Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Get into VR

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 221 posts

Re: How to Get into VR

#191

Post by tluyben2 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #112
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…

VR is the Virtual Boy all over again until the physiological hostilities of humans to reject the thing after 30 minutes can be mollified with 80% applicability to the population at large. From what I gather, only about 10% of the population can stand being in a VR environment between 15-30 minutes, and even then have to break. Very limiting in use-case scenarios for "grand worlds" if you have to pause every 15 or 30…

Could be; I can play for many hours and I love it. I see what is great about it. Are there any non anecdotal sources for this by the way; anecdotally, non of my friends have that issue. With the Virtual Boy (I have a few of them in working condition) I definitely feel bad.

With the PSVR or the Oculus no problems at all. The helmets can get annoyingly heavy after long play but besides that...

Re: How to Get into VR

#192

Post by artur_makly »

VR Porn i believ will be the biggest of all social consumption. last year i had a chance to try it (out of sheer curiosity and nostalgia) . it was way way to real. the end of society.

Re: How to Get into VR

#193

Post by tripzilch »

return0 wrote: post #125
GraffitiTim wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are using VR to help people overcome fears at Fearless. http://FearlessVR.com It is based on lots of research showing that VR exposure therapy is extremely effective.

Great idea. I do have an irrational fear of cockroaches, but i am not sure overcoming the fear of spiders is a good thing.

assuming that spiders are actually a serious risk where you live, and if it's a phobia in any way like my own irrational fear of heights, then yes it's a good idea to overcome.

the sudden panic reaction when you perceive something that looks like a spider[0], really isn't going to keep you safe when it counts, while acting calm, rational and with common sense will.

heights can be dangerous but my fear of heights is not doing much of protecting me. the heights I may encounter but prefer to avoid aren't actually dangerous (see-through/grated floors are the worst :) ). the situations that are dangerous, I'd rather have my full faculties if I were to find myself there.

[0] i know people who react very strongly to just an image of a spider. living in NL where there's zero dangerous wildlife (just 1 or 2 endangered species of tiny poisonous snake, a lost/dead wolf every few years and 17M humans), that's quite an irrational fear but I won't mess with that because the panic reaction is very real and involuntarily. For fun, however, we tried an experiment where I very slowly drew a cartoon spider, to see at what amount of legs the reaction would kick in :) turned out drawing tiny hairs on the legs did way more for the response than whether I drew 5,6,7, 8 or 9 legs (at which point the other party didn't think it was fun anymore, so I had to end the experiment). and just in case you wondered yes I play with my own phobia in a similar way, whenever I find myself on a perfectly safe balcony that triggers my acrophobia, I like to see how many minutes I can enjoy the view before the GTFO feeling becomes overwhelming (on balconies it's not quite immediate, but still very strong when it kicks in, making it an interesting process to observe).

Re: How to Get into VR

#194

Post by Clubber »

SirHound wrote: post #182
Clubber wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot of hype, but from what I understood watching the experience videos, the first experience is amazing, then boring because there isn't anything else to it. Like a boring game with great graphics. I suspect once better games or software are written for it, it may improve. Perhaps training and whatnot, but I don't see what it offers over headphones and a big monitor setup, other than nausea, hot eye socke…

> Also, you can't do much more with a HUD as far as information goes without distracting the driver. Overlaying your current route over the road itself rather than on an abstracted representation would be a good one.

I was thinking about that and it would have to be perfect if it traced the actual road. Imagine if it traced slightly off the road or into another lane, the first person who would follow it into oncoming traffic would put an end to the whole project.

Maybe recognize and highlight exit signs that you need to turn off on. It's usually high on the windshield and therefore not as distracting.

Parking assist is another thing that isn't quite right. It alarms me when I'm still a foot or two away. When I turn it off, I park much more precisely. It probably made a hell of a lot of money though, selling to car manufacturers.

Re: How to Get into VR

#195

Post by justin66 »

gfodor wrote: post #154

One thing that I think can get lost is that to "Get into VR" if you are already a great software engineer you may not need to learn anything new, just find a place to work where you can immediately apply the skills you already have, towards a VR-oriented product. From there, look for opportunities to develop VR-specific skills like the ones mentioned in this article. For example, at our company (AltspaceVR) we have a…

There is some fundamental irony in a VR company not allowing remote work (during the first year of employment).

Re: How to Get into VR

#196

Post by euske »

Everyone is talking about the hardware cost, but people seem to have forgotten the software cost, which will have a much bigger impact to the industry overall.

Yes, there will be a few great VR apps and games that actually add to the experience, but what an average VR app is going to be? Making something in VR doesn't necessarily make it better. You have to make a good game/app in the first place. And then there's an additional cost for VR. Now you have one more element to screw up.

Look, even a regular standard PC could be 10x more useful if all the software is better built and run flawlessly. Instead we ended up with half-baked glitchy mess. Making a good VR app won't be easier than this. The profit break even point will be higher because people have a higher expectation. It seems the industry is ill-fated.

Re: How to Get into VR

#197

Post by chadgeidel »

strictnein wrote: post #46
haydenlee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd like to "ride along" with my favorite rally team. Wow, what a great experience. Even if pre-recorded that would be simply amazing.

Re: How to Get into VR

#198

Post by justinclift »

Clubber wrote: post #159
ryandamm wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The show is about a year, year and a half out of date. Anecdotally, the funding climate for VR was stupid in 2015, more restrained in 2016 and today. (I think AR might be frothier at this point.) That said, I haven't seen the episode yet, but the show is usually pretty spot on.

There was a lot of hype, but from what I understood watching the experience videos, the first experience is amazing, then boring because there isn't anything else to it. Like a boring game with great graphics. I suspect once better games or software are written for it, it may improve. Perhaps training and whatnot, but I don't see what it offers over headphones and a big monitor setup, other than nausea, hot eye socke…

Personally I suspect it could excel at visualisation/display/analysis of dense data.

But, the "what like exactly?" is eluding me atm. That's likely the key problem. :)

Re: How to Get into VR

#199

Post by itsdevlin »

rconti wrote: post #187
Clubber wrote: post #153

"Silicon Valley" touched on this last week: “It’s a VR play,” Bachman says. “That’s the frothiest space in the Valley right now. Nobody understands it but everyone wants in. Any idiot could walk into a fucking room, utter the letters ‘v’ and ‘r’, and VC’s would hurl bricks of cash at them. “By the time they find out it’s vaporware, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into this.”

Came here for "octopus" jokes. Close enough.

I traded space in the crisper for an app that's octopus recipes?

Re: How to Get into VR

#200

Post by moosingin3space »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #76
mattnewport wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little 'game' around it is pretty fun I find. The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional…

I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns. With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at $400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset, slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers figure things out? Or perhaps VR hard…

I believe VR will become a mass market item when you can buy a "VR console" for $400-600 -- until then, the effort required to set up a VR gaming system will be regarded as "not worth it" by much of the market.
Post reply on HN