: "My guess would be something that is highly immersive,
| that involves active motion of your body, and ... it's probably
| going to be something that you either play with other people or
| is shareable with other people."_
|
| VRChat.
|
| More and more of my furry online circles are constantly posting
| VRChat videos and photos. Give it a year or two of the gear
| needed dropping in price and I think it may finally explode in
| usage.
|
| The 'rona helps here; all the furry cons have been cancelled but
| furries still want to be cartoon animals at each other. There
| have been virtual cons via VRCHat already. I don't have the spare
| cash to get a vr setup myself so I can't talk about how well they
| went off, but I bet the virtual-first cons founded this year are
| not gonna go away just because physical gatherings are safe
| again...
| chris_st wrote:
| I wonder how many people, like me, tried it on a friend's
| equipment and found that the motion sickness is just impossible
| to get past.
|
| I had motion sickness when I tried the early first-person
| shooters, but got over it when I learned to keep the (non-moving)
| screen bounds in mind. That' just impossible in VR, and when the
| motion in my eyes doesn't match my vestibular system, wow, it's
| bad.
|
| Sigh... some of the games were amazing.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Things like motion sickness and the screen-door effect are
| results of lower refresh-rate/resolution than what should be
| used for VR.
|
| It's very sad that as of right now, you're forced to choose
| movement freedom (e.g. Vive Wireless) OR the highest refresh
| rate / highest resolution (Valve Index). And don't get me
| started on the proliferation of low quality "mixed reality"
| headsets. Honest enthusiasts have no options for high quality
| "world scale" VR. The best VR experience is STILL found this
| way, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvB07X84HM - but it
| requires a shitty headset compared to the Index.
|
| VR most likely would have ended up with the same experience
| (but better quality) if the manufacturers built better quality
| headsets with wireless and higher resolution (most likely
| attached to a high quality laptop in a backpack), priced it
| more highly (1500-2000$+ in kits like the youtube video), and
| then let VRs merits sell itself, rather than allow half-baked
| headsets to frustrate and dissuade people.
| outworlder wrote:
| YMMV I guess.
|
| I have a pretty high tolerance for motion sickness in VR.
| However, if I play something like No Man's Sky for one hour, in
| the normal locomotion mode, my mouth will start to water, which
| for me is a prelude to nausea, so I have to stop. That's goes
| for other games too, even if the blank the peripheral
| vision(although that helps).
|
| I can play for 10 hours straight (and I have) if I use the
| teleportation mechanism.
|
| I'll get nauseous in Subnautica.
|
| A few people have tried Beat Saber, they all seem to have been
| ok.
|
| Planes, cars, spaceships don't bother me. My wife threw the
| headset away in Elite Dangerous when the ship banked. But I
| feel perfectly fine. Shouldn't that make me nauseous too? After
| all, things are moving and the vestibular system is not
| registering anything.
|
| Maybe that's because we are used to cars? And could it be that
| the nausea can be "trained" away?
| istorical wrote:
| I have to simultaneously agree with you (and even go further
| and state that the existence of 3-degree-of-freedom devices
| like Samsung GearVR which was cheap enough to be passed out and
| demo'd everywhere) really gave people terrible first
| experiences, both in terms of giving them low expectations in
| terms of motion sickness and also resolution.
|
| But the reason it's really bittersweet is you _don't_ have to
| get motion sick in VR, if you just try experiences that don't
| take control of your in-game/in-experience "camera" and move it
| without any input from your physical head. In other words, as
| long as the camera in-game only corresponds 1 to 1 to your real
| life head movements, there is no motion sickness for the vast
| vast majority of users. I've given tons of demos and beat saber
| won't make new users sick. Superhot won't make new users sick.
| Echo VR, Skyrim VR, anything that doesn't map head movement ->
| camera movement 1:1 has a 75% chance of making a new user sick,
| whether immediately and badly or after a medium duration
| experience and mildy.
|
| But people who are early adopters and have overcome the hump of
| nausea and forgotten how it feels continue to expose new users
| to poorly chosen first experiences with joystick movement or
| even worse - just straight up camera movement entirely unmapped
| to user input. That and naive users not realizing they need to
| limit their first experiences to non-joystick locomotion
| experiences.
|
| It's a bit like if everyone who tried alcohol for the first
| time took 10 shots of vodka and then span in circles for 10
| minutes straight instead of sipping an alcopop or a beginner
| wine or beer.
|
| There are also hardware solutions like vibrating motors you
| place on your wrists (or neck/near-the-ear?) that could help as
| well.
|
| And vignetting and tunneling approaches to keep a fixed frame
| of reference in the users field of view for those that are
| advanced enough to begin with joystick movement.
|
| But anyway, in 2020 the most compelling use-case is still porn.
| And laughably, many people who may have tried VR porn in 2016
| or who only viewed free/old/poorly-made files have also had
| that well poisoned for themselves as well, while newer, higher
| quality VR film (and porn) is incredibly more realistic and
| immersive than early attempts or that which you could find on
| pornhub.
| bullen wrote:
| The major (unpopular) reasons for VR plateau:
|
| - Fresnel lenses!
|
| - No haptic feedback?
|
| - Closed hardware/software.
|
| Unfortunately in the future electricity prices will mostly limit
| VR to non-realistic graphics, f.ex. Cyberpunk 2077 can't render
| (full blast) at 60 FPS on a 350W 3090, so to get 90FPS on both
| eyes you would need (if it was possible, it's not) more than 3x
| 3090 at a whopping 1000W!
|
| And this is at peak everything: memory speed and litography; with
| cheap- energy, hardware, (food, rent too) etc.
|
| The final medium is not VR, it is regular 3D MMO action
| potentially with server-side neural-network brained mobs/npcs!
| How is that progressing Mr Carmack?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Considering the ridiculous pace of progress for GPU performance
| we've seen in the last few years, coupled with NN-based
| upscaling of frames, foveated rendering with eye tracking, and
| the fact that you've cherry-picked a game whose performance is
| wildly unoptimized with graphics that are on the absolute
| cutting edge of what PCs can handle, I imagine there are still
| many possible scenarios that could play out over the next
| decade or so where VR with reasonably realistic graphics by
| today's standards is not only possible to do on a normal PC
| power budget, but even with a mobile/tablet chipset, as in the
| Oculus Quest or some similar standalone headset.
|
| Things would get really interesting if Apple decided to enter
| the standalone VR/AR arena with their cutting edge ARM chipsets
| kraftman wrote:
| foveated rendering should solve this if it can be done well, as
| you're only rendering high quality where the eye is looking.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Last time I did a napkin math, cone size required for
| foveated rendering with current latency and framerate to
| match slew rate of human eyes basically equals to the whole
| FOV of typical headset that it's pointless to implement.
| quadcore wrote:
| Easy: when this platform will have a killer app other platforms
| cant have.
| jedberg wrote:
| I didn't think I'd love my Quest as much as I do. I got it on a
| whim because someone here on HN was offering theirs for sale at a
| discount.
|
| I wish I had more time to play it! I'll put it on and start
| playing, and two hours later I'm still going, I'm exhausted from
| the workout, and I don't want to stop.
|
| And my six year old loves it too! She loves to draw in 3D. She
| loves the YouTube VR roller coasters, especially because she
| isn't big enough for the biggest coasters just yet.
|
| And every other person whose tried it loves it too (sadly with
| lockdowns I don't get a chance to share very often because I
| don't see a lot of people and have to quarantine the unit for two
| days every time I loan it out).
|
| My sister in law is an artist so I dropped her into the 3D paint
| program. In 10 minutes she had made a beautiful 3D sculpture from
| nothing. My brother refused to give it up for days because he
| couldn't stop playing.
|
| And I just got a second unit from Amazon to participate in a
| virtual world experience for re:invent, and it was the most
| awesome way to have a remote meeting! The sound is directional,
| so you have an idea of who is talking, and the avatars have
| hands, so you can see people's hand movements as well as their
| head and body movements. It adds so much to the conversation to
| see body language.
|
| Let's just say I'm a bigger fan than I thought I'd ever be.
| Especially since the last time I tried it it got really motion
| sick, but that was years ago. The tech has come a long way.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and
| the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as
| my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the
| future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already
| an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from
| hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will
| have gone away and I'll have tired of waiting too.
|
| But for all you jaded folks out there, let me tell you that this
| is an absolutely unstoppable evolution of computing. All
| entertainment since sung epic poetry has aimed to briefly take us
| into another world. Plays, novels, movies, theme parks, and video
| games have always offered immersive fantasy. This is the ultimate
| fufilment of that very human impulse, to consciously enter
| another world. If we lose sight of that, then it will be up to
| the next generation of technologists to create it.
| qznc wrote:
| Flying simulators seem make a comeback and they sound great for
| VR. MS Flight Simulator was well received. A colleague of mine
| praised Star Wars Squadrons as a great VR game.
| site-packages1 wrote:
| I played with a really nicely Oculus set up the other day, it
| was totally amazing and immersive. In particular this was a
| racing sim, and when I was headed toward a wall I got the
| feeling like in a real car when you're about to hit something.
| It was very cool.
|
| Unfortunately, I lost my lunch after 5 minutes or so and had to
| lay in a dark room for a couple hours to get over a bout of
| nausea. Excited for the future though if they can solve that
| problem for people like me (I also get seasick easily).
| teach wrote:
| I'm curious which Oculus headset you were using. All the ones
| that plug in to a PC are fairly underpowered even compared to
| the Oculus Quest 2.
|
| Nausea is heavily tied to framerate and latency -- a really
| beefy machine with a Valve Index should be a lot easier on
| your lunch.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I'm not surprised you got nausea from a racing sim. It takes
| time to get your "VR legs" and anything with artificial
| locomotion is absolutely terrible for this. I started with
| about 2 weeks of games where the only movement was with my
| own two feet and the VR world always matched up to my real
| body movements. Then I was able to gradually handle more and
| more intense artificial movement. Jumping, heights, speed,
| and smooth turning are the worst of the bunch and still make
| me a bit uneasy if I overdo it. Jumping right into something
| with intense movement is going to program you brain to have a
| very negative association with VR and will take you backwards
| on VR acclimatization.
| hnick wrote:
| I wonder if there is any hangover of this acclimation when
| going back to the real world? If you get immune to that
| feeling of danger when driving towards obstacles, will it
| show up in a real car?
|
| I know that personally I once binged GTA V hard over a week
| or so, and had to catch myself before I started driving on
| the wrong (right-hand) side of the road one day out of
| habit.
| rainonmoon wrote:
| Given that VR requires an interface, it seems a stretch to say
| it's the "ultimate fulfilment" of entering another world.
| Before even getting to the philosophical inquiry about what
| would truly constitute an Us and its actual, for real entering
| of another world, that it's mediated by a big headset seems to
| put it still many iterations prior to its ultimate realisation.
| dougmwne wrote:
| That is actually the magic moment I've had, tech without an
| interface. Or to put it another way, it has moments of
| seamlessly using the interface I was born into, natural
| kinesthetic movement and realistic physics.
| brodie wrote:
| The real world has plenty of interfaces too. Surely VR will
| eventually approach the same level of seemingly physical
| interfaces as the distinction between the real and the
| virtual starts to break down.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| i'm still on quest 1 and it's honestly amazing, it's a great
| workout for me, someone that is/was fairly unfit and hates
| exercise. Using FitXR and Beat saber (with some additional
| handles that add a bit of weight) really get my heart rate u p
| and feeling great and most of all I really enjoy it. It's
| amazing.
|
| I also enjoy watching movies in it as well, I don't watch a lot
| and was considering buying a TV but this has really delayed me
| doing so.
| aksss wrote:
| Predicting the future of technology isn't too hard, it's
| predicting the timing accurately that people tend to fail at. I
| don't have a lot of experience with all the headset variations,
| mostly Oculus and PS, but it's clear to me that we're still in
| a hype stage and the hardware has a long, long way to go. I'm
| guessing 10-20 years before it starts approaching what we're
| after.
| inventtheday wrote:
| ya it's a slow burn, but I think the September '20 - September
| '21 period will end up seeing roughly the unit sales mentioned
| in their bet. Quest 2 is making a large impact.
| fossuser wrote:
| The headsets are pretty cool - I've played with all of them
| except for the Valve Index.
|
| Though there's something unpleasant about them that keeps me
| from going back when the novelty wears off. I think it might be
| because I don't want to be standing and moving around when
| playing a game and if you're not doing that, the motion is kind
| of unpleasant.
|
| I'm not sure this is something it can really overcome. I think
| an AR overlay of our actual world is more likely to be the next
| real platform (assuming the hardware is possible to pull off
| something like this).
|
| Being in VR is just kind of an unpleasant/isolating experience
| for me and I'm a pretty early adopter of most things.
|
| In other people I've mostly seen a small number of games
| (mostly beat saber) keep people coming back, but I haven't seen
| most people keep using it once the novelty wears off outside of
| that.
|
| I think there are probably some narrow applications where it's
| clearly better than not having it, but I'm skeptical of VR as a
| platform.
|
| Maybe when the hardware is 10x better/lighter it'll be a
| difference experience? We are pretty early on in the medium,
| movies and tv were pretty bad for the first fifty years. It
| might just take a while for people to figure out how to use VR
| well.
| noir_lord wrote:
| > I think it might be because I don't want to be standing and
| moving around when playing a game and if you're not doing
| that, the motion is kind of unpleasant.
|
| Project Cars 2 and DCS make it worth the headset alone -
| throw in Elite Dangerous and No Man Sky and I have enough VR
| entertainment to keep me busy for the foreseeable.
| StavrosK wrote:
| For some reason, Elite Dangerous throws the graphics into
| low for me, no matter what settings I have. On the computer
| it looks great, whenever I put it on the Quest 2 it looks
| horribly pixelly.
|
| Even so, it's _incredibly_ immersive, and if that problem
| gets fixed it 's going to be amazing.
| shostack wrote:
| I'm dying for gaming PC parts to become more available to
| build a new rig. I hacked together my OG Pixel XL to play
| E:D on my current potato via the Daydream headset and
| Riftcat and got to enjoy a very pixelated experience for
| all of 10 min before my phone rebooted so it wouldn't melt.
| It was still night and day.
|
| How are both those games with the Quest 2? Those two are my
| primary interested for VR but I worry about the resolution,
| frame rate, and controls with my motion sickness.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > I think there are probably some narrow applications where
| it's clearly better than not having it, but I'm skeptical of
| VR as a platform.
|
| Fitness. It is much easier to grind in a VR game for an hour
| than it is to grind on a treadmill for the same amount of
| time.
|
| I have a Quest, the games suck, but the fitness experience is
| paradigm changing. Beat Saber was and still is the Quest's
| killer app, but there are lot of similar games that keep the
| experience somewhat fresh (not to mention new beat saber
| music packs, I also use FitXR more than Beat Saber).
|
| I bought my Quest back in May 2019, it died around June 2020,
| but I was already using it a couple of hours a day by then so
| had to get a new one from a scalper (during the Pandemic,
| Quest units were hard to get). I really don't want to go back
| to life without it.
| helmholtz wrote:
| Do you suffer from disability or live under oppressive
| weather conditions? Because why not just go outside? I
| searched for Beat Saber and found that it's basically Fruit
| Ninja on VR.
|
| No disrespect to you, but I can't help but feel sad about
| the future that that video game points to. Your last
| sentence, especially, is for me really lamentable, in the
| literal sense of that word.
| vekker wrote:
| Fitness? The idea of puffing and sweating inside a heavy VR
| headset doesn't seem very alluring to me for some reason...
| Besides, I personally think fitness should be about
| reconnecting with the body and the real world, not
| "grinding" and distracting yourself while getting this
| physical thing done.
| aqme28 wrote:
| What's wrong with distraction? Plenty of people stay in
| shape as a side-effect of their enjoyment of sports and
| games. Am I not really working out when I play soccer or
| go rock climbing?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > The idea of puffing and sweating inside a heavy VR
| headset doesn't seem very alluring to me for some
| reason...
|
| It is like hanging out in a sweaty gym, you get used to
| it. But the quest isn't exactly idea for it, which is why
| I think my headset konked out after a year of heavy use.
| I hope it gets better.
|
| > not "grinding" and distracting yourself while getting
| this physical thing done.
|
| To each their own of course. Shadow boxing has been a
| thing for a few decades now, this is just shadow boxing
| to music with visual, audio, and a bit of force feedback.
| I personally need to be distracted, and I like to be able
| to keep my heart rate at 70-80% without expending extra
| will power.
| fossuser wrote:
| I got one of these for my SO: https://www.amazon.com/VR-
| Cover-Silicone-Oculus-Quest/dp/B08...
|
| It works really well and mostly solves 80% of the issue.
|
| She's _really_ good at beatsaber (top ten in global
| leaderboards for many of the songs), but plays under my
| account (just because I already had one).
|
| Somewhat comically this lead to a coworker seeing my
| username and asking me about my beatsaber ability. I'm
| pretty mediocre myself.
| dougmwne wrote:
| It did not sound remotely interesting or compelling to me
| until I tried it. It turns out it's a great way to get
| moving without feeling like you're putting work into it.
| For example, I've been using Thrill of the Fight to de-
| stress after work. It's incredibly effective at that
| because your brain gets tricked into thinking you're in
| an actual fight and millions of years of fight or flight
| stress response kicks in. Afterwards three rounds you
| feel the kind of release from stress that it would take
| hours of traditional stress management techniques to
| achieve. All without the head trauma!
| blensor wrote:
| We are developing an open source VR fitness game and
| after almost a year of exercising im VR I can tell you
| that in my case the sweat inside of your headset is not a
| problem but you should use the right VR cover. The stock
| ones of the Quest are very hard to keep clean.
|
| The sweat on the rest of your body is a completely
| different issue. After about 40 minutes of VRWorkout I
| usually look like coming fresh out of the shower. Without
| VR I could never build up the willpower to "grind on" for
| so long.
|
| Our game does not try to put the game aspect first but
| the workout. The game elements are subordinate to the
| movements if your body and the muscles you are using not
| the other way around.
|
| That's something we have can't compromise on since the
| movements that are expected from the player (jumping,
| pushups, crunches, burpees) should not be compromised by
| trying to achieve some arbitrary goal like hitting an
| enemy.
|
| Here is a video of this crazy idea
| https://youtu.be/mFYzaQzsUI4
|
| [1] VRWorkout https://vrworkout.at
| Kiro wrote:
| This looks awesome. I'm playing FitXR for upper-body and
| Pistol Whip for lower-body but I really want a tailored
| experience.
|
| Any idea when it will be released natively on Quest?
| blensor wrote:
| We are mainly using SideQuest and Steam, we don't expect
| Oculus to approve this in the official store so the time
| is better spent on the development side.
|
| BUT, Oculus will officialy allow third party games in
| some form starting early in 2021. So if you are not a
| SideQuest user you will still be able to use it hopefully
| soon. Although I'd really recommend SideQuest it adds a
| lot of value to your headset.
|
| Another alternative would be to use our experimental
| WebXR version, but that is really only for a quick peek,
| it's not on par with the native version, not even close.
| Kiro wrote:
| Thanks! I might have to install SideQuest just for this.
| billti wrote:
| Yeah, I used to struggle to get a work-out in most days.
| When I'm not feeling it, I play Thrill of the Fight on my
| Quest (boxing game - I'm a casual boxing fan). It's the
| most I sweat out of any workout, and I can go for 45
| without getting bored (unlike the rower or going for a
| run).
|
| I actually got the Quest 2 when it came out, but being as
| the Quest 1 plays that game fine, and I figure I'll ruin it
| by sweating into it so much, I hardly use my Quest 2 at
| this point.
|
| Untethered is the future, and once they get lighter and
| more comfortable they'll be killer devices. I do find the
| complete shut-off from the real world a little unpleasant,
| and especially fumbling around for controllers now and
| again when the unit is on my face. But otherwise, I've gone
| from skeptic to fan for VR. (And I do think longer term AR
| is where it will really take off).
| bigyikes wrote:
| Be sure to mod and side load custom Beat Saber tracks if
| you haven't already. Dancing (sabering?) to songs you
| actually know makes the whole thing way more fun.
| lqet wrote:
| > I think it might be because I don't want to be standing and
| moving around when playing a game and if you're not doing
| that, the motion is kind of unpleasant.
|
| Could this be because of the missing resistance while moving
| / throwing / touching VR objects?
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an
| incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from
| hitting its iPhone moment.
|
| Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest
| development was set back by that many years.
|
| The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that
| people who work at giant companies suck at making games.
| Impossible wrote:
| Microsoft has a good track record with making games, but yes
| all of FAANG is terrible at this. I have a little more hope
| for Facebook now that they've started acquiring studios and
| letting them run independently, instead of the previous
| combination of publishing\funding and having few internal
| game teams (which generally doesn't work in big tech anyway).
| This could lead to a model that looks more like Microsoft
| Game Studios.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > I have a little more hope for Facebook now that they've
| started acquiring studios and letting them run
| independently
|
| The reality is, the acquisition of best VR game of any
| objective measure, Beat Saber, set back VR for all game
| developers because it will rob other VR platforms of a
| doorbuster title (i.e. Beat Saber 2).
|
| Also, it enables Beat Games to keep using unlicensed music
| by fiat of Facebook's legal might, a completely
| unassailable competitive advantage that is strictly better
| than actually licensing the music and making a game with
| it.
|
| It is illustrative of how the things giant companies are
| good at, which is using their huge cash piles to achieve
| totally anti-competitive advantages, changes nothing for
| the status quo of the consumer - they don't pay for the
| music no matter who the game's owner is - but just winds up
| harming other game developers.
|
| Consider also Facebook Horizon is seeking to replace VR
| Chat, I believe the #1 free VR title by installs. How is
| that benefitting game developers and gaming culture? Just
| compare a screenshot of VR Chat here (1) to Facebook
| Horizon here (2), it tells you everything you need to know
| about why the kind of people who work at giant companies
| are awful at making games. It's so fucking sterile dude,
| and it's sterile on purpose.
|
| People have said this for eons about Disney, but it's not
| comparable. By the way, Disney also totally blundered
| Disney Interactive, shutting down under the CEO Bob Iger
| who was known as the "tech" CEO of Disney.
|
| (1) https://miro.medium.com/max/3840/1*I5c-QMDHVPeyC35pM1V4
| Ng.pn...
|
| (2) https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/9kGJANvUNFtxp5mGEgMIDI
| 95DnA...
| Impossible wrote:
| I worked on the Horizon team, and there's only so much
| I'm comfortable saying, but I can say the team burnt me
| out and I quit.
|
| There isn't a 100% chance that Beat Saber 2 will be
| exclusive, but you're right that it's likely and if that
| happens it will be a shame. My hope is that Facebook
| moving away from PC VR as a focus means they won't see it
| as competition, and start releasing previously exclusive
| games on Steam in the same way Microsoft and Sony have
| started releasing previously console exclusive titles,
| but I won't hold my breath.
| dougmwne wrote:
| One of the best VR experiences out there was made by a
| single dev, Eleven Table Tennis. Most of what Facebook puts
| out there is mediocre tech demos and they don't seem to
| understand the strengths of their own platform enough to
| take advantage of them in their games.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I'm not even sure we are at the compelling apps stage yet. I
| think there are still very difficult hardware and software
| platform issues to solve first that are going to take tons of
| basic research. I expect the first 100 million unit headset
| to include extremely accurate eye-tracking that is used to
| drive foveated rendering, varifocal active lenses and neural
| network interpolated facial expressions for high fidelity
| social avatars. Facebook Research seems to be making good
| progress on all of that, but it will still take many years of
| additional research to perfect.
|
| Facebook wants to be the company to invent the first
| mainstream VR Metaverse, but that doesn't mean they won't
| invent the hardware and get beaten to market on the software.
| They are about to release Horizons which is clearly in this
| vein, but I expect they are still too early.
| _iyig wrote:
| > The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's
| that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.
|
| Many companies besides Facebook have developed games for the
| Quest. I guess you could say Facebook sucks at working with
| game developers, but I'm not sure if that's true either.
| Unreal and Unity have well-developed integrations with Oculus
| [0].
|
| I think where Facebook really falls down is tying customers'
| FB account to their Oculus Store purchases (and ability to
| use the Quest at all). They're applying a social media
| platform's aggressive algorithms to suspend or ban accounts
| which violate their expansive TOS, which is wrong in consumer
| product and digital marketplace space. For that reason, mixed
| with personal experience at the hands of Facebook's
| algorithms, I have no interest in developing for Oculus.
|
| [0] https://developer.oculus.com/get-started/
| [deleted]
| jnwatson wrote:
| Facebook's Quest 2 is an impressive piece of tech.
|
| One of the biggest reasons to be skeptical of VR taking off is
| that Facebook is one of the major players. Between the login
| shenanigans and their anti-competitive dealings with
| developers, they have an opportunity to single-handedly tank
| the industry.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I agree. For tech to take off you really need a significant
| "platform" player to emerge - someone that is able to
| position themselves as a middleman where the value made by
| 3rd parties significantly outweighs the value made by the
| middleman. That is what causes a technology to really bloom
| and get broadscale uptake. Facebook just isn't interested in
| that. They'd rather have a smaller pie where they own it all
| than capture a larger piece of a giant pie but be just one
| part of it.
| outworlder wrote:
| It's the ONLY player on the "stand-alone" headset space.
|
| There's some competition on PC headsets, Rift headsets are
| not even the best, feature-wise. But just like the quest,
| they score very high on the cost-benefit analysis (I guess we
| pay with a combination of cash and data).
| jonny_eh wrote:
| PSVR is somewhere in the middle but Sony has all but
| abandoned it at this point.
| outworlder wrote:
| Pretty underwhelming hardware too.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I think Facebook is in VR because they don't want the
| Metaverse to belong to anybody but them.
| dougmwne wrote:
| For sure this is his play. My early take is that the VR/AR
| social experience is absolutely the killer app and will
| beat the pants off phone, chat, social feeds and video
| calls. It will be so good that it will be the default way
| to commutate at a distance, making it a huge threat to
| Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger. I think the
| fufilment of that promise is still probably more than a
| decade out.
| fatnoah wrote:
| >For sure this is his play. My early take is that the
| VR/AR social experience is absolutely the killer app and
| will beat the pants off phone, chat, social feeds and
| video calls.
|
| And that, IMHO, is why FB wants you to use FB login for
| your VR experience.
| nitrogen wrote:
| It's also the definition of disallowed monopolistic
| behavior -- using ownership of one area to control
| another. This is more egregious if you consider "VR" as
| not "virtual reality", but "virtual relationships."
| echelon wrote:
| 100%.
|
| Zuckerberg sees that it has the potential, and he wants to
| have an early angle of attack in case someone else
| innovates first.
|
| Zuckerberg views platforms as chess pieces. He doesn't care
| what they are - he just wants the most valuable and
| strategic ones. He's not like a Musk that just builds or a
| Cook that refines product into a cohesive vision.
| Zuckerberg is playing war and finding the reverse salients.
| He's destabilizing and weakening the platform and expanding
| his reach. He's more like Bezos or Ellison.
| babyshake wrote:
| With everything happening with major movies going direct to
| streaming, I actually am expecting a big development somewhat
| related to VR in the next year or two. It's a device much
| smaller than a VR headset you wear on your face that gives you
| a theatrical quality audio-visual viewing experience, and only
| allows you to purchase/rent and not sideload anything. I'm
| thinking it could sell for around $500 and I'm pretty sure
| there's a company in Cupertino taking a close look at this.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I have been watching movies on the Quest 2 with Big Screen.
| It's a great experience and very much reminds me of going to
| the theatre.
| modzu wrote:
| yeah we can do one better with the holodeck. im not sure the
| problem is that much harder...
| vmception wrote:
| A console linked VR headset that has local multiplayer would be
| nice.
|
| The PSVR and camera doesn't even have an upgrade for PS5 yet. So
| that's too bad.
|
| Something more advanced like the Oculus Quest 2 or HTC or Valve,
| but for powerful enough hardware people and brands people already
| have would be the right move.
|
| Also an ability to ditch the external camera requirement.
|
| and also ditch the cords, but we can revisit that stretchgoal
| later.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's a hard sell for an older (early 40's) gamer like me. I have
| far more games I want to play on my expensive PC than I have time
| for (or likely ever will). To consider investing in a new gaming
| technology it would have to be more enticing than the abundance
| of stuff I already have! And a lot of the games I'm eager to play
| are sequels/remakes of things I already know I enjoy immensely,
| so to draw me away would take something big.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| As a late 20s gamer, some of my earliest gaming memories were
| formed during the flight/space flight sim boom of the 90s, so I
| absolutely adore my Vive for Elite Dangerous, Star Wars
| Squadrons, and No Man's Sky.
|
| Put it this way, for simulation gamers it's a godsend compared
| to a 3 or 4 monitor setup with head tracking.
| FrojoS wrote:
| Try VTOL VR It blew my mind You have physical buttons in your
| cockpit. It really feels like being in a plane. No flight
| stick required.
|
| Everyone interested in the potential of VR should check this
| out: https://youtu.be/LQT6sQ6o0uY
| standardUser wrote:
| Right, the type of games matter a lot. I do like first-person
| RPGs, but those are only a little appealing to me in VR so
| far. And most of my gaming (4x, strategy, builder) don't
| benefit much from VR as far as I can tell.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| For the most part, that's true. There's a couple of
| strategy/card games for VR that are nice since they're in
| sort of a "You're a god looking down at the table with the
| battle on it" perspective. Likewise Tabletop Simulator has
| decent VR support, so for tabletop strategy games it can be
| fun. It doesn't add much to the experience, though, aside
| from the ability to move your head to control the camera
| being very intuitive.
| daemonk wrote:
| I can't get past the motion sickness. I wonder what percentage of
| the willing market also can't handle it.
| stocknoob wrote:
| I tried a Oculus DK2 and got motion sick, and that's burned
| into my memory like a drink that gave you a hangover. I'm only
| going to try it again in the 5th gen after they've eliminated
| all issues.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Ginger pills can be very helpful
| agentultra wrote:
| I'm probably an enthusiast, so grain of salt, but...
|
| _warning_ : discussion about guns
|
| > Half Life Alyx seems to me to suffer from the same problem, a
| fun game with some compelling content, so great to try, but not a
| must-have. Exercise programs like Supernatural or Beat Saber fall
| in the same category, fun, cool to try, but not something without
| okay substitutes or alternatives.
|
| I think HL:Alyx is a game changer. Elite: Dangerous sold me on it
| initially. I regularly use Beat Saber to stay fit during the
| pandemic -- the recent addition of multiplayer is amazing. VR
| Chat is really awesome. I find it's not nearly as exhausting to
| hang out with friends in VR Chat than a Zoom meeting.
|
| HL:Alyx -- the fidelity, performance, and detail given to the
| content is amazing. But what was unique about it for me was that
| it made exchanges with _guns_ actually harrowing and... more
| cinematic and believable. A lot of FPS ' have to band-aid around
| the fact that the player character can soak bullets/zaps/whatever
| because the lack of spatial awareness of a projection onto a 2D
| surface means most casual players are going to be running into
| the middle of a fire fight and expect to have a reasonable chance
| to win.
|
| In one of the opening scenes a soldier catches you off guard and
| points a gun right at you. In VR, without even thinking, my hands
| went up. In any other FPS, unless that interaction was scripted,
| I would have just shot back or ran.
|
| Yet even because Alyx isn't a super hero or wearing some high-
| tech recharging shield, it still feels cinematic. I'm physically
| ducking behind walls, tossing items and using bits of junk as a
| temporary shield.
|
| And it does advance the story of the HL universe so there's
| that... I wouldn't say it didn't change anything. It raised the
| bar for VR content that was lacking original content from AAA
| studios.
|
| Elite: Dangerous. VR changed how I play completely. I was
| instantly better at flying. The added benefit of depth perception
| improved my reaction speed and spacial awareness. I play on a
| flat monitor now and again but it's too boring and awkward.
|
| Although you can't argue with the numbers -- it's not mainstream
| in the way that a Nintendo Switch or other game system is.
|
| But I wonder if that's not so much a content issue but if there
| were other factors involved like, say, how FB has managed Oculus
| or how it wasn't deeply discounted at first to gain adoption like
| most new hardware platforms are.
| rocky1138 wrote:
| I know I'm late to the conversation, but one of the biggest
| unreported problems with VR adoption is that it's impossible to
| show anyone what it is like to actually experience it. You can't
| share a video or a photo with a friend and have them understand.
| They have to do it to understand it.
| blhack wrote:
| And what's worse is that the most accessible version of "VR",
| google cardboard (or equivalents) is actually a _terrible_
| representation of VR. So people will try that, dismiss VR as a
| gimmick, and not revisit it again.
|
| A proper VR rig is likely going to cost you >$2000, and it's
| going to need a dedicated room of your house. It's really
| inaccessible.
|
| But man when it works... Playing skyrim, or fallout in my vive
| was such a pleasant experience for me.
| binarymax wrote:
| Technology is not the problem.
|
| Flashback to 1995. I'm a 17 year old PFY invited to beta test a
| VR headset from a local company. My Uncle was an investor and I
| was technically savvy and the target market.
|
| I had a copy of Descent that supported VR, and while it was a bit
| of a hassle to get setup, I got it working. The experience was
| incredible. After the first use I said to myself "this is the
| future". I had permission to test the headset for two weeks, and
| I wanted my friends to see it as well.
|
| So I invited them over that weekend. And that's where the problem
| set in. When one person was using the headset, they were gone.
| You couldn't interact with them in any way. They might as well
| have been in a different room. Then I said to myself "this is not
| the future", and haven't touched VR since.
|
| There is no amount of technology that can get over this problem.
| It's not about FOV or resolution or immersion. It's a social
| problem. If you live alone at home, and want to plugin then
| great. But if you live with someone, its distant, weird, and
| kinda creepy, to have the other person in a headset and
| unreachable.
| baumandm wrote:
| Most multiplayer video games today don't ship with splitscreen
| co-op, people just play with their friends remotely over the
| internet.
|
| I agree VR isn't great for a party game or hanging out with
| your friends in your living room, but that's OK because that's
| not the experience most people are having today.
| [deleted]
| Torwald wrote:
| You can do have a sort of VR studio akin to a gym. The spots in
| these "gyms" would accommodate for everything that is needed,
| space and equipment wise.
|
| That would solve the problem the parent is stating.
|
| Monthly membership. You go there to play, later to socialize at
| the "space bar" exchanging tales of lore with other like-minded
| people.
| outworlder wrote:
| > So I invited them over that weekend. And that's where the
| problem set in. When one person was using the headset, they
| were gone.
|
| That sounds like a "not enough headsets" problem.
|
| Also, that is like lamenting the lack of co-op split-screen
| games. Many games supported that mode back in the day, they
| don't anymore. Because people are either playing over the
| internet OR bringing their own consoles.
| janjongboom wrote:
| The Oculust Quest 2 is my first VR headset, and it can cast to
| the TV. That helps tremendously with the social aspect, rest of
| the room can see what you're doing and give feedback. In
| addition we've been playing Eleven - a table tennis game - in
| multiplayer with two people in the same room (with two
| headsets) which is tremendous fun, but requires a second
| headset.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| What else do you recommend with two headsets? My significant
| other and I are getting two Oculus headsets next week.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Try Echo VR, Population One, Blaston, Hyperdash, and
| Walkabout Mini Golf. There's no real advantage to being in
| the same physical space to any of these games, but they are
| all great multiplayer titles.
| dustinsterk wrote:
| +1 to Walkabout Mini Golf, it is a blast!
| sweetheart wrote:
| Im surprised at how much time Ive clocked in this game.
| I've been playing it with a friend who lives a few
| hundred miles away, and we just put around for hours
| while catching up in virtual space. Highly recommend, if
| you know someone with an Oculus Quest 2 (not you, OP,
| just anyone reading this.)
| tootie wrote:
| Ha, the first time I tried VR it was a multi-person experience.
| Back in the early 90s, I played Dactyl Nightmare at some
| tourist location. All 4 members of my family were in the same
| "world" and could see each other. It was, like most VR games
| today, fun for about 10 minutes. There's still some interesting
| experiences being developed at portable venues (ie,
| thevoid.com).
|
| But I'd also say that FOV is really, really important. Right
| now the experience is just like putting a little TV on your
| face with an IMU. Immersion requires peripheral vision and
| spatial audio.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I agree that technology isn't the problem. I don't know if the
| problem is exactly what you describe or something else along
| those lines. But I think you are on the right track.
| rm445 wrote:
| That's a great story. I remember being blown away by Descent -
| probably the second 3D-type game I played after Doom. The
| thought of free spaceship movement through caves with 6-axis
| control was amazing - though IIRC the level design was
| carefully done to keep mostly 2D-ish with a clear up-down
| orientation. Must have been mind-blowing in VR in 1995.
|
| All that said, I think people playing alone is a big enough
| demographic to support a VR breakout, if the killer app comes
| along.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| That depends entirely on your living situation. If you live on
| your own, a VR headset becomes just the opposite - you go from
| being isolated to being in a room full of people. Those people
| can be on the opposite side of the world, but you're carrying
| on a conversation and playing mini-golf with them.
|
| Or for local play, there are one-vs-many party games where one
| player wears a headset and interacts with a group of people in
| the same room who aren't in VR.
|
| _Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes_ is a great example of this
| where the other players are referring to a paper manual to help
| you defuse a bomb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqelfBKuiic
|
| There's _Acron: Attack of the Squirrels_ where one person has a
| headset and other people play against them as the squirrels
| with their phones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP29BxhvHfc
|
| Or _Davigo_ , maybe a less social one because it's VR vs PCs
| and not likely to be in one room, where the VR player is a
| giant trying to swat at the tiny humans who are playing a 3rd
| person game where they team up and throw bombs at the giant.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL7a63MMx6Q
|
| Even if you don't have a game where other people can be
| involved, you can still cast the headset view to TVs and
| tablets. It can be plenty of fun to pass a single headset
| around taking turns in Beat Saber if everyone else can see
| what's happening.
|
| I'm guessing none of that was the case in 1995, so I wouldn't
| be so quick to stick to a 25 year old judgement of what the
| technology can do.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| And on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes you just
| accept that isolation for a while because _you get to fly an
| X-Wing_. A Quest V1 with Oculus Link is far from an optimal
| PC VR setup, but even with that _Star Wars: Squadrons_ is an
| experience I've been waiting for since I first saw _A New
| Hope_. It's hard to convey how cool it is to be sitting in a
| spaceship cockpit, dodging through asteroids and chasing down
| TIE fighters with the _pew pew pew_ of four KX9 laser cannons
| on your wingtips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE90KIBlWyk
|
| Would I play it in VR mode for hours on end every night and
| stop talking to real people? No. But not all my activities
| need to be social either. I can go for a four hour hike in
| the woods by myself and no one gives me a hard time for being
| too isolated. Or maybe they do, but I don't care because
| sometimes that's how I want to spend my time. To each their
| own.
|
| One other feature of the Quest that I should mention - you
| can double-tap the side of the headset at any time to turn
| the game world off and immediately switch to "passthrough"
| mode where you see through the headset's tracking cameras.
| This obviously works best with single player games that can
| pause themselves until you tap back in, but in those games it
| makes it no big deal to drop out of the game for a moment to
| interact with people and things in the real world. A bit
| weird to talk to you while you have a big headset on your
| face, sure. But this was added in a software update well
| after launch, and it's way better for staying available to
| the real world than needing to take the headset on and off.
| hertzrat wrote:
| When I had a headset, I think the main thing that kept me from
| using it was the inconvenience. You have to keep part of a room
| clear, deal with a mass of cables, the weight of the headset,
| its positioning on your head, finding somewhere in reach to
| store it, etc. The lightweight wireless headsets of the future
| will help a lot. Smartphone vr is promising from this angle
|
| Honestly, the privacy policy made me a bit uncomfortable too
| cynic_ wrote:
| Now compared to 1995, gaming in general seems a lot closer to
| the VR experience you describe. Local multiplayer is uncommon,
| shared gaming spaces like arcades and LANs are gone and people
| are playing games on their own devices alone.
|
| I'm as isolated playing Counter-Strike on my PC as when I am on
| the Oculus Quest.
| newsgourmet wrote:
| The other day I was looking around in my living room and every
| family member was staring at a screen.
|
| You just need a VR headset for everybody...
| [deleted]
| dalke wrote:
| I did a bit of VR around 1995. I added CAVE support for the
| molecular visualization program VMD and had a key to UIUC's
| CAVE to test it out.
|
| The CAVE approach projects images onto wall-sized screens (eg,
| via back-projection), and can be 1-wall up to 5- or 6- walls,
| if the floor/ceiling is categorized as a "wall".
|
| This is massively expensive compared to the VR that's
| widespread/affordable these days.
|
| But it's also far more social, where multiple people can be
| present, though at least in the 1990s the head-tracker only
| followed one person. And they could easily see each other.
|
| Handwaving, with the right synchronization on the glasses and
| high frame rates, I could imagine multiple head-trackers. Back
| then our frame rate was limited by the decay rate of the green
| phosphor in the projector. These days I suppose a wall of large
| displays, edge-to-edge, with very high frame rates interleaved
| for multiple users, might work. Again, I haven't followed
| what's going on in VR, but it might be a technology which
| addresses at least some of what you correctly point out.
|
| Carolina Cruz-Neira, the developer of the CAVE (and at the time
| with the email address "cavewoman"), has some lectures on the
| social VR and her research, on YouTube. Don't remember which
| ones specifically talk about it, and couldn't find one in a
| quick look.
| dljsjr wrote:
| That's an interesting take. I have some contradictory anecdata,
| though, in that my friends and I love getting together and
| taking turns playing VR games. And I'm not talking about nerdy
| hard core gamer friends. Pre-COVID we used to get together
| every few months or so for a "VR Night" at my buddy's place
| because he owned an Oculus w/ a living room TV set-up. And we'd
| just spend a few hours taking turns cycling through the game
| library and playing all sorts of stuff, and everybody loved it.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| My experience is that people are getting increasingly isolated
| anyway, so VR is great in this regard for more and more people.
| Even when people are social they're increasingly glued to their
| phones, and distant from each other.
|
| A friend and I bought quests and we both loved them except for
| one really annoying problem: space
|
| At least as of early 2020, there was a huge market mismatch
| with VR: the people that have 6'x6' or more space to play in
| live far out in the suburbs, but the people that have the
| disposable income to just by a quest just for fun tend to live
| in apartments in the city. My friend and I both had pretty
| spacious living conditions for living in a city, but we
| perpetually joked about the dream of one day having enough room
| that the occulus didn't warn about having less space than
| required.
|
| But with the sudden migration of many people out of cities and
| into more spacious suburban housing I'm curious if this will
| create an increase demand for VR. If you have an extra 10'x10'
| room that can dramatically change how fun the VR experience is.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Yes, and even if the room is large there are tables and
| break-y things that invariably interact with shins, swinging
| controllers and your ability to just fully immerse.
|
| I stopped playing VR mostly because I was tired of re-
| arranging furniture and re-calibrating the Index when I did
| so.
|
| I guess if you live in a house and have a basement or 'rec
| room' with no furniture, it's less of a hassle to play ping
| pong or Beat Sabre in VR. Otherwise it's VR Poker with its
| random social toxicity where I can sit on the couch and
| interact with people if I find a table without kids or mean
| people in it.
| bigbassroller wrote:
| " There is no amount of technology that can get over this
| problem."
|
| Wouldn't each person in the room having a VR head seat solve
| this problem?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Or just throwing the gameplay up on a monitor (either with
| cables or via chromecast)
| floorman wrote:
| I was playing VR shovelware and pavlov pretty regularly for a
| while, we just put mirror the game to the monitor so the
| spectators can spectate, and the headphones float off the ear a
| couple inches so they can hear us.
|
| It helps to have at least two friends for that scenario. for
| Just one friend you're probably better off playing a non-vr
| game and trading the controller.
|
| these days we're farther apart and one friend has a child so
| he's worried about covid. we play "ghosts" (Phasmophobia) once
| in a while.
|
| in summary: 2 friends required (minimum) mirror the screen
| headphones off the ear
| api wrote:
| It's a great opportunity to prank people though. There was
| someone testing some kind of VR app in a co-working space I
| used to frequent, and people would do things like sprinkle
| confetti on them or move things around on their desk while they
| were jacked in.
| [deleted]
| shams93 wrote:
| There's a basic usability problem I found with my VR experience
| that I cannot see what I am doing in my room, unless you have a
| large dedicated space its easy to injure yourself by accident
| because the real world is still there with AR you can literally
| still see what you are doing in the physical world while
| interacting with the tech.
| corndoge wrote:
| > Then I said to myself "this is not the future", and haven't
| touched VR since.
|
| Yeah, nothing has changed in social VR in 25 years.
|
| /s.
|
| There are multiplayer async party games that can be played with
| 10 people (I've done this a lot!). There is online multiplayer.
| Dismissing VR because you played descent on a 3dof box 25 yrs
| ago is kind of lame.
|
| > There is no amount of technology that can get over this
| problem. It's not about FOV or resolution or immersion
|
| This is frustratingly dismissive and easily disproven. Look at
| Acron: Attack of the Squirrels! Look at Keep Talking and Nobody
| Explodes!
| cma wrote:
| There are all kinds of technological solutions to that:
|
| Both have headsets (used to be a cost issue, gradually getting
| solved) and play the same thing.
|
| Or one has AR glasses and can peek into what the other is doing
| and communicate with them.
|
| An internal camera captures the face under the headset and
| presents it on the outside with correct parallax (could be
| presented with AR or with auto stereo display), AI in the
| headset can tell when someone is wanting attention etc. and use
| other cameras with depth reconstruction or depth sensors to
| fade them into the VR player's world.
| binarymax wrote:
| We're talking about widespread adoption of consumer
| technology. Everything you just mentioned is a niche
| workaround, and to be blunt, not very good ones. Sure, there
| are always going to be people who love VR, and it's really
| cool! But there's no way it becomes as popular as TVs or
| smartphones.
| elgatonegro wrote:
| Maybe that's the case but you haven't really presented any
| convincing arguments.
| jschveibinz wrote:
| Here is a good explanation on the AR/VR adoption struggles:
| https://arpost.co/2019/11/27/ar-and-vr-changed-our-lives-5-b...
|
| Gilmore and Pine "Experience Economy" suggests that we are now in
| the transformation economy. Maybe VR needs to be transformative?
| echelon wrote:
| We're still several VR hardware iterations away.
|
| Oculus, Vive, Index - these are like the pre-iPhone smart
| phones. They're bulky, slow, they kind of do their job, but
| they're not something everybody wants.
|
| VR has to get better. The resolution and FOV are terrible. The
| gameplay paradigms kind of suck because movement is such a
| pain.
|
| AR honestly seems even further away. Pokemon Go and all the
| other AR trinkets are clunky toys. I can't ever see holding up
| a device for anything other than picturing furniture in a
| space, and none of these apps even work well.
|
| An AR headset outside of industrial/military uses is a pipe
| dream that will rely on miniaturization and being fashionable.
| Google Glass wasn't cool, and nobody is going to wear a bulky
| HoloLens anywhere. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| I think you are wrong about AR, once a decent set of AR
| capable glasses hit the market I think we will see a very
| large market adoption. Very much like the smart phone and
| smart watch and tablet it will be a toy for techies until a
| company with real design chops and solid software/hardware
| gets behind it. I also believe that Apple is the most likely
| to be that company, solid design and a well liked ecosystem,
| plus a proven history at creating/shaping new consumer tech
| device markets. Apple AR Glasses have will likely be a huge
| success. It helps a ton that ARKit 4 and the new Lidar
| sensors on the pro level devices are next level good over the
| current AR software.
| imglorp wrote:
| This might not be a tech or business problem. Remember
| Google tried AR with Glass -- decent hardware and UI -- and
| ran into an uncomfortable social valley, eg "glassholes".
| Turns out people don't want pervasive video recording in
| every social situation.
|
| That said I think there are still unexplored workplace
| markets like medical, mechanical etc.
|
| There seem to be a very, very small number of consumer
| applications: heads up nav display for bicycle/motorcycle
| operators comes to mind.
| com2kid wrote:
| > , and none of these apps even work well
|
| Modsy works well, but it is a curated hands on experience.
|
| That said, the end product is really nice.
| mchusma wrote:
| In my opinion, I think the takeoff point for virtual reality for
| office use is: 1) Reasonable price point (Quest 2 hits that) 2)
| Text must be easily clear and legible. Quest 2 does not really
| hit that, but high end units seem to.
|
| So it seems like we are about 1 generation away from having
| something mainstream for work, so probably 2 years away.
|
| We are a remote team and I decided against Quest 2 but was
| borderline due to text legibility. I would probably buy everyone
| a Quest 3 though as a way to interact on some things.
| aeturnum wrote:
| When I think about VR I think about my developer friend who would
| never spend more than $100 on a cell phone. He'd always lose or
| break phones, so he just started buying the cheapest Android
| phones he could. His camera sucked and he'd run out of memory,
| but it was still a phone and we could still text him. He had a
| "smartphone" and all of the utility it provided even though it
| was cheap and low-end.
|
| When people talk about how VR hasn't taken off like they expect,
| I really wonder about their understanding of technology. As a
| high end technology, I think VR is doing great. There are some
| pieces of work that people like, but the state of the technology
| reminds me of smart phones circa 2008[1]. Technology is getting
| better, but there's substantial disagreement about what a "good"
| experience needs. Do we need higher resolution? Easier access?
| Better integration? Obviously all of them are good but the point
| is that the field is still very much in flux and even people who
| have spent thousands of dollars on a nice setup are looking
| forward to the next generation.
|
| I also think about LCD televisions. I don't really know what
| their sales numbers are over the years, but Wikipedia tells me
| they started selling more than CRT TVs in 2007[2]. They came on
| the market in the 1980s[3]. That's a ~27 year journey from being
| in a consumer good and becoming the dominant technology.
| Smartphones improved uniquely fast, and since VR is (right now)
| more firmly centered on luxury and leisure, I wonder if the arc
| of LCD televisions isn't more indicative.
|
| I think VR will "arrive" when you can spend under $100 (maybe
| $200?) and get all "the good parts" of the VR experience, like my
| friend did with his cheap phones. It will also help if the high
| end is better established than it is now. It can't be used or
| home-made or just a part - one price for a low-frills version of
| what you came for. I think successful technology needs a "bottom-
| end" as well as a top-end and I don't think VR is very close
| right now. The first Oculus shipped to consumers in 2016, which
| puts us 4 years into my proposed ~27 year arc. That feels about
| right to me.
|
| Edit: for all my skepticism about VR, writing this post has me
| researching the price of headsets again :p
|
| [1] As a point of comparison, the first iPhone sold 6m units.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_set
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid-crystal_display
| jmiskovic wrote:
| On same note, developing VR from inside is incredible and it
| quickly turned into my #1 hobby. At first you are surrounded with
| blank space, then you slowly fill it out with whatever reality
| rules you can think of.
|
| I went with code-only approach (no binary assets) and built a
| primitive development environment that works in VR. Now I have a
| neat little virtual shed with different experiments and demo
| projects. Geometrical landscapes, driving & flying, teleporting,
| various gizmos...
|
| Currently I'm tweaking physics engine to work with hand tracking
| skeleton. Masses connected with springs turn out to be amazingly
| palpable even without any haptic feedback and with simple
| cartoonish visuals.
|
| VR is already fun and we're in for a wild ride once AR hits the
| market.
| iguanayou wrote:
| Or you could build actual things in an actual shed? This is the
| same impulse that drives people to build furniture, boats, and
| model train layouts. To me, the real physical objects are much
| more fulfilling.
| JohnnyMarcone wrote:
| Very few people can experience your physical shed. Everyone
| can experience the VR shed at 0 marginal cost.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Yeah, why weave animate things out of pure thoughtstuff in
| cyberspace, bounded only by your imagination and compute
| resources, when you could be messing with plywood in a shed?
| bsenftner wrote:
| I was an early video game developer, publishing games in '82. I
| found then that making the games was far and away a more
| creative and productive and lucrative way to spend my time.
| Beyond the while developing testing of the several dozens games
| I made when I made games professionally, I've not played a
| video game out of interest in the game itself since "Robotron
| 1984".
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| >VR is already fun and we're in for a wild ride once AR hits
| the market.
|
| I for one can't wait for full field of vision pop up adds to
| infest our daily lives. How exiting.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I'm all for that ad subsidized tech.
|
| I'll take advantage of it just as soon as uBlock Origin VR is
| released.
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| Imagine cheering for a dystopian future.
| Cactus2018 wrote:
| _HYPER-REALITY_ by Keiichi Matsuda
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
| bmiller2 wrote:
| Any resources you can share? Sounds amazing
| jmiskovic wrote:
| Here are few dated examples [0][1] and the code[2].
|
| I saw similar thing from Mr.doob[3]. Few years ago Carmack
| talked about live-coding VR[4], but code was on 2D monitor.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/j_miskov/status/1312701109232902144
| [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqw1s04z70dm3y4/vr-
| physics.mp4?dl=... [2] https://github.com/jmiskovic/indeck
| [3] https://twitter.com/mrdoob/status/1263498538316636162 [4]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30wNPgx6D8E
| [deleted]
| rocky1138 wrote:
| You may find Neos very interesting. It's an online metaverse
| with a turing-complete scripting language called Logix built-
| in. Here are some demos:
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWbm9AzgDxw
|
| 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqI_j6pDdjg (start here if
| you're a developer)
|
| 3. https://youtu.be/STZN6qTGRbQ
|
| 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XafA4WeppxM
| awillen wrote:
| I think it's really great when people write down bets like this
| publicly, so we can go back and see what people's expectations of
| the future are. There are snippets of this kind of speculation
| from many decades ago, plus of course there's sci-fi to look at,
| and it's amazing how much further we've advanced than most people
| expect.
|
| If you look at where we are now vs. 100 years ago, our technology
| would be utterly unrecognizable to them. When people of that age
| predicted the future, they didn't do great. I'd like to think we
| have better foresight, but the reality is we'd probably be just
| as bad at predicting what things will be like in 100 years.
|
| The thing that amazes me is the exponential nature of human
| progress. Even if we made linear progress - that is, some "equal"
| amount of advancement in the next hundred years as we did in the
| last, that would be incredible. But of course our progress builds
| on itself, and so if we assign a value of 100 to the amount of
| progress in the last hundred years, we're likely to have a 200,
| 300 or 400 over the next hundred years.
|
| Personally, I'm betting on pretty much all computer interfaces
| being directly connected to the brain and people living off of
| earth permanently.
| nynx wrote:
| Honestly, I think a large barrier here is there's no pre-existing
| platform yet. When developing an application for a computer with
| a regular screen, you have all sorts of supporting software (e.g.
| window managers, browsers, ui frameworks, etc). When developing
| for VR, you have to start over almost completely: you have to
| deal with controller input, different kinds of headsets,
| designing a UI.
|
| For XR to take off, I think something akin to the _metaverse_
| needs to exist first, so applications can develop within its
| framework.
| stevebmark wrote:
| I don't think the current incarnation of VR will ever take off.
| It's too inconvenient to need to block out everything around you
| with a headset. It's fundamentally incompatible with human
| behavior. Until VR is as convenient as picking up a phone or
| tablet, it's not going anywhere.
| allenu wrote:
| That's my problem with it as well. You need to have a space set
| up where you can use it, and you also have to have the VR
| headset/equipment available to just grab and put on in an
| instant, otherwise I think it will just languish in the closet.
|
| VR is competing with phones, tablets, and TVs today, which are
| in my opinion good enough and way more convenient. The
| experience within VR might be amazing, but it has to be so good
| that you forego other more convenient devices available to you.
| Kiro wrote:
| For me, the Quest is pretty much like that. It's so small I
| just keep it on a shelf and I don't need a dedicated space.
| I'm just playing in the living room or in the office (you
| paint a Guardian for the play area in AR, and it remembers it
| unless you put it on another place).
|
| Been playing almost every day for more than a year now. I'm
| still amazed of how low friction it is to start using. I just
| grab it, put it on my head and all of a sudden I'm in the VR
| world.
| outworlder wrote:
| > It's too inconvenient to need to block out everything around
| you with a headset.
|
| Is it? That's the main selling point to me. I don't want to
| stare at a screen, I want to look around a cockpit. Even
| outside light bleed is bothersome - I'm in freaking space, my
| brain is like where's this light coming from?
|
| It still takes some time to put a headset on and remove it.
| That can be improved. The Quest also has cameras if you need to
| see the outside world right now for whatever reason, which is a
| compromise.
| Kiro wrote:
| I don't understand this argument at all. As someone using VR on
| a daily basis ever since Quest 1 the whole point is to block
| out the outside world and immerse yourself in the VR world.
| Even days I don't feel like playing (I have a schedule for VR
| fitness) I instantly feel at home and get excited the moment I
| step inside.
|
| What behavior is it not compatible with?
| spideymans wrote:
| >What behavior is it not compatible with?
|
| Perhaps there isn't a desire from mainstream consumers to
| entirely block out the outside world in the first place.
| Kiro wrote:
| Perhaps but that's not the same thing as being
| "fundamentally incompatible with human behavior". The
| statement packs a lot of assumptions that don't resonate
| with me at all.
| rpdillon wrote:
| I'm not so sure. Movie theaters (especially a setup like
| IMAX 3D) are trying hard to achieve what VR does more
| cheaply and conveniently.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Oculus has a cool pass-through mode where it displays what the
| cameras are seeing in black and white. I think this sort of
| feature will become widespread in future generations.
| ehonda wrote:
| I think mobile phones will become the standard VR devices most
| people will opt to use with a headset that you insert the phone
| into, esp as phones become increasingly advanced, due to it being
| the cheapest option for most people.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I doubt it because I think a successful VR headset will have
| 6dof room scale tracking, hand controllers, and facial
| expression tracking. That will takes several well positioned
| cameras, plus additional cameras for eye and face tracking. I
| think they will be standalone devices that will potentially
| include AR at some point and even replace phones.
| nukemandan wrote:
| For me (and many) when Facebook doesn't have a controlling stake
| in hardware and requires you to register said hardware with an
| account __in good standing __in order to use that hardware.
| fron wrote:
| It's truly unfortunate. I would love to try the Quest 2, I've
| heard some pretty great things.
|
| The requirement to have a Facebook account makes it a complete
| nonstarter by itself. The fact that I can get locked out of my
| hardware that I purchased because Facebook's software decides
| my account isn't 'legit' enough? Gonna be a serious nope from
| me.
| Yhippa wrote:
| I got burned as an early adopter. Tried the Oculus Rift and PSVR.
| I had to deal with minor motion sickness issues with both. I
| didn't like that there was a lot of setup and physical space
| involved with keeping them ready. It seems like that's gotten
| better with the Quest 2 but there's no trade-in program so I
| guess I'm stuck for a while.
|
| Here are some experiences I wish I could have: 1. Virtual
| presence at a concert or sporting event 2. More apps or games
| where I sit down and can move around but still experience VR.
| Controls seem awkward still for this type of thing. Maybe it
| contributes to motion sickness.
| Animats wrote:
| I should have made a bet like that with the "thought leader" who
| threatened to ban me from his blog after I said VR looked to be
| the next 3D TV.
|
| The problem isn't the cost. It's that moving around while wearing
| VR headgear is only safe in either customized environments, like
| the Star Wars location based entertainment system, or when
| movement is in a small area, like Beat Saber. Which is why Beat
| Saber is the #1 VR game.
|
| Read the setup and cautions for full-body tracking in VRChat.[1]
| It can be done, but it's not popular. Partly because it requires
| the agility of a dancer to use properly.
|
| Wearing VR headgear while sitting down isn't worth the trouble.
| Plus about 10% of the population gets nauseated when visual and
| actual motion differ.
|
| On the other hand, make an AR headset that sells for $79.95 and
| runs Pokemon Go, and you have a hit.
|
| [1] https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/full-body-tracking
| saberdancer wrote:
| Even current Oculus Quest can detect and show objects in your
| environment. It doesn't seem that hard for VR in the future to
| utilize that and adapt the environment around you to mimic your
| obstacles. Another possibility is games that create infinite
| impossible maze (Tea For God). You can walk around in that game
| for hours without hitting anything.
|
| You don't need customized environments, you need some free
| space around yourself. I live in a small apartment and I do
| just fine.
|
| One of basic aspects of VR is setting up a virtual "play area"
| that the headset warns when you are close to leaving so I don't
| see how most of the complaints are valid.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| With so many schools under lockdown, kids staying at home. I
| think one application would be a virtual school. Right now when
| teachers teach over google classroom, the kids have their cameras
| and mikes turned off. And basically there is almost no
| interaction, and feedback as the teacher teaches. Kids don't like
| showing their living room environment. Also, the social
| interaction between kids in a school is basically non existent
| now. There's probably a real need for a virtualized environment
| of a school, or even a church if the lockdowns continue. And
| background replacement for video calls, in general.
| chromaton wrote:
| How's this work? In VR, the teacher can't see the kids' faces
| or other non-verbal communication.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| VR isn't a replacement for actual in person schooling. We'd be
| better off finding a solution that gets kids back into schools.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I agree, you can't beat the real thing. I think we will
| probably have both though, going forward. Online classes will
| be a lot more popular even if the lockdown ends, and teachers
| will live stream by default.
|
| And kids interacting in a virtual school would be a nice
| addition to a real school too.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Everything I've heard about online classes for K-12 has
| indicated that it's been a disaster. Which is really not a
| surprise, considering that teaching is only a tiny portion
| of the function of a school. It's also a daycare,
| lunchroom, social hall, and a million other things that
| can't be replicated on a laptop screen.
|
| This is really a situation where "more technology" is not
| better.
| jjd33 wrote:
| Never. If you surpass a certain technological threshold it will
| start to get worse rather than better.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| What? Why would that be the case?
| _iyig wrote:
| Having owned every Oculus headset since the Kickstarter, I think
| the Quest is the first truly consumer-ready VR headset. At $300
| it's competitively priced against gaming consoles, without
| requiring a gaming PC or separate tracking sensors. It has a
| healthy library of games, 6DOF position tracking, and hand-
| tracking controllers with excellent haptics.
|
| I was tremendously excited about it, to include messing around
| with VR development in my spare time, until the Facebook account
| debacle dropped my enthusiasm to zero. I've used my Quest maybe
| twice since my account got caught up in all that. I have no plans
| to develop any software for such a closed platform with arbitrary
| gatekeeping.
| Geee wrote:
| I think VR will become mainstream when it's good enough to
| replace large screens in productive work. It should leave large
| screens in dust, if done right.
|
| Productivity is quite strongly correlated with screen size, so
| I'm expecting quite a leap in this regard when the right software
| is matched with the right hardware.
| canada_dry wrote:
| > good enough to replace large screens
|
| The resolution is pretty good already and rapidly getting
| better.
|
| What I'm excited about is hand tracking [i] so that I can use a
| real keyboard (and interact with real objects e.g. coffee cup)
| to type while I'm wearing a headset.
|
| [i] https://youtu.be/XnG1l0qQW9k
| forgotmysn wrote:
| thats true, but for most headsets, resolution still isn't
| high enough to read bodies of text without eye fatigue. until
| that is solved, I don't think VR will move from entertainment
| to productivity.
|
| Varjo is getting closer to that resolution level, but their
| headsets are priced for enterprise ($8k i think?)
| dougmwne wrote:
| I pulled my neck last week and spent the weekend working,
| watching amazon prime and playing xbox cloud streaming flat
| on my back on a 10 foot virtual screen. I was working for
| multiple hours at a time reviewing programming
| specifications and taking notes. The display tech is pretty
| much there, even for text. Keyboard input is still
| unsolved, though I was using Office 365 dictation and that
| was working well for taking notes. This was on the Quest 2.
| The fresnel lenses are actually a bigger downside than the
| screen resolution, which is not retina, but still better
| than the 24" 1080p external display I use all day.
| novok wrote:
| When I tried it, it wasn't that good. The screens on the
| Q2 felt like a resolution of something between 720 and
| 1080p, which isn't that good compared to my dual 4k
| monitors. Same with a 8k & 6k 180 & 360 video.
|
| Overall VR feels like it needs a 4x resolution bump.
| Basically a 16k 360 video rendering and 4k x 4k per eye
| vs the 1832x1920 per eye that the current q2 has. To do
| that well you probably need something like a two 3080
| GPUs, one for each eye.
|
| Even after that, maybe even an 8k x 8k would give a big
| improvement. We don't have GPUs that can render that
| today.
|
| Foveated rendering is definitely needed for this to
| become possible.
| klibertp wrote:
| > but for most headsets, resolution still isn't high enough
| to read bodies of text without eye fatigue.
|
| Most? Is there anything, no matter how expensive, which is
| currently capable of clearly presenting large bodies of
| text? The moment something like this appears I'm going to
| buy it even if I had to sell my kidney for it!
|
| EDIT: forgot about input. I'd probably be willing to
| finally learn to touch-type, if that would be enough. I'd
| probably be happier with being able to see the keyboard
| once in a while, though.
| Geee wrote:
| Varjo has human-eye resolution in VR/AR.
| https://varjo.com/
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Yep, this is one of those threshold type things that makes
| future predictions wrong all the time. Currently the resolution
| is just too low - I really gave it a good try with a lot of
| motivation but it just doesn't cut it. You can make text
| readable but only if you size the virtual monitor to be huge
| and the effective resolution is way less in the end than a
| pretty cheap external monitor.
|
| But once it hits the point of being usable I don't see why we
| won't see a complete domino effect where people start setting
| up complete virtual offices in VR. And that will ripple through
| whole teams flipping to VR a sa way of working. Putting aside
| sheer "size", you can make VR monitors any _shape_ and in any
| _position_ you want. So I can actually have a gigantic monitor
| with a complex technical diagram on it, then a vertical one
| next to it with a code listing - and these can be floating in
| space in a totally unrealistic way. Then I can have email
| floating in the air behind me ...
| outworlder wrote:
| I actually considered this when I was buying a new monitor.
| "This thing will be obsolete pretty soon".
|
| Headsets are still a little bulky (and not enough resolution)
| for that to happen. Once that's fixed (and more importantly,
| with many people shifting to work from home, so they don't have
| to care about people staring), I expect it to become a pretty
| popular thing.
|
| If the virtual monitor is overlaying a camera feed of your
| environment(AR style), this will be amazing. Imagine a headset
| not much heavier than sunglasses sitting on your desk, rather
| than a big (or multiple!) monitors. Put it on, you have as much
| screen real state as you would like, and can be made to look
| like an actual monitor.
|
| That's with our current 2D thinking. We can probably do more
| useful visualizations in 3D.
| Geee wrote:
| Exactly. And you can fill your whole room with interactive
| information. You could have hundreds or more files open at
| the same time and see how they interact. Human brain is
| pretty good at complex visual/spatial things and I don't
| think we are aware of the limits yet.
| amelius wrote:
| Looking at older technology like VHS/Betamax, VR will take off
| when people can use it to consume pr0n without being tethered to
| some company like Oculus/Facebook that may collect information
| about them.
| Cactus2018 wrote:
| VR Headsets comparison table:
|
| "VR System Guide Summer 2020! Updated with Reverb G2, and all
| recent info. By Evanlyboy"
|
| https://imgur.com/a/QVbyeA1
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/hzkl36/vr_system_g...
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I'm sold on VR because it has completely revolutionised my
| fitness regime. It turns what is otherwise a boring, painful
| chore into immersive, interactive and fun experience that leaves
| me sweating and heart pounding and running late because I wanted
| to do just one more round ...
|
| If my headset broke today, I would order a new one same day.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| What headset do you have and what do you play to work out?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It's a v1 Quest.
|
| I have a combo routine that involves Synthriders then Beat
| Saber and finally pistol whip. These all exercise different
| aspects - Synthriders builds muscle mass in arms, Beat Saber
| is more cardio, and pistol whip has me crouching / squatting
| to do my legs.
| iamwil wrote:
| Would you do engineering interviews in VR as a candidate?
|
| I had wondered if larger companies would do VR technical
| interviews to remove biases in their quest to "hire the best".
| You can have a whiteboard, and the usual schtick, but you can
| disguise the voice, height, gender, ethnicity, etc of a
| candidate, so the interviewer can focus on the communication and
| the solution.
|
| And then the interpersonal part of the interview can be done in
| person and unmasked. After that, both parts of the interview can
| be conjoined during the committee evaluation.
|
| I never went down this avenue, because I thought sourcing
| candidates was a bigger problem than evaluation accuracy, and all
| but the biggest companies don't worry so much about their
| interview methods.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I think it will take off when we see a convergence of some
| things.
|
| Specifically:
|
| 1. It looks real 2. It's affordable 3. AI characters become
| believable
|
| If anyone's played with Replika.ai lately, you'll know #3 is
| starting to get really close. #1 and #2 are inevitable.
|
| So at some point it becomes wildly rewarding to spend hours
| hanging out with your AI friends in virtual space.
|
| Simply being in a 3D space isn't enough. Most people seem to
| experience this as a neat trick, but not something they feel the
| need to make a part of their daily lives.
|
| But building emotional bonds with characters who are only
| accessible in VR? Or perhaps can be texted (like Replika) and
| then met "in person" in VR? I see that being worth many billions.
| scalablenotions wrote:
| Chronic undersupply is probably the only reason it's not going
| crazy in 2020. The demand is extremely high, and suppliers are
| struggling to meet it.
| abraxas wrote:
| Rhythm, exercise, boxing, fencing games are second to none in VR
| thanks to the medium itself. They are much more compelling in VR
| vs jumping in front of a television set while waving a pair of
| Wii wands.
|
| The reason VR is struggling is the same reason that most exercise
| games eventually struggle. Humans are lazy and prefer sitting on
| their asses and click buttons with near zero muscle activity.
| ColFrancis wrote:
| But how many people play wii sports? It was awesome fun, super
| novel, and was huge for a while there but now it's died off.
| It'll be interesting to see if VR does the same. One thing
| going for VR is that there's more than one company making
| stuff.
| memetherapy wrote:
| The quest 2 is pretty much a revelation. Untethered, light,
| cheap, high quality display and inside out tracking and connects
| wirelessly to a gaming PC allowing you to play virtually any
| title if you pay $15 for vrdesktop. Obviously you have to be
| comfortable with facebook but it's just a better end to end
| experience than any other headset I've tried, although it would
| be better if VR desktop or something similar was included out of
| the box instead of them trying to flog you the kludgy occulus
| link cable that doesn't work as well and which tethers you to a
| pc. It feels like VR done right for the first time in the same
| way as the iPhone was a smart phone done right for the first
| time.
| kreddor wrote:
| Is it that much better than Quest 1? The first Quest was
| already pretty great compared to everything else, Facebook or
| not.
| canada_dry wrote:
| > quest 2 is pretty much a revelation
|
| I liken where we are with VR right now as to about 5 yrs ago
| with IoT. Arduino and Rpi began to gain huge momentum due to
| the low cost of entry and availability of more and more useful
| tools. Quest hopefully is just the start.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| > Obviously you have to be comfortable with facebook
|
| Interestingly enough this is the primary reason that my quest
| is collecting dust. Once they forced a facebook login for
| accounts I decided it was no longer worth me clearing an open
| space in my apartment.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Never, it will forever be a niche product. It doesn't solve
| almost any problem better than what we actually have but keep the
| mind engaged in the future of virtual reality.
|
| VR is the flying car of software: so amazing to imagine, so
| impractical in real life.
| istorical wrote:
| And color film doesn't solve anything that black and white film
| can't do. Besides, why watch film at all when you can look
| around the real world instead of looking at a moving picture on
| a screen.
| insert_coin wrote:
| What? Color film can do color, and took off because a lot of
| people wanted to see their memories in color.
|
| Infrared film can do infrared colors, and people who need to
| see those colors use it and to them is invaluable, but that
| need is not a mainstream need. VR is infrared film.
| [deleted]
| Kiro wrote:
| I think fitness is the killer app.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fKpJ-hKbiE
|
| I haven't tried Supernatural but FitXR was a great improvement
| from Beat Saber (granted, BS is more fun but the workout is
| nothing compared to FitXR or Thrill of the Fight).
|
| I'm very excited for the future of fitness in VR. Oculus Move
| shows that it's a rising star.
| RoboTeddy wrote:
| I strongly suspect that VR will take off once it can pass through
| facial expressions, gaze, and other body language with high
| fidelity. At that point it will probably be substantially better
| than normal videoconference, and will take off extremely quickly
| (first for business meetings and perhaps social gatherings; then
| for virtual worlds)
| Impossible wrote:
| This, greatly improved comfort, and quality 3D
| scanning\photogrammetry being mainstream (close with Apple
| LIDAR) at the same or similar cost (~$200-$500 for a standalone
| HMD) enables a host of interesting stuff. Right now Social VR
| and VR collaboration software has some potential, but is more
| awkward and challenging to use than video conferencing.
| holoduke wrote:
| Once the headset is as big and light as a pair of sunglasses and
| has 2x 8k screens build in. Since desktops are no longer
| mainstream, the controlling hardware is most likely not
| integrated yet. It needs to be +-50 times faster than current
| hardware though. Probably in 5 to 10 years it will be a necessity
| in order to live a mainstream life.
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