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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

#81

Post by brandnewlow »

lm28469 wrote: post #56
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?

VR is like AI. It's a constant hype/disappointment cycle, albeit it's getting better at every iteration; it's far from delivering on their promises though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History

“Mobile” was the same until it was just everywhere.

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

#82

Post by slfnflctd »

jobigoud wrote: post #41
onion2k wrote: post #6

This is Google saying VR as a medium for passive consumption is dead, or at least the market isn't ready yet. There's could still be plenty of potential for interactive media like games though.

> This is Google saying VR as a medium for passive consumption is dead Not quite. The OP is about 3DOF content where the stereo is baked. You can't move your head around and can't tilt your head. You can have passive content like a static or living scene that isn't interactive but where you can move your head a bit or explore, and it can be photorealistic (6DOF video, light fields, which Google is also working on). V…

As a semi-early adopter of the GearVR, to me it seems like the monoscopic 360° videos are kind of a dead end and should be a last resort for scenes that can't be captured any other way.

Once I saw the 3DOF videos where you can actually move your head around, everything else instantly paled in comparison. I have no desire to view monoscopic video after I went to all the trouble of putting this headset on (unless it's the only way I can watch that video because I'm sitting in a crowded room or vehicle).

This really is the next-gen way to consume immersive 3D content, and if what you're doing is not 3D it is probably a niche use case.

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

#83

Post by kilbuz »

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?

In my opinion, the VR market in a bit of a holding pattern right now, and it's running out of opportunities. I personally believe if the Oculus Quest flops and/or Sony opts not to build a PSVR2 for the next-generation PS5, it's over for now. Google and Samsung have pulled back, MS is not happy with their MR headset sales. Oculus continues to push forward, but increasingly they are alone.

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

#84

Post by Ajedi32 »

jobigoud wrote: post #41
onion2k wrote: post #6

This is Google saying VR as a medium for passive consumption is dead, or at least the market isn't ready yet. There's could still be plenty of potential for interactive media like games though.

> This is Google saying VR as a medium for passive consumption is dead Not quite. The OP is about 3DOF content where the stereo is baked. You can't move your head around and can't tilt your head. You can have passive content like a static or living scene that isn't interactive but where you can move your head a bit or explore, and it can be photorealistic (6DOF video, light fields, which Google is also working on). V…

> The OP is about 3DOF content where the stereo is baked

The OP is about Google Spotlight Stories, which mostly produced non-interactive 6DoF experiences. Obviously on Daydream headsets or YouTube videos which don't support 6DoF you'd only get 3DoF, but if you download the videos on Steam 6DoF works just fine: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Google%20Spotlig...

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

#85

Post by crsv »

xroche wrote: post #12
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 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…

From my direct experience it's a quality thing. Once we're at 4K per eye @ 120FPS or something approaching this - and able to maintain it steadily without dropping frames, it's going to be a pretty mind blowing experience. The problem is right now the resolution and framerates just aren't there to make it feel visceral enough. I think even with just a sitting still model of a headset that has ultra high resolution and frame rate will be an iteration where things start to take off. I'd love to see things take this direction over trying to solve the problem of physically moving in a 3 dimensional space while engaging with VR.

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

#87

Post by theNJR »

I bootstrapped a VR company (1) after leaving a high paying CMO job. I put in around $100k, we released three games, one got some funding from HTC, we were shown at GDC, SIGGRAPH, VRLA, etc. We hit around 2,700 MAU before my co-founder tapped out after no salary for two years.

I took six months off from VR to go back to a normal job that paid well. That got acquired (in a very non-meaningful way, at least for me) in December and I’ve been drawn back to VR. Immersive computing is the inevitable next platform. Recent data(2) shows the kind of growth you’d expect and hope for at this stage.

As others have said, the Quest will be a game changer. I think an NDA says I can’t confirm or deny that I have one, but I certainly agree it is a game changer. During my six month break from VR, I didn’t have any of my half dozen headsets setup. We had turned my living room into our office prior to dismantling, so it was nice to just have my living room back to normal. Setting up my Vive again after six months reminded me of what a pain in the ass that process is. The Quest fixes all of it.

VR is not 3D TV. Anyone who has experienced both knows that to be true. AR will have a much higher install base, but VR will have an addressable market of tens/hundreds of millions.

I’ve been working on a postmortem about my VR company for a while, but can’t seem to finish it. Partially because I’m not sure if that company is over yet.

I’ve got plenty to say about VR, VR startups and VR venture, so any questions, ask away.

(1) http://www.RLTYCHK.co

(2) https://www.roadtovr.com/monthly-connected-vr-headsets-on-st...

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

#88

Post by moron4hire »

michaelscott wrote: post #77
Ensorceled wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, that's "hocking".

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

#89

Post by coldtea »

brandnewlow wrote: post #81
lm28469 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is like AI. It's a constant hype/disappointment cycle, albeit it's getting better at every iteration; it's far from delivering on their promises though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History

“Mobile” was the same until it was just everywhere.

Not really, mobile exploded immediately (in the early nineties), and kept expanding (with the smartphone boom).

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

#90

Post by andybak »

ingenieros wrote: post #74
andybak wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The argument in that post is extremely overblown. I've messed around with dozens of Unity assets that were not intended for VR and they usually work perfectly well.

"Completely ruined" is hyperbole in any case.

Whilst I haven't produced any commercial VR games I have spent two years working with VR in Unity and there are many shortcuts to moving traditional content into VR.

Note that I'm not talking about turning FPS games into room scale experiences. I'm talking about using VR as a stereoscopic 360 view into the game world but maintaining existing control schemes. First person games might be more problematic.

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