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John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

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Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#21
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Unfortunately, when you take your social network public, investors demand growth. When user growth plateaus, it seems FB has chosen to be more aggressive in forcing you into their network ^.^

I don't understand why growth is measured as a percentage? Obviously the growth rate for Facebook can NEVER be greater than the growth rate of the population of people born into households with internet. And that can be nowhere near 20% YOY even. It's what is responsible for the stupid fallacy that PC is dying. It's not dying - it's has more longevity. A machine I built in 2008 is still going strong. Only had to upgr…

> the growth rate for Facebook can NEVER be greater than the growth rate of the population of people born into households with internet

> Am I missing something?

People who are already born but not a member of Facebook?

Households who newly have access to the Internet?

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#22
I tried to take a frame snapshot with Snapdragon Profiler to be able to make specific comments, but that didn’t work because the app doesn’t have the INTERNET permission listed in the manifest, which is required to communicate with the profiler.

Now that's a problem I would have never even imagined being possible.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#23
The Oculus Home app (GearVR/S7 edge) recently received an update that has literally blown everything out of the water in terms of quality. I simply don't feel like launching an app now, just want to look at the scenery. I didn't see anything about it on HN, so here are a couple of links about the update:

https://www.vrfocus.com/2017/03/carmack-on-oculus-home-updat...

https://uploadvr.com/new-john-carmack-software-doubles-oculu...

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#24
post #17
post #16

Did I miss something? Should you give someone feedback on a public post? Writing generically about something you noticed would be fine but to specifically talk about a project, I don't know, I would feel super uncomfortable if it was done to me.

It is a series of public feedback posts; the devs know it will be public. It is supposed to be able to help other people.

Ok, didn't know that. It's upto him how he wants to do it. But really a generic post without naming anyone would also get the point across, just my opinion.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#25
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building an engine takes years and a large(~30+) team if you want to match UE4/Unity in terms of productivity.

I'm very familiar with what it takes. We built a mobile AR engine based on OpenGL starting back in 2013 that launched in 2015. I'm sure FB has more than enough fantastic personnel and resources to build a great engine.

Game engine != Productivity(artist/designer) focused game engine.

I've worked on UE3 based titles, in-house engines and quite a few in-between. Building a new engine from the ground up is easily in the 10s of millions if not more which is why you rarely see new entries into the market.

Sure FB could do it, but it probably makes more sense to worth with UE4/Unity to augment them. You'll be able to draw from a large base of developers/designers/artists who already understand the workflow instead of having to build up that community from scratch.

[edit]

Also the default-large packages of UE titles is mostly a function of optimization, We'd have only ~200mb of system memory back on the PS3 which is way smaller then what modern mobile platforms have available to them. UE has a bunch of things you can do to pull them down, it just takes work.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#26
Here's what the game looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfz6_V5Ldyw

I could see this being a great product when combined with those guide meditation apps. Like https://www.headspace.com

I remember one of these meditation tapes I found on PirateBay which combine binaural beats and guided meditation. It had you climbing a lush mountain, coming upon an old looking door in the side of the mountain, and being in this relaxing room with pillows on the ground and you look up and see stars. That was my first exposure to meditation and it surprisingly put me in a very hypnotic/meditative state after the 30 minutes was over. Very good state to get in before starting creative design work. It would be a great experience to translate to VR with 3d sound.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#27
post #18
post #16

Did I miss something? Should you give someone feedback on a public post? Writing generically about something you noticed would be fine but to specifically talk about a project, I don't know, I would feel super uncomfortable if it was done to me.

This is a thing that John Carmack, specifically, does routinely. I'd imagine most people who work with him know he does this, and he was probably in communication with the devs.

At least in the past the devs specifically ask for feedback from Carmack knowing that the review will be public.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#28

The Oculus Home app (GearVR/S7 edge) recently received an update that has literally blown everything out of the water in terms of quality. I simply don't feel like launching an app now, just want to look at the scenery. I didn't see anything about it on HN, so here are a couple of links about the update: https://www.vrfocus.com/2017/03/carmack-on-oculus-home-updat... https://uploadvr.com/new-john-carmack-software-dou…

> Static images with mip maps or proper prefiltering can go up to around 18 pixels per degree if you really want the most detail in the center.

I'm not very familiar with VR. What does he mean here by "center"?

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very familiar with what it takes. We built a mobile AR engine based on OpenGL starting back in 2013 that launched in 2015. I'm sure FB has more than enough fantastic personnel and resources to build a great engine.

Game engine != Productivity(artist/designer) focused game engine. I've worked on UE3 based titles, in-house engines and quite a few in-between. Building a new engine from the ground up is easily in the 10s of millions if not more which is why you rarely see new entries into the market. Sure FB could do it, but it probably makes more sense to worth with UE4/Unity to augment them. You'll be able to draw from a large ba…

I don't disagree with any of that. However the point is it would be huge for the development community but a relatively small project for Facebook.

Would solidify platform lock in even further.

Re: John Carmack reviews VR app “Just Relax”

#30
I expected this to be an insightful post by Carmack about the current trends and concerns in the VR industry. It turned out to be what sounds like an entirely predictable review that could have been written by anyone with a bit of technical knowledge of a poorly designed VR app. Not very interesting. Don't really understand why this is getting so much attention.
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