How to Get into VR • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Get into VR

#41

Post by Nemo157 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

thenayr wrote: post #13

minimaxir wrote: post #8

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, whi…

One good example as of late is The Wave VR. http://thewavevr.com/ A crossover between game / social experience / musical fantasy. They have live shows once a week and have been gaining momentum within the VR community quite rapidly. Important to remember we are quite literally still just beyond the one year mark since consumer VR devices hit the market. It will only get better. I agree the Gear is not where VR is goi…

> Fans won’t have to travel the globe or miss out [...] - http://thewavevr.com

> This item is currently unavailable in your region - http://store.steampowered.com/app/453000/

Really great internationalisation there. I'm guessing they're having the standard problem of not being able to get worldwide licenses for the builtin music.

Re: How to Get into VR

#42

Post by strictnein » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

mattnewport wrote: post #16

minimaxir wrote: post #8

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, whi…

We have paying customers for our VR surgical training - ossovr.com - I left the games industry in 2014 to work on non games VR applications because I believed (and still believe) that commercial applications of VR will be more profitable in the near term than games. Architecture is another field that is seeing rapid adoption of VR as a real business tool and not just a gimmick.

Interesting, I pitched VR training as part of a hackathon at [my very large employer] who offers platforms for employee training and onboarding. One of the studies I cited during my presentation was on VR surgical training [0], showing that it decreased surgeon error. I lost to a multiuser wiki document editor (think Google Docs, but less exciting). Because that's a huge market for a multi billion dollar company. No, I'm not bitter... sigh

Another was how Siemens was able to reduce training times for oil rigs by significant periods [1] using VR tech.

> "Architecture is another field that is seeing rapid adoption of VR"

My architect is going to bring over a SketchUp model of the work he has planned on our house and I'll be loading it up with some software for the Vive [2]. He doesn't usually do that final step, but he's very interested in trying it out.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1422600/

[1] https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-f...

[2] https://www.kubity.com/

Re: How to Get into VR

#43

Post by haydenlee » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #34

haydenlee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a professional VR developer I'm unaware of this crisis. There's also about as many headsets sold as people thought there would be (and way more GearVR's than expected). I haven't gotten sick from a VR experience (that I wasn't half-way through building) in over a year. The headsets are good enough that they don't make you sick by default (like they used to) and to make somebody sick you have to go against best des…

I'm not a VR developer, but from an outside perspective it actually looks like there are a few different crises. 1) Developers seem to be interested in heavyweight VR systems like Vive and Rift, while users (based on sales figures, anyway) seem to be interested in inexpensive, cordless systems like GearVR and Cardboard. Which leads to the awkward situation where all the innovative software is coming out for hardware…

Appreciate the comment. Here's my thoughts:

1. I think if you looked at the time and money spent in mobile headsets vs heavyweight systems it would tell a different story than sales figures. Better to make a few people love you then lots of people just sorta like you, and all that YC jazz.

2. I'm extremely susceptible to motion sickness and I've been trying most of the latest content so I think I'm a good canary to see if VR actually makes you sick anymore. I do think there are some perception problems that are lingering around longer than I thought they would, and this is a consumer awareness problem that as you say, will take some time to solve. Luckily I think its largely a moot point because everybody that tries good content realizes that it doesn't always make you sick and that they need to have one as soon as they can afford it.

3. I bet every future Oculus Rift and Vive generation will be lighter than they are today. Making a bet that a piece of consumer technology will get heavier and larger as time increases is generally an ill-advised move.

Re: How to Get into VR

#44

Post by smacktoward » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #24

smacktoward wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the important difference that getting on the early Internet only required a telephone line, which everybody already had, and a modem, an inexpensive piece of hardware you did not have to physically strap onto your face.

No it also required a computer, which a lot of people did not have back in the mid-90s, and not everyone was prepared to shell out the money to get one (it was certainly not "inexpensive" if you were buying one for the sole purpose of getting online). My source on this? I worked at one of the first consumer ISPs in Canada, and we regularly had people coming in to sign up because they heard about "this Internet thing"…

I left that out because VR also requires an expensive computer -- expensive at least compared to what most people have. Rift, for instance, requires not just a discrete GPU but a pretty serious one (GTX 970/1060 level), in a market where only about a third of PCs sold at retail in 2016 had a discrete GPU at all (see http://www.anandtech.com/show/10864/discrete-desktop-gpu-mar...).

So, if by "VR" you mean Vive/Rift-level VR, very few people will have a computer already lying around the house that can cut the mustard, even if they bought that computer relatively recently.

Re: How to Get into VR

#45

Post by deepnet » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

At least in my case VR simulator sickness was nascent prioproception.

Fast paced and hectic movements performed in VR would make someone sick if performed in real life.

Back in the day, playing FPSs with shutter glasses, I realised the motion sensations were tied to the motion. Then the sensations became a feature not a bug.

Once I understood the feelings they stopped making me nauseous. VR-prioproception improved my FPS performance. Feeling orientation and velocity really helps.

And immersion goes off chart.

Hard to know what way one is pointing in space, sometimes there are scant motion cues.

But in VR with prioproception When your stomach jumps into your mouth, pulling insane high-G maneuvers as bolts of laser fire crackle past your ship. With prioproception you sense it, becoming as Tudyk said "a leaf on the wind". Fully Embodied. No mind, no controls, you just are.

My vision for VR is a web browser, informed by Gibson's original vision of cyberspace, XEROX Park's 3D information sorting and VRML97 with Unreal style portals as hyperlinks.

IMHO The VR in Snowcrash was mundane. Predating the net, Gibson saw further, to a paradigm shift coming from a new knowledge tool.

Gibson's later 'locative art' idea is a nice twist on Augmented Reality - you have to go somewhere to see the virtual art overlayed on that place - it is site specific.

Re: How to Get into VR

#46

Post by strictnein » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

haydenlee wrote: post #25

minimaxir wrote: post #8

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, whi…

immersive concerts - TheWaveVR [0] reinvented museums - TiltBrush [1] court-side sporting events - NextVR [2] Not to mention architecture [3], communication [4], collaboration [5], medicine [6], 3d modeling [7], game development [8], film [9] and the myriad of other industries I'm forgetting. Also if you haven't tried any of the latest games on Oculus Rift or Vive you're really missing out. They've gotten incredible…

> court-side sporting events

I still want to stand on the 50 yard line during a live game, or position myself wherever the action is, with fully realized 3D models of the players.

Re: How to Get into VR

#47

Post by gavanwoolery » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

For those interested in how NOT to get into VR, I present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHlaVNOKGM

Re: How to Get into VR

#48

Post by aaron-lebo » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

haydenlee wrote: post #25

minimaxir wrote: post #8

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, whi…

immersive concerts - TheWaveVR [0] reinvented museums - TiltBrush [1] court-side sporting events - NextVR [2] Not to mention architecture [3], communication [4], collaboration [5], medicine [6], 3d modeling [7], game development [8], film [9] and the myriad of other industries I'm forgetting. Also if you haven't tried any of the latest games on Oculus Rift or Vive you're really missing out. They've gotten incredible…

I've found the gaming experiences pretty mediocre.

It's $900 + big clunky thing on your head vs $500 for a really nice 4k monitor.

Something like Onward is pretty special for its realism, but its not a better game than Rainbow Six was 20 years ago. There are some other fun games but the novelty wears off quickly. It's like a really expensive ($1300 setup) Wii. The current experiences aren't worth the money.

Re: How to Get into VR

#49

Post by Namrog84 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

aVReality wrote: post #39

Perhaps counterintuitively, I see/hear more interest in VR for business/productivity than for gaming, right now. I think it comes down to stimulation: we're used to gaming and other entertainment being high-octane, exciting experiences. But work/productivity is boring. VR, by virtue of its immersion and fantastical interactions, can bring more excitement to productivity uses (which are typically boring), while adding…

I think VR is still so early and there is still no 'viral winning app' that 100% justifies VR. There is a lot of searching and scrambling for it. Perhaps it is in business and productivity. There is limitless potential for VR, but the tech isn't quite there for many use cases. And worse yet, is there is still no single app or game that is like, this is the single reason you buy into VR.

With rising property costs in many major areas and pushes towards open offices. Think of how VR would solve the proximity problem, if you could plug into VR into a virtual office and still have 'proximity benefits' while working remotely but still have privacy/separation and cheap rent and commute.

Re: How to Get into VR

#50

Post by avaer » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:46 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #40

Somebody at YC likes "Ready Player One", which is a stupid book. (Essential skill for taking over a big company: ability to play a perfect game of PacMan.) "Snow Crash" was ahead of its time. Yet the plot of Snow Crash would play out the same if everybody simply had modern phones. Where's the killer app for VR? VR headsets have been around for years. The current generation of technology works adequately. Yet other th…

> Essential skill for taking over a big company: ability to play a perfect game of PacMan.

Upcoming generations see Youtubers as their idols. It sounds stupid on the surface, but the ability to play a perfect game of Pacman wouldn't be the worst thing to bet on if you wanted to take over some big media company. Even if you don't have a tech billionaire stacking the deck.

> Where's the killer app for VR?

Like finding startup ideas, I don't think the killer VR app is going to come about from someone looking for killer VR apps. It's going to start as something silly done by the people messing around with VR today.