[HN Gopher] Carmack Unscripted ___________________________________________________________________ Carmack Unscripted Author : tosh Score : 73 points Date : 2022-10-11 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.facebook.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.facebook.com) | stusmall wrote: | I'm sure some PM somewhere in Meta is proud it's using that | horrid avatar instead of an actual video. But ooft, it looks so | goofy on what seems to be a serious conversation. | | Their whole metaverse bet seems weirder and weirder by the day. | Keyframe wrote: | It does look goofy, doesn't it? Like an elaborate joke. I'm not | trying to shit on people's hard work, but it all looks so, I | don't know.. bland and not interesting AT ALL. Like Second life | meets that playstation thing, but even worse somehow. | tomrod wrote: | Sometimes good work needs to be shit on in a constructive | way. | | This is bloody awful quality in visual quality and marketing. | You want to show something that works well. This... this does | not "work", let alone well. | jabroni_salad wrote: | I'll happily spend an evening watching vrchat shenanigans or | 2.5D vtubers but this thing just goes so far beyond | 'corporate inoffensiveness squeezed the soul out of it'. It's | like the developers actively disdain their own work. | SXX wrote: | Meta just need to partner with Microsoft to integrate it with | Linkedin. | | Then it's will turn into the one true cringe generator. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | "I am so proud and honored and humbled to announce that my | avatar now has three glowing rings over its head!" | | "Please help me celebrate my Metaversary..." | | "Nobody truly appreciates how hard us weebles work to get our | Zuckabadges. Next time you see a weeble, give it a '/clap'!" | | Oh sweet lord this will be horrific. | apineda wrote: | It's very distracting. Plus I appreciate being able to see | peoples faces as they express themselves and ideas. | tekni5 wrote: | I completely agree, this absolutely horrendous for a visual | presentation. A wii like character, no proper lighting, | floating with no legs and the subtle fidget moving of the | limbs, lack of facial expression and flapping mouth that hardly | mimics the sound. What did facebook spend all their money on? | | I'd rather see video or even a still picture of Carmack than | this monstrosity. | 2muchcoffeeman wrote: | A proper Mii would have been better. They are purposely | cartoonish and can't move in human ways. | | This is trying to be vaguely human in hand and lip movement | and it looks like bad marionette. | | Hopefully it gets better but right now I'd rather just listen | to the audio. | crooked-v wrote: | The immediate comparison I think of is VRChat, which does | literally everything on that list better and has by | comparison a shoestring budget. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | Wouldn't it be great to read an honest postmortem report, a | few years from now? | Waterluvian wrote: | It's actually unsettling to me how committed they are to such | garbage. | | I'm hoping this is just an expensive example of the Sunk Cost | Fallacy because otherwise it's perplexing and eerie. | vkou wrote: | > It's actually unsettling to me how committed they are to | such garbage. | | Facebook missed the boat on owning an OS or phone, so their | only hope in protecting access to their apps is by owning a | brand-new platform. | | Which means that the company is all-in on VR, regardless of | whether or not the result will be any good. | [deleted] | scifibestfi wrote: | It's whiplash how Meta VR is putting out demos that look 20 | years old, while Meta AI is putting out demos that look like | they're from the future. | | https://makeavideo.studio | coding123 wrote: | I don't know what metaverse is, but I feel a lot more comfortable | just playing a game like ESO and hanging out with people dancing | and sitting in chairs near me. /sitchair | barelysapient wrote: | Why even have the video? The lips aren't in sync, the movement | stutters. Its horrible to watch. | msa_ds wrote: | I can't even see how long the video in my firefox, and no | jumping around. I would personally fire the people responsible | for this right now, bad idea and bad implementation. But seems | Zuckerberg is obsessed over this failure... | actionfromafar wrote: | I think it was because it was a live transmission. | [deleted] | karmasimida wrote: | I mean I really don't want to shit on Meta but ... | | is this parody? The quality of this is really really bad, almost | ps2 level bad | | Using this for presentation is really unwise. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | Holy cow and he said this was a CUSTOM BUILD to maintain frame | rate! So it can't even push this level of graphics normally. | For what it showed I'd expect about 600 FPS. And the arms are | jittering..Wtf? | mensetmanusman wrote: | They are working with low bandwidth graphics, I wonder if that is | part of their global strategy... | LoveMortuus wrote: | I hope a video of the event will be uploaded to YouTube, for some | reason it didn't want to play on my MS Edge Android... Only works | on Chrome when on Desktop mode, but that's really not usable... | [deleted] | lwneal wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouq5yyzSiAw | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | Is it just me or is the audio balance set a bit too far to the | right? It makes it uncomfortable to listen to this with | headphones. | wskinner wrote: | I noticed this as well. | tomcam wrote: | Why... why is he bottomless? (He's represented by a Wii-like | avatar. When camera angles change from close up to medium shot | he's just a floating torso in a living room set) | iandanforth wrote: | One of the big announcements in the Keynote was "legs" so | apparently all avatars have been legless. | roughly wrote: | Because if he had legs, he might also have genitals, and you're | not allowed to do that on Facebook's Metaverse. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | There were some "harassment" issues with legs. | paulryanrogers wrote: | My guess is because of height variance, crouching, misaligned | floors, difficulty doing IK in a lifelike way given all those. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | They could maybe hire some engineers and, I don't know, have | them work on that? Every other game in the world seems to | have figured out a solution. | taejavu wrote: | Maybe they couldn't figure out how to stop the legs from | flailing around and obscuring his face. | abledon wrote: | I wonder if the majority of people designing/pushing these huge | systems of weird cartoon avatar interaction systems... are a tad | bit on the spectrum (Which gives them superpowers in | understanding tech/algorithms....) but a side effect is the | uncanny valley of these weird avatars being pushed by these teams | at Meta/FB. It feels more 'creepy' to me talking to a cartoon | 'uncanny-valley' representation of a person rather than just | seeing their actual photo/video feed. | | reading this post on "Avatars, Anthropomorphism, and Autism | Spectrum Disorder"... | | > A 2016 study looked measured the neural responses of children | with ASD and neurotypical children when shown unfamiliar human | and robot faces. The test showed that the targeted responses were | present for both for neurotypical children, but only for the | robot faces for the kids with ASD. "Together, these studies | provide some evidence that individuals with ASD may typically | process anthropomorphic rather than human faces | | https://codebaby.com/avatars-anthropomorphism-and-autism-spe... | beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: | It looks like they're trying make corporate Memphis art meets | DreamWorks movie character design into just the standard | avatar. Insanely goofy. | benreesman wrote: | I'm more than a touch aspy myself which makes this faux-biting | rebuke that sounds cool in only my head a bit meta: but nerds | figured out how to sell tech stuff to normies quite some time | ago. | KerrAvon wrote: | Zuck hasn't. | Karrot_Kream wrote: | I think it's much more a facet of limited performance on these | platforms rather than anything else. Performance on headsets is | a challenge on pretty much all of these apps, from VRChat to | Rec Room. I also think a lot of people that look just at the | pictures don't realize that presence in VR adds a lot and can | compensate for some loss of graphical fidelity. It's like how | the first 3D games were quite blocky and a lot less refined | than the best 2D games of the era but just the ability to move | your character and the camera in 3D compensated for the bad | graphics, to an extent. | xnx wrote: | As best I can tell the push for this comes from the top and no | one who knows better is stopping him. | sneak wrote: | Loginwall - anyone have a summary? | radiojasper wrote: | Tune in to Carmack Unscripted at Meta Connect to hear John | Carmack's unscripted take on the future of technology. | mmastrac wrote: | I clicked through and it's a livestream of Carmack's VR avatar | somewhat out-of-sync with his voice. | | I think it's live now and hopefully there'll be a transcript | later. | drexlspivey wrote: | Also streaming in youtube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouq5yyzSiAw | jandrese wrote: | Seems to be about VR tech so far. It's mostly about social | media stuff thus far, with complaints about slow login times | and how the Horizon Worlds doesn't integrate with the rest of | the system and has interface issues. John wants more screen | sharing for people in VR chat like environments. | | John is obsessive about eliminating lag everywhere. Ironic that | his facial animations are slightly lagging the audio track. | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: | Also, the facial animations are so limited in expressiveness | it makes it look like he's suffering from blunted affect. | nharada wrote: | Is there any good way for me to try this out without buying a | $1500 piece of hardware? My instinct is that Oculus' VR vision | doesn't make any sense, but I want to try it out before being | confident that my instinct is correct. | SXX wrote: | Thanks to FB you can buy $400 "Meta Quest 2" and experience | like 95% of good VR content. Yeah it somewhat worse than Valve | Index for VR enthusiasts, but it also much cheaper. | Ninjinka wrote: | My company's Slack was dying laughing at how negative his event | was within the first 10 minutes. And then towards the end he says | "and now I'm gonna be grumpy" and we were sent reeling. | | Favorite quote was "one of my internal posts was reported and | taken down for not being sensitive enough." | dzdt wrote: | I'm convinced that as long as "metaverse" is a thing that | involves putting on a nerdy pair of goggles to participate the | whole concept is going precisely nowhere with the general | population. Its like 3d TV: no one has any interest in putting | special hardware on their face to participate in things like | that. | p1necone wrote: | The thing that bewilders me is that this has _already_ been | done with stuff like VRChat, but FB seems to think they can | come along with a weird sanitized corporate version of the same | thing that doesn 't do anything at all new and actually attract | users? | colinmhayes wrote: | They're probably right. No one else is providing a headset as | good as the quest 2 at the same price point, because no one | else has $10 billion a year to burn, | tristor wrote: | Wow... thanks to the person that posted the YouTube link, because | I have Facebook blocked. Carmack was good to listen to, but the | pan in when they turned it over to him /felt/ laggy, like you | could see frame rate jitter, and the entire thing was out of | sync. I'm generally pretty bullish on VR for entertainment and | collaboration long-term, but this honestly felt like going back | 20 years ago. I've had more realistic and smoother experiences in | MMOs with voice chat. | runjake wrote: | This is embarrassing for Carmack and I'm surprised he agreed to | this. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | He's Audi 5000 to work on AGI, right? | dbish wrote: | Not 100% true. He stated on Lex's podcast that he is part | time (1 day/week AR/VR) with the rest of his time on his new | AI startup | ffhhj wrote: | He just entered the Desert of the Real. Leave all that has a | meaning behind. | captainthrow wrote: | lofaszvanitt wrote: | World is bonkers... can someone elaborate what is happening @ FB | and other Silicon Valley companies where people seemingly went | crazy? There are a handful of contenders in the video game | entertainment industry who are really capable of creating a | metaverse like thing with stunning detail, but this? | JieJie wrote: | The developer of Doom is building the corporate Metaverse. | | You guys are pulling my leg, right? | Karsteski wrote: | Yes, it's very unfortunate that he is associated with Facebook | now :| Such great technology, that I'll never use until other | companies are able to catch up. | | The idea of using any sort of VR tech that Facebook controls | literally disgusts me. Can't even imagine the amount of | information they will control on people with such things... | msa_ds wrote: | Every single one of my childhood heroes has committed suicide | before my eyes by doing stuff like this. I always considered | them having some solid morals and being wealthy enough would | make this improbable but boy I was wrong. Oh well, they can't | kill the old memories, yet. | SXX wrote: | To be honest Carmack have a good reasons to work on it even | if it means work for TheEvilCorp: first of all if you listen | to him he is truly interested in advancing VR tech. So he | doesn't do it just for the money. | | Also I guess he run out of money when Armadillo Aerospace has | failed and at least before he talked like he want to make | second attempt in space industry and this will require a lot | of money. | Bluecobra wrote: | In the Metaverse, no one can pull your leg because they forgot | to code it. :D | [deleted] | [deleted] | barbazoo wrote: | I'm wondering how this is any better than video. Sure, if you | have a hammer, everything looks like a nail but still. | yrgulation wrote: | As someone who's looked up to carmack, unless he's forced to do | this against his will, i find it disappointing he would promote | this failing meta product. | rvz wrote: | So we have the Carmack fans rushing in to hear his masters voice | as a floating virtual avatar in the metaverse. But I thought they | weren't interested in the whole thing because of the _' Meta is | dying'_ narrative? [0] | | So far it looks like despite the so-called 'chaos' reported by | the media about Meta, he is still _bullish_ on both AR and VR at | the company. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33087535 | dbish wrote: | Fwiw, Carmack spends the vast majority of his week working on | AI as he is a VR/AR consultant now, and has stated it's around | one day a week (he announced a new AI startup recently), so it | seems he's more bullish on AI. | parker_mountain wrote: | AR is where the future is. VR is a major stepping stone. He is | being paid obscene amounts of money to work on things he finds | is cool. | | So of course he's not going to trash talk it. | | > But I thought they weren't interested in the whole thing | because of the 'Meta is dying' narrative? [0] | | I am happy to listen to a smart person who is very clever talk | about things I'm interested in, even if I disagree with them on | key points. | xsmasher wrote: | HN is not a monolith. Some people might like Meta and other | people don't like Meta. You can also like Carmack and dislike | Meta. | | I don't see the narrative you're talking about in that link. | actionfromafar wrote: | If you like Meta but don't want to admit it, downvote this | comment! | nsxwolf wrote: | Carmack never stops talking for even a moment. Never repeats | himself and clearly expresses his thoughts in real time. It's | some sort of autism I presume. | Version467 wrote: | I find it very inspiring to be able to express your thoughts in | such a clear and concise manner. Most people are usually either | very charismatic/good presenters, or highly technical. But | Carmack does both while still sounding friendly and just in | general excited about tech. | [deleted] | SXX wrote: | While this "metaverse" thing is worse than some "crypto NFT AR" | scams I do appreciate that Facebook invest into VR R&D heavily | and hopefully at some point in future some other company will | benefit off their investment. I guess it's great they give | funding to people like John Carmack instead of spending these | money on lobbying another anti-consumer garbage. | hwers wrote: | I'm seeing a lot of R&D solely focused on giving them the | chance to extract rent through future silly things like buying | artificially scarce houses in fbs metaverse. I'm barely seeing | any "giving back" type research like AT&T created with their | research in the internet. | SXX wrote: | Their end-game is very much obvious, but honestly they are so | bad at it... I doubt they will manage to actually build | anything successful to extract any value out of it. The | reason why Facebook Metaverse is so cringey is because they | have no clue how to make games or anything like it. The "real | metaverse" already exist in Roblox, Fortnite and few other | popular games that every teenager socialize in. | | At the same time thanks to Facebook any average Joe can | easily get consumer-ready VR hardware for around $400. We | just really dont have many companies behind VR except for | Valve and they're simply dont have enough manpower to create | mass-market hardware. | | My point is that we must appreciate those engineers who | persuaded Zuck to spend money on VR hardware and research. | Yeah their attempt at "metaverse" is laughtable, but | investment into hardware is priceless. | camdat wrote: | > I'm seeing a lot of R&D solely focused on giving them the | chance to extract rent through future silly things like | buying artificially scarce houses in fbs metaverse | | An example from FB please? | cm2187 wrote: | Am I the only one being put off by the talking avatar thing? It's | in the way. I don't think it works. | p1necone wrote: | It looks like a wii avatar from 15 years ago and the motion | tracking is all jittery, FB is trying to win the VR market with | this garbage? | tomcam wrote: | Highly distracted. First time I've listened to John Carmack | without being able to concentrate easily. | savanaly wrote: | It's sort of pointless if you have to just watch it in a video | like I assume we all are. I think it would be better if you | were in there in the room with John (using a VR headset). | Personally I'm listening to it in the background from another | tab. | ncallaway wrote: | Yea, I actually found the avatar in the video was _worse_ | than just audio. It was just enough motion to distract my | eye, while being pretty valueless in terms of communicating | anything. | | I ended up listening in the background, but opened up a new | blank tab to hide the motion. | [deleted] | goertzen wrote: | Seems like they could of made this a lot better with a basic | lighting setup ... but nothing was as a bad as the comments | suggest. | sebringj wrote: | The bit about the logs was funny. I have noticed my oculus 2 be | pretty responsive and zippy to now being frustrating to the point | I put it down. I would guess its getting bloated. | sebringj wrote: | Oh yah and he said there is a part of me that wants to "burn it | down". omg I was laughing so hard. | cheschire wrote: | Probably a condensed version of his 5 hour Lex Fridman interview. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4 | dagmx wrote: | Not at all. Carmack does these each year at Connect, and | they're always fairly bespoke to the things that Meta are | working on and just announced | waffle_ss wrote: | He seems to do an annual "update" video from wherever he's | at, about minutiae of whatever he's working on at the time. | It used to be QuakeCon keynotes[1] when he was at id. | | [1]: https://archive.org/details/john-carmack-quakecon- | keynotes | savanaly wrote: | That interview is great but I don't think there's any overlap. | This is focused on VR, something that was only touched on in | the Lex interview. | swellguy wrote: | Has John Carmack ever been scripted? Kind of a weird catchphrase. | "Gun that shoots bullets." | actionfromafar wrote: | True. Why point that out? I get paranoid. :) Was he scripted | this time? The avatar video was to hide reading from the | prompt? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-11 23:00 UTC)