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VR

blog.ycombinator.com

21–30 of 568 posts

Re: VR

#21
post #4

Having both an Oculus Rift (pre-touch controls) and a Vive to play around with I have a couple thoughts on this. The first impression/experience is powerful and most people are impressed by it. The Rift prior to touch controls was unusable in comparison to the room scale, touch control Vive (to the point that I sold it). Maybe it's better now with the new touch controls, but I think they still lack room scale and the…

I spent years developing and then offering a system that remotely enabled creating realistic 3D avatars of people from a single photo. It works, I scaled it to viral capacity levels, the quality is high (https://twitter.com/3davatarstore), and my prices were nearly free. Yet, game, VR and VFX studios only wanted it free. After being jerked around for years by circuses of clowns, I shut it down. I'm happier doing FR now for government agencies. VR will continue to be a lonely place until the corporate exploitation is regulated to the degree that an individual will have legal and portable ownership over their appearance in VR technologies, with all the legal ramifications that exposes.

Re: VR

#22

It's not going to take off until someone solves the movement issue. The only games VR is currently suitable for are if you are stationary somehow -- pilot, tank gunner, etc. Which limits it pretty severely. Something like the Ghostbusters Experience[1] is what people want in their own homes. Also, maybe it's because I've been gaming my whole life, but the resolution in VR is still not good enough to "blow" me away, l…

Movement with the Vive and room scale works (walk around small area and teleport to new small areas). I think it solves the problem and feels pretty intuitive.

I've wondered if scaled movement was possible or if it would really mess with our brains. For example, 1m realspace = 3m in VR. Would your body adjust to smaller/slower movements, or would there be a disorientation?

Re: VR

#23

> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up. In my experience, the best VR experiences are sit down. Sony's approach fully embraces this. Room scale is great, but I've had much more enjoyable experiences with the likes of Euro Truck and Elite than Showdown. VR demos amazingly well, you're excited to try it out and it is genuinely b…

What a silly quote, do they believe reading books is an unhealthy activity as well? Every activity doesn't have to be physical exertion.

Re: VR

#24
post #10

Blown away? Hyperbole of the century. At CES this year, I tried all the VR/AR tech I could get my hands on. Microsoft HoloLens, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony VR, Galaxy Gear, and everything in between. I wasn't expecting much and yet I was still underwhelmed. There is zero immersion, primarily due to the poor resolution, the screen door effect, and the crippled field of view. It felt like watching a scene through a pai…

I very much get the same sense from the uptick in VR over the past year or two that I did when 3D TV was all the craze several years ago - kind of interesting, but in practice not very good

Re: VR

#25
post #3

One of my favorite things to do is to pack up my PC and Vive and take it to a friend or relative to try out. A lot of people view VR as a gimmick akin to 3D movies, which fairly predictably has died out, but once they have a chance to try VR they often understand the potential. I think VR has a real future - which certainly will depend largely on falling hardware costs and increased software funding - and while I'm s…

What is your solution for mounting the base stations? I've looked into tripods before, but the sensors are meant to be much more firmly mounted from what I've read.

Re: VR

#26

It's not going to take off until someone solves the movement issue. The only games VR is currently suitable for are if you are stationary somehow -- pilot, tank gunner, etc. Which limits it pretty severely. Something like the Ghostbusters Experience[1] is what people want in their own homes. Also, maybe it's because I've been gaming my whole life, but the resolution in VR is still not good enough to "blow" me away, l…

Movement with the Vive and room scale works (walk around small area and teleport to new small areas). I think it solves the problem and feels pretty intuitive.

To add to this point - I personally only buy/play Room-Scale games for this reason. And with HTC expected to sell additional LightBox sensors, it's quite possible I'll be able to expand my play space from the current HTC Vive max of roughly 12x13 to pretty much fill my entire basement. Of course you are limited by the cabling right now but HTC has a wireless module already announced for release during the first half of this year.

Exciting times for VR after decades of false starts.

Re: VR

#27

> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up. In my experience, the best VR experiences are sit down. Sony's approach fully embraces this. Room scale is great, but I've had much more enjoyable experiences with the likes of Euro Truck and Elite than Showdown. VR demos amazingly well, you're excited to try it out and it is genuinely b…

I found that Superhot VR was much more exciting than Eve Valkrie. The immersion was so high that I started closing an eye to shoot better. I haven't done that with any other game.

Re: VR

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Movement with the Vive and room scale works (walk around small area and teleport to new small areas). I think it solves the problem and feels pretty intuitive.

I've wondered if scaled movement was possible or if it would really mess with our brains. For example, 1m realspace = 3m in VR. Would your body adjust to smaller/slower movements, or would there be a disorientation?

Any movement of the player in VR that is not 1:1 tends to cause motion sickness.

Re: VR

#29
post #12

I bought a Vive the week of Thanksgiving and have been using it roughly 2 hours a day. Every other day is my workout day most of the week (unless I'm playing hockey that day/night) and the VIVE has become part of my workout now too. After I complete my normal workout - a mixture of hockey specific training, free weights, aerobic and of course tons of pull-ups - I now spend an additional hour+ in VR. I typically play…

Don't you get incredibly sweaty though? What is that experience like wearing a bulky mask thing?

That's currently my biggest beef with these VR headsets, you have to wear some bulky thing on your head.

Re: VR

#30
Selling my Vive tomorrow, before it's too late (unsellable due to something better on the market). I'm not going back to try VR till the resolution is something like 8k per eye and the optical quality is far better. FOV needs to be much wider, HMD lighter and more comfortable, and of course wireless (I know you can get this now).

I have a dedicated home theater and room scale still does not work, because you will never have enough physical space in a regular home, and have to teleport around in games anyway.

The only games that really work are seated cockpit games. Racing, space sim, flight sim, etc.

Nausea was not an issue for me. Nor the "anti-social" issue, I've never been a party gamer, I like to play games alone, in a dark room with headphones on, sat at my desk staring at a monitor, or alone on the couch with a gamepad in my home theater enjoying surround sound and a 106" screen.

All made-for-VR games I've tried so far have been mediocre and more like small demos than full games. Best experiences were games not made for VR but with added VR support: Assetto Corsa and iRacing. Probably the only two games worth having VR at all for, but personally I'll wait for 6th gen or whatever will be good enough for me.

The games I like the best works better without VR. Sim racing games could be one exception, but are, for the moment, better with a triple monitor setup. Games like Pillars of Eternity have no need for VR, IMO.

Certainly VR has potential, I just think the HMDs we have now feel old and dated already. It's 2016 (when released) and it's heavy and wired, basically ski goggles with crappy monitors and crappy lenses hugging my face.

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