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WebVR Experiments

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Re: WebVR Experiments

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

sevensor wrote: post #14

This has the potential to have two, maybe even three times as many users as VRML. Seriously though, has everybody forgotten VRML? It's weird to see the last VR hype cycle repeating itself in such detail.

What killed VRML is that when it was being pushed, clients having internet bandwidth for complex models was rare, and clients having desktop horsepower for even fishtank-style interaction with even simple models was also rare, which limited it's utility.

Declarative VR content on the web has a lot better infrastructure across the board now; the context is not much like 1995.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#42

Post by mkeblx »

guidefreitas wrote: post #16

It would be awesome to have a Chrome version with GearVR integration.

There's actually a couple of Chromium-based browsers on there, Samsung Internet for GearVR which has been out and quite popular for 360 video watching (Youtube.. etc.), and Oculus just came out with theirs.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#43

Post by shurcooL »

Swizec wrote: post #33
tdb7893 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly nowadays it seems like the browser is the right medium for everything. Most people I know who aren't developers or video game players seem to spend like 95% of their time on a computer in a web browser.

Next step: Browser becomes full screen and always-on. People don't know difference between OS and browser. Rich websites become icons on your new tab screen. People call them apps. Tabs become known as virtual desktops or spaces. Somebody invents an app that can show websites and calls it a browser. The cycle repeats.

Have you already seen the on-point "The Birth & Death of JavaScript" talk by Gary Bernhardt?

It points out how despite being ridiculous, there are good reasons why an approach like that has performance benefits.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#44

Post by Swizec »

shurcooL wrote: post #43
Swizec wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next step: Browser becomes full screen and always-on. People don't know difference between OS and browser. Rich websites become icons on your new tab screen. People call them apps. Tabs become known as virtual desktops or spaces. Somebody invents an app that can show websites and calls it a browser. The cycle repeats.

Have you already seen the on-point "The Birth & Death of JavaScript" talk by Gary Bernhardt? It points out how despite being ridiculous, there are good reasons why an approach like that has performance benefits.

I have not but that sounds fascinating. Thanks!

Re: WebVR Experiments

#45

Post by fudged71 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #25
blurrywh wrote: post #18

Slightly OT: Peak and decline of VR related search queries on Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=vr,psvr,oculus,ht...

The problems with VR are much higher-level than anyone wants to admit. Nobody wants to wear a headset on their face. They'll try it for the novelty, but they have a hard time doing it very long, or mustering up the motivation to do it frequently. VR won't hit critical mass until movie-style "holograms" are implemented (check out the video game in Her for an interesting example [0]), just as tablets didn't catch on un…

I'm waiting for 6DoF High-Def HDR Mobile VR.

And any AR headset that can pass the bar of "functional but also not looking weird"

Re: WebVR Experiments

#46

Post by ge96 »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
_pdp_ wrote: post #9

Although pretty cool - I am not convinced that the browser is the right medium for this but I am happy to be proven wrong! While the web is an amazing platform and I do wish it grows beyond what any app store and I think that we need to fundamentally rethink some parts of it to make it better and allow more streamlined clients to operate on top of it. Luckily WebVR is just a client API which should not be hard to mir…

Much easier to do VR with a smartphone than AR, and given that for most people in the world their only computing device is their phone, this seems to be the fastest way to introduce VR to the widest audience possible. That's why browser-based VR also makes a lot of sense, because all those phones have browsers and writing a VR app just means targeting the widest and most mature platforms out there. A Cardboard experi…

>Much easier to do VR with a smartphone than AR

Why? Processing?

I cut out a hole for my phone's camera in my cardboard, was hoping to have the ability to "minimize" VR like minimizing a window and seeing your desktop background except it would be the camera so you could see someone without taking off your headset.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#47

Post by ge96 »

Cool tried a couple out on my Nexus 4. Spot the bot was the one out of four that "fully worked" it was a little laggy. Also I don't have friends ha.

Anyway the forest one the head tracking wasn't working for me. Should report that bug on GitHub

One of them headset not found. I think it's that NFC tag or "magnet?" on the cardboard cover.

Thanks for posting this I heard about webvr in a pod cast and open source code! Want to be Ed from Cowboy Bebop and dive into the web.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#48

Post by trevordev »

I have a vive and what I don't understand is why I need to use chromium or nightly firefox to view this content when it is out on official mobile builds. Does anyone know why this hasn't made it into official desktop builds yet?

Re: WebVR Experiments

#49

Post by jmitcheson »

trevordev wrote: post #48

I have a vive and what I don't understand is why I need to use chromium or nightly firefox to view this content when it is out on official mobile builds. Does anyone know why this hasn't made it into official desktop builds yet?

It could still be quite buggy with Oculus and Vive hardware. They have only enabled WebVR in "Cardboard" mode on mobile which has a much smaller surface area.

Re: WebVR Experiments

#50

Post by skocznymroczny »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
_pdp_ wrote: post #9

Although pretty cool - I am not convinced that the browser is the right medium for this but I am happy to be proven wrong! While the web is an amazing platform and I do wish it grows beyond what any app store and I think that we need to fundamentally rethink some parts of it to make it better and allow more streamlined clients to operate on top of it. Luckily WebVR is just a client API which should not be hard to mir…

Much easier to do VR with a smartphone than AR, and given that for most people in the world their only computing device is their phone, this seems to be the fastest way to introduce VR to the widest audience possible. That's why browser-based VR also makes a lot of sense, because all those phones have browsers and writing a VR app just means targeting the widest and most mature platforms out there. A Cardboard experi…

I don't really understand the cardboard. Maybe I'm using it wrong. Does it provide any VR/3D feeling at all? Whenever I used it it only felt like a big zoom and the fact that you can move your head around, but I can just use my mouse wheel to zoom in and use my mouse to rotate around for almost the same effect.
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