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How to Get into VR

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: How to Get into VR

#211

Post by vincentschen »

lincolnpark wrote: post #129
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're developing a VR application for chronic pain management. http://karunavr.com I don't think it's too sci-fi.

This looks awesome! What are some of the engineering/hci challenges you've come across?

Re: How to Get into VR

#212

Post by vincentschen »

sevensor wrote: post #94

> VR is a new medium This is just blatantly not true, at least not on the implied timescale. VR has been around for literally decades, including immersive VR with head and hand tracking. I know because I used it in 1998. The current VR hype cycle is based on this all having gotten a lot cheaper and faster. To top it off, listing Snow Crash and Neuromancer as suggested reading is just silly. Those are the exact same b…

Yes, perhaps I could have been more clear here. As I mentioned in the post, while technology is certainly not new, it's more accessible, such that creators have access to it as a new medium.

Re: How to Get into VR

#213

Post by vincentschen »

fitzroy wrote: post #174
greggman wrote: post #171

I still haven't drunk the VR kool-aid. I want to believe. I've used all the software. Played many games. The problems for me are 2 fold 1. I don't have the space. I don't personally know anyone that does. Maybe if you live in the mid-west or the suburbs but there are plenty of cities where people are unlikely to have a space for room scale VR and arguably the non-room scale VR is just not that compelling. Visiting a…

"I don't have the space. I don't personally know anyone that does." Same (NYC). Urban centers have been trending for the last 30 years and have become prohibitively expensive as a result. I can't help but wonder if a future (next?) generation of kids will move back out to the burbs in search of McMansions with two-car garages to use as immersive VR environments.

Super interesting... I definitely wonder how VR/AR might change the way we think about architecting spaces in general.

Re: How to Get into VR

#214

Post by ktta »

intrasight wrote: post #207
pswilson14 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't have much incentive to build new Mac minis and new Mac Pros.

Exactly. But they do have a big incentive to participate in the next big wave of personal computing.

Apple has never been about spearheading the 'next big wave'. It's modus operandi has always been step in late, but do it right.

VR as I see it now isn't any where close to being the big wave that people are anticipating it to be. I think we still need a bunch more computing power and time before it has any chance of disrupting anything.

Even then I doubt Apple will get into VR. Apple is very elitist when it comes to adopting industry standardds. That hasn't stopped it from getting a good foothold in the personal computing market. But it did pretty much kill Apple's chance at making money in the hardcore gaming sector. Which I think will happen again with VR.

Re: How to Get into VR

#215

Post by greggman »

meheleventyone wrote: post #179
greggman wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vive's works with multiple people in the same space, Rift's does not. So there is a relevance to someone considering an HDM today. There are VR experiences were 2+ people are in the same sim in the same space. There are also VR spaces (arcades, tradeshows) where if there are 2 rifts near each other (2 adjacent booths) the rifts interfere with each other

The Vive also interferes if two different sets are setup such that the lighthouses overlap. Two of my coworkers had to setup a curtain because of it.

You don't need 2 lighthouses for multiple vives

Re: How to Get into VR

#216

Post by erichocean »

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…

> what is it doing now outside of games

I'm using room-scale VR to build and explore virtual film sets (HTC Vive, Unreal Engine) and scenes.

Re: How to Get into VR

#217

Post by intrasight »

ktta wrote: post #214
intrasight wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. But they do have a big incentive to participate in the next big wave of personal computing.

Apple has never been about spearheading the 'next big wave'. It's modus operandi has always been step in late, but do it right. VR as I see it now isn't any where close to being the big wave that people are anticipating it to be. I think we still need a bunch more computing power and time before it has any chance of disrupting anything. Even then I doubt Apple will get into VR. Apple is very elitist when it comes to…

I, for one, anticipate it being a big wave - perhaps even the biggest after smartphones. I think it's what comes next. And I for one wouldn't miss the era of walking around poking our index fingers at 5" screens. I do hope that there are senior folks at Apple thinking the same, because I think Apple has the resources to do VR well.

Re: How to Get into VR

#218

Post by meheleventyone »

greggman wrote: post #215
meheleventyone wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Vive also interferes if two different sets are setup such that the lighthouses overlap. Two of my coworkers had to setup a curtain because of it.

You don't need 2 lighthouses for multiple vives

Indeed but that's not always feasible and still doesn't alter the fact that the lighthouses interfere with one another if the laser scanned regions overlap. Hence the curtain.

Re: How to Get into VR

#219

Post by ktta »

intrasight wrote: post #217
ktta wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has never been about spearheading the 'next big wave'. It's modus operandi has always been step in late, but do it right. VR as I see it now isn't any where close to being the big wave that people are anticipating it to be. I think we still need a bunch more computing power and time before it has any chance of disrupting anything. Even then I doubt Apple will get into VR. Apple is very elitist when it comes to…

I, for one, anticipate it being a big wave - perhaps even the biggest after smartphones. I think it's what comes next. And I for one wouldn't miss the era of walking around poking our index fingers at 5" screens. I do hope that there are senior folks at Apple thinking the same, because I think Apple has the resources to do VR well.

Flying cars are what comes next after cars, and that's been going on for several decades now isn't it?

VR does have great potential, but not as it is right now. IBM and Xerox have put in a lot of money then in a lot of things. And Google is throwing money at several things too. But seldom do the big wave things pan out as expected when we want them to.

Re: How to Get into VR

#220

Post by Doxin »

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…

> only about 10% of the population can stand being in a VR environment between 15-30 minutes, and even then have to break.

From my personal experience it's much much higher than 10%. Just about no one who has tried my vive reported motion sickness at any length of time. Something I do commonly hear from people who have just used vr for the first time is that for a brief period after the real world seems to take on a surreal quality, but as far as I can tell that effect stops happening fairly quickly with experience.

It's quite possible that "vr-sickness" is something you get over with more experience, like how most children grow out of car sickness. In any case there's a whole bag of tricks to help with vr-sickness that haven't been commonly applied at all yet (virtual noses anyone?). The field is in its infancy and it's unfair to judge it's future by fairly small and solvable problems that only exist right now.

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