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blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: VR

#131

Post by frandroid »

overcast wrote: post #29
evo_9 wrote: 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.

I haven't done any workout in a VR headset yet but I have cried in one, and the lens got fogged up. Clearly some sort of passive or active ventilation will have to be part of VR headsets.

Re: VR

#132

Post by moron4hire »

On point #3, this is exactly why I've been building Primrose (https://www.primrosevr.com). Primrose is meant to be a framework for web developers to be able to build applications that live inside of a virtual environment. Microsoft calls this "Holographic Applications" (I don't exactly like that term, but I suppose I will get over it). The point is to divorce the need to do 3D graphics and geometry from building the application, to have those as the baseline and provide on top of that a shared set of UI metaphors. There is a really easy analogy to draw with standard, 2D GUI systems: you shouldn't have to write an HTML rendering engine before making a Web application, you shouldn't have to work in a game framework to make VR-enabled applications.

Please check out Primrose. I know it has some rough edges here and there, but I've already used it to make some interesting things (a client of mine was recently featured on Bloomberg.com for http://rex.legend3d.com). I know people are wary about "single-contributor" projects, but I've already been building Primrose for 2 years now, it's not going anywhere, and I'm open to bringing collaborators on, just nobody has really stepped up (and I've been so focused on working on VR projects for clients that I've not really had the time to proselytize).

Somebody is going to bring up A-Frame: I think A-Frame is a really nice system, I just think its design goals don't really match what I think is important. A-Frame wants to be the entity-component system for WebVR. That's great. But I don't think that meshes well with "get web developers on board". I don't want developers to have to think about what sort of motion controller component to use in their system. I actually want the system to be more restricted, less open-ended than A-Frame. Also, Primrose came out long before A-Frame, so I'm still married to Primrose for as long as I can be productive in it.

There are some limitations where I haven't quite reached my goal of making VR accessible to web developers, but that is more an issue of limited number of man-months. You can build useful applications with Primrose today. But I have a very clear goal in mind and if it's something you agree with, I would appreciate the help.

Re: VR

#133

Post by tootie »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer startups I remember reading similar sentiment two years ago, back when the Oculus started getting massive attention after their successful Kickstarter. There are counter arguments to the rise of VR. As mentioned, price and hardware are too high for casual use, but that will be fixed in time. What can't easily be fixed is that fact that it…

I played with a Vive for a while and it's pretty mind-blowing that it's possible to do it, I also haven't bothered picking it up again. Aside from games I'm having a hard time thinking of any problem domain that would be served by VR. We've had screen-based VR going back to the 90s (VRML?) and the few applications that were attempted like virtual tours didn't really take off. I look at how little has been applied to using the Google Glass and Kinect as precedents. Even voice recognition has been going for 25 years and is barely past the novelty stage. I know the tech is still relatively new, but it's been a few years since we've had retail VR headsets and no one has come up with a killer app.

Re: VR

#134

Post by k7carlton »

celticninja wrote: post #126
k7carlton wrote: post #101

I think VR is still too focused on mainly males who are young and tech-savy. It can only grow so much while focusing on this demographic. I got involved in social media, and many smart-phone enabled technologies or apps (and many other things now that I think about it), because the popular kids at school were using them. I personally haven't seen this adoption by social trend setters happen with VR yet.

That could be the bio of any tech. iPhones were this when they came out, now everyone has an iPhone. The adoption rate is not as immediately obvious with VR though.

I think smartphones were this when they came out. Apple succeeded because they figured out how to sell smartphones to the popular crowd. It will be interesting to see who can do this for VR.

Re: VR

#135

Post by johnward »

evo_9 wrote: 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…

> regularly skate with/against NHL bound Junior players,

I've skated with guys that didn't make the NHL cut and they were extremely fast to me. All most no effort it seemed like.

That's really shocking to me that you could get a workout from VR. Fog has to be an issue, no?

Re: VR

#136

Post by cr0sh »

madamelic wrote: post #67
jordache wrote: post #55

How is VR "physical" when you are tethered to a computer?

The cable is very long and it is "room-scale" (You can move around), meaning games involve actually moving around. And soon there will be wireless adapters.

The problem with "room scale" is very few people have a (near empty) room in their households which they can dedicate to a single-user VR experience. Every user in the household would need their own room (hmm - will new homes be advertised with these as "upgrades"?)...

Re: VR

#137

Post by ska »

carlosdp wrote: post #15

VR advancements to look out for in 2017: - Eye tracking (it already works perfectly, I've tried it myself at SIGGRAPH), this will enable a few cool things: - Foveated Rendering - rendering only what is in the fovea view at high quality and using a lower quality method for the periphery. Reduces rendering requirement by ~75%, enabling either higher-end graphics on the desktop, or the ability to move many desktop-bound…

Hololens tracking isn't nearly good enough, in my opinion, and isn't going to get there soon. Vision algorithms + and inertial tracker could be interesting though. Appropriate tech exists, but is currently expensive.

There has been good work on eye tracking in other spaces for many years now, so that seems a much cleaner implementation path to work well.

edit: I'm going to add a caveat, I mostly care about VR and AR in decidedly non-consumer applications, so my bar may be unreasonably high for many consumer applications.

Re: VR

#138

Post by thenomad »

mysterydip wrote: post #22
gonehome wrote: post #16

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?

That works for some people but not all - but for those it does work for, it works very well.

I've added exactly that - scaled movement - as an option into my VR game, Left-Hand Path, and so far most of my users are very positive about it. I love it personally - it feels very much like it doubles my available play area.

One of my playtesters hated it and found it made him nauseous, though, so like many VR locomotion options it's a YMMV situation.

Re: VR

#139

Post by Greenisus »

evo_9 wrote: post #57
drewrv wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Holoball or Audioshield? Those are my go-to games when I'm looking for some exercise.

I use to use Audioshield for the workout but I find Space Pirate and Holopoint to be more intense. I haven't seen Holoball, sounds awesome thanks!

Holoball is my current favorite, but I have to try these others tonight

Re: VR

#140

Post by moron4hire »

evo_9 wrote: 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…

I agree completely. What's really interesting is, if you start to think of VR as exercise equipment, suddenly $800 for a headset and $1200 for a high-end gaming PC aren't that much money. You can easily spend twice that on a treadmill and a treadmill is a terrible workout. You could almost spend that on gym fees in a year and not ever show up, whereas the VR system in my home is fun and compelling: I do use it. And it's only going to get cheaper from here on out.
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