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Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

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Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#71

Post by chime »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #14
pmoriarty wrote: post #5

How's the market for VR doing in general? Is it growing or shrinking? Around the time the first Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Microsoft's HoloLens were released some years back seemed to be high water mark of media stories about VR. Since then it seems to be pretty quiet. Is VR dying on the vine?

I have spent quite sometime with Vive, Rift and PSVR. (rift, psvr at home, vive at my office) PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far the lowest quality. It has some very good games (Astrobot, Wipeout, RE7, Ace Combat 7, Moss, Beat Saber). It's cheap, easy to set up (aimed towards couch VR instead of room scale), cool helmet design, and the fact that the headset works as a regular mo…

> PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far the lowest quality.

For me it's the upcoming Oculus Quest. I've been refreshing /r/oculusquest daily, hoping to get a release date or a way to reserve it.

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#72

Post by andybak »

tomclive wrote: post #69
andybak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is just not really good. I suspect you having been shown the right content. I could reel of a long list of amazing work being done in VR. Google Earth in VR is one of the most astonishing things I've tried in the last decade. Narrative works like Dispatch and Manifest 99 show the potential of VR as a storytelling medium. Tilt Brush, Gravity Sketch are already genuinely useful creative tools... Oh - and Beat Sabe…

I have a Mixed Reality headset and Google Earth is amazing with room-scale VR. It's not something I would have thought would work as well as it does. Beat Saber is the only VR game I keep coming back to - the controls are spot on. So simple and intuitive. You really need to work to get used to all the buttons and sticks to control most other VR games.

> You really need to work to get used to all the buttons and sticks to control most other VR games.

This is a controversial opinion but I prefer the Vive wands to the Oculus touch for this very reason. It pushed developers towards simpler control schemes on the whole.

Trying to remember which button does what is not immersive.

Picking the controller up with the wrong hand every single time is not immersive.

Being reminded you're using a game controller is not immersive.

The best controls in VR are your hands but failing that - the Vive wands are often used as a lump with a single trigger - which I find ideal.

This is one of the reasons why public demos are always smoother with the Vive. You just pass people the controller and show them where the trigger is (and maybe the big trackpad button if necessary)

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#73

Post by yeahboats »

hrktb wrote: post #24
sprash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching movies clearly only makes sense in a social context and is therefore predictably unsuitable for VR. However the "interactive media" market is also way overhyped, maybe similar to 3D-TVs. When the initial excitement of the user for VR wears of it feels more like a gimmick rather than an immersive experience. I know plenty of gamers who have rarely used VR goggles stuffed away in some cupboard while going back…

> Watching movies clearly only makes sense in a social context and is therefore predictably unsuitable for VR. It amazes me at how much difference there can be depending on the social circles and culture perhaps ? On the other end of the spectrum there will be people for who movies and TV are a way to distance from reality and the last thing they want is other people interfering with their experience. I think your vi…

I agree with you. Watching movies in the theater here in the US (with the exception of some Rocky Horror Picture show type screenings) is distinctly -not- a social experience. Talking and interruptions are forbidden and will get you removed for too many infractions.

I would say serial TV shows can be a more social experience; I get together with friends to watch Westworld and I know the bachelor/bachelorette have big followings.

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#74

Post by ingenieros »

andybak wrote: post #32
xroche wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Oculus (DK2, development version though, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt), and while it is great, there are some show-stoppers: • Games needs to be reinvented for VR, which basically makes adoption much harder - playing a FPS in VR will get you dizzy very quickly, even for people that are not very motion-sickness sensitive • Quality is still not good enough, you can feel the pixels, and it br…

I actually disagree in several areas. 1. It's surprising how well flat screen games work in VR with minimal changes. 3rd person RTS, retro top-down shooters, casual puzzle games. I personally would love to see more "low-effort" ports to VR of existing content as just adding stereoscopy, 6DOF and 360 to a game can make it visually stunning. 2. I wouldn't turn my nose up at more resolution but even first gen Vive and R…

There's no such thing as "low-effort ports to VR" as you are describing. When you model a 3D object for flat screens, scale is really not that much of a concern whereas in VR the player's immersion might be completely ruined if something feels just slightly off. Here's a nice blog post I found on the topic which goes much more in depth: https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/size-matters-scale-relationsh...

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#75

Post by wlesieutre »

chime wrote: post #71
throwaway66666 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent quite sometime with Vive, Rift and PSVR. (rift, psvr at home, vive at my office) PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far the lowest quality. It has some very good games (Astrobot, Wipeout, RE7, Ace Combat 7, Moss, Beat Saber). It's cheap, easy to set up (aimed towards couch VR instead of room scale), cool helmet design, and the fact that the headset works as a regular mo…

> PSVR is unironically the hope for VR right now, even though it has by far the lowest quality. For me it's the upcoming Oculus Quest. I've been refreshing /r/oculusquest daily, hoping to get a release date or a way to reserve it.

My big hope for the Quest is that they'll say "Surprise! The USB-C port isn't just charging, it also supports VirtualLink alternate mode!"

Would be great to have one device that can operate as both a standalone device and be connected to a computer for more graphically intense experiences than the Quest's snapdragon hardware can provide.

IIRC it's running at a lower framerate than a Rift does, but it'd still be cool to have that option because I have no plans to buy a dedicated PC-connected headset.

Odds of this actually happening are probably not good, but fingers crossed anyway.

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#77

Post by michaelscott »

Ensorceled wrote: post #64
jimhefferon wrote: post #55

> aggressively hocking Possibly they mean "hawking"?

I think they mean “hock” in the pawn off sense of the word and not intense falconry.

"Hawking" can also refer to the sale of goods, usually in a kind of bazaar-like fashion

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#78

Post by aikah »

pmoriarty wrote: post #5

How's the market for VR doing in general? Is it growing or shrinking? Around the time the first Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Microsoft's HoloLens were released some years back seemed to be high water mark of media stories about VR. Since then it seems to be pretty quiet. Is VR dying on the vine?

> Is VR dying on the vine?

No VR is heavily used in architecture, healthcare industry and other professions.

VR as a mass market however is not doing that great right now, because it's not yielding the results the entertainment industry hoped, which leads to less investment and so on... it's a vicious circle.

Ultimately someone will get it right. Apple, maybe.

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#79

Post by Ajedi32 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #5

How's the market for VR doing in general? Is it growing or shrinking? Around the time the first Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Microsoft's HoloLens were released some years back seemed to be high water mark of media stories about VR. Since then it seems to be pretty quiet. Is VR dying on the vine?

It's still a niche, but growing steadily. Here's a spreadsheet I'm maintaining with statistics from Steam's monthly hardware survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12GKZ3qsTZ7WuC_lj1-04...

As you can see, over the past 2 years we've gone from 0.36% of Steam users having a PC VR headset, to 0.89%.

We're also nearing the launch of the next generation of VR headsets. Both Vive and Oculus have products in development, and its rumored that Valve is working on a new headset as well. I expect we'll be seeing the launch of a few new headsets over the course of the next year.

So no, VR isn't dying on the vine; it's just taking longer to reach maturity than some may have expected.

Re: Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio

#80

Post by mojomark »

gardaani wrote: post #68
mojomark wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't. I believe in AR but not short-term. I think AR will go into a "winter" soon and will be picked up by the mainstream some years later after key technology challenges are solved. I think AR (glasses) is at where VR was in the nineties. > Currently AR has two form factors, phone and glasses. > Phone-based AR is gimmicky. It can be fun and can work in some scenarios but it's monoscopic, has a ridiculous field…

Varjo VR-1 headset gives 60PPD making reading text possible. It is meant for industrial design, modelling and prototyping. It is a VR only headset, but they plan to convert it to an AR headset. It would be the same VR headset including a camera. The camera image is projected to the VR world. The display resolution should make it workable. https://varjo.com/vr-1/

That's interesting; thanks for the link. If they used foveal rendering and custom optics to tackle the problem, I could see this ultra-high resolution being feasible with current LCD/LED display resolutions. I will attempt to check it out, but it depends on the price point. I'm certainly not going to buy sight-unseen based on website claims. I can make a website:)

Also, regarding your AR remark - I do think video-see through AR can (will?) have it's place while optical see-through AR matures.

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