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Google Open-Sources Cardboard

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Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#91

Post by carrozo »

tus88 wrote: post #79
rosybox wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are pretty large problems. As an outsider it seems that the people bullish on VR think consumers, with respect to these problems you mentioned, will just get over it because of how compelling VR is. It seems obvious to me that they will not get over it. The lack of any outside visibility is a huge problem for families. It is anti-social. Small kids can't be near you while you are using VR. Pets can't really be…

The people bullish on VR are the same crowd who were bullish on 3D tv. If people don't want to wear a bit of flimsy cardboard they sure as hell don't want to wear a plastic sarcophagus on their head.

“Plastic sarcophagus” is going to make me chuckle all day, thank you.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#92

Post by TeMPOraL »

Lukas_Skywalker wrote: post #88
meheleventyone wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also IRL clubs like sports and other hobbies where groups meet up in halls to play shared experiences. With headsets like the Quest this is much more attainable now.

I imagine that the social aspect of team sports or hobbies in groups are a big driver for participants and could not be replicated entirely with XR. There's a reason humans meet in person at e.g. a restaurant for talking instead of using a video call.

There is also a reason people lock themselves in their rooms to play games and watch TV shows, or schedule those activities around the time everyone else in the family is either not present or asleep. People like both social and individual activities, and I don't understand how VR serving primarily the latter is to be considered a problem.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#93

Post by jawngee »

moron4hire wrote: post #67
dre54673 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been many threads on reddit about this. There aren't that many VR information sources out there so that's where I used to get VR info. Examples: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/oculus/comment...

Oh, /r/Vive and /r/oculus are dumpster fires. I don't know /r/PSVR, but considering what I know of reddit and what passes for "culture" amongst gamers, I expect it's much the same. Very, very few actual developers in those boards.

Yes but a lot of users with real world experience.

"Getting your VR legs" is definitely a real thing.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

evan_ wrote: post #86
TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lack of any outside visibility, (...) space restrictions Oculus Quest has managed to solve both of them, even though they do their best not to exploit it. Because it's an untenthered headset, you have to designate a "play area" for safety - and to do that, you get to see the world through headset's cameras[0], and paint it with your controllers! Even though the view is monochrome and grainy, you can see enough to w…

The cameras are used for controller tracking as well as headset tracking. It’s a 6dof optical mouse.

Right. Forgot about the obvious. This is how the headset knows where it is in the world, and also how it remembers designated play areas. The UX around it is a bit buggy, but I've successfully worked with one "walking" area in one room, and another "sitting" area in a different room, and the headset would usually remember both, so I didn't have to redraw them every time.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#95

Post by TeMPOraL »

rosybox wrote: post #56
Ajedi32 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Lack of outside visibility seems more like a feature to me than a problem with the medium; the whole point of VR is to remove you from the real world and place you in a virtual one. As for motion sickness; with modern headsets that's generally only a problem for games which move the "camera" in ways which don't match your movement in the real world. (Such as racing games.) There's plenty of content a…

> the whole point of VR is to remove you from the real world Who does this work for? It doesn't for people with spouses and children. I can't be removed from the real world when my child wants my attention. How many hours of game play do you think the average family person might have available to them where they can just remove themselves from the real world? Given all of VR's problems, the people who will play VR ga…

> It doesn't for people with spouses and children.

It works perfectly well, to the extent that any single-player activity works with spouses and children. Source: I have a spouse, a child, and a VR headset.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

moron4hire wrote: post #67
dre54673 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been many threads on reddit about this. There aren't that many VR information sources out there so that's where I used to get VR info. Examples: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/oculus/comment...

Oh, /r/Vive and /r/oculus are dumpster fires. I don't know /r/PSVR, but considering what I know of reddit and what passes for "culture" amongst gamers, I expect it's much the same. Very, very few actual developers in those boards.

The question of VR motion sickness is not something you want to ask developers, but actual users.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#97

Post by TeMPOraL »

moron4hire wrote: post #70
drdaeman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is that AR doesn't have that in-VR movement problem, that's notoriously hard to solve. And it doesn't require those weird-looking and weird-feeling controllers to interact with the world. So... maybe VR is not yet there, because the hardware does not allow for the full immersion that we unconsciously expect/want from a virtual reality?

It's not hard to solve. We've known the solution for years now. Don't do it. You can either keep your experience confined to the user's play boundary. You can teleport people to new locations. You can let people walk to the edge of their boundary and use a gesture of some kind (e.g. flicking one of their thumbsticks on their controller) to turn them around to do "redirected walking". You can provide a "strong stomach…

Or a treadmill. There's also that option (though obviously it won't be a mass-market thing).

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#98

Post by TeMPOraL »

mwfunk wrote: post #22
ss3000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is VR not just a special case of AR?

IMO it's the other way around, AR is a special case of VR. To make an AR system, you need to basically do all the work involved in making a VR system, then somehow integrate it with a video feed of the outside world, then convincingly add digital content to that video feed in a way that complies with the real world's geometry, which you have to extrapolate from the video. Basically it's much easier to accurately plac…

When did AR become what you describe? I stopped at AR being overlaying data on top of the things you actually see - i.e. there's no "real world video feed", just semi-transparent displays.

I'm not sure what's going to happen first - technology to do proper AR like this, or fast enough, high-resolution (both spatial and color) enough cameras and displays being available to do the "AR via VR" option.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#99

Post by TeMPOraL »

1propionyl wrote: post #26
Gaelan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Apple or Microsoft's (released) AR stuff can be used for VR. Apple's ARKit just runs on a phone screen (which obviously isn't AR) and HoloLens doesn't have the field of view to be VR. So they'll probably converge eventually but the products right now solve one or the other, but not both.

> which obviously isn't AR Really? Why not?

Because it feeds the world through a camera onto a flat sheet of glass, instead of being a translucent surface onto which computer-generated images are projected.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#100

Post by leadingthenet »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #87
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of Google's big tactical mistakes, imo. It's entirely plausible that AR ends up being a dead end. It's 5 years later and still not really a big market.

True, although you could say the same thing about jpegs back when chatting online involved reading descriptions and guessing what the OP looked like. It takes time for new technologies to become widely adopted and utilized. The difference is that any sighted person can view and appreciate pictures, while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR…

> while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR.

Could you expand on this, please? I didn't realise this was a significant concern until now.

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