Google Open-Sources Cardboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#151

Post by djmips » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #137

TeMPOraL wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not saying every developer is a psychologist, but getting advice from users is definitely the blind leading the blind. More concretely, there are a number of different artifacts of current VR systems that will cause different side effects, depending on how long you expose yourself to them. Unfortunately, the common vernacular lumps all of those issues under the title of "simulator sickness". While simulator sickn…

So Valve and Occulus both basically just gave developers an SDK and said have at it. There were some pointers, easily ignored and there was no QA like you might have with Nintendo that would tighten up some of these issues across all VR apps. Then you have the endless variety of computer specs and a bunch of different VR hardware. It's so easy for a bad app, bad hardware, bad configuration, bad advice to upset the apple cart and cause a bad experience where it could be one of any of the issues you mentioned and others you didn't like bad tracking or just bad programming. With all that it's no doubt that their are a lot of people who 'tried VR' and gave up.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#152

Post by djmips » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #119

unlinked_dll wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean not a sad day for VR. Google is just being Google and thinking that XR is a tech problem. It’s not. The XR gap is in content, not developers, and not tech. Any VR play should be throwing money at creatives, not devs or APIs or frameworks.

XR is very much tech a problem. Wearing headsets have induced headaches for me within 30 mins. The resolution is choppy. Field of view makes everything non-convincing. There is actually ton of content which is good for 5 minutes of demo-surprise factor but failing to have much of stickiness. I expect games to be major play for XR but they have to compete with 4K OLED which will now be ray casted. Adding 3D to limited…

From what I understand, TVs were very usable and popular in the 1950s

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#153

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

djmips wrote: post #148

unlinked_dll wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is anti-social that's why location based experiences (LBE) is the solution. Different monetization route, it's basically a theme park model (invest in cutting edge tech/high value content) and maximize throughput like a VR "ride." Having gone through a number of the experiences I'd highly recommend them. Better than anything you can get at home, it's a fun outing with your friends, and the content is pretty aweso…

Like I mentioned in another comment, there's no quality control and testing in the wild west of VR games on Steam so many of them are terrible and cause motion sickness. My hope with LBE is that the experiences will have been thoroughly researched and tested to mitigate the sickness problem at least. The other advantage to the theme park model is that the experiences last under 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, if the Star Trek experience I saw at Dave & Busters is any indication, the QC is not there. But this has more to do with the economic structure of these companies purchasing these experiences. They sub them out to the lowest bidder, with the budget being too small to do what they want, but no willingness to compromise on the vision. It may not even be the customer's fault, I've seen first hand consultoware managers pushing projects into directions that were not in the client's best interest, but did fit their MBA trained ideas on how to squeeze money out of clients.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#154

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #90

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…

Problems from "one IO device to rule them all" standpoint? Sure. Problems for capturing a huge chunk of the market and being generally useful? Not really. > The lack of any outside visibility is a huge problem for families. It is anti-social. Come on. This way you could say most of gaming is antisocial, because a lot of interesting games (most of them, to me) are single-player experience. There are many people, peopl…

I've done experiments in completely audio-based "VR" experiences. I think it's possible and could even be a useful form factor for people. It definitely blurs the line between VR and AR, and I default back to my assertion that the big difference between the two is who is providing the context for the experience: the developer (VR) or the user (AR).

From a technology standpoint, the Holy Grail device will be able to do both VR or AR selectably and seamlessly. The reason I think so many extant AR apps are just crappy VR apps is because the devices we have aren't able to blend VR and AR, the developers wanted (or were mandated) to use a specific system, and then shoehorned a specific design to the system they had.

> no, overlaying stuff over image of the world captured by a camera doesn't count as proper AR

News to me. If that is the case, then how is the HoloLens AR? Without utilization of the spatial surface recognition system, conceptually the HoloLens is nothing more than "overlaying stuff on an image of the world". That the world is viewed through plastic rather than routed through silicon doesn't make a difference.

Add surface capture to a VR headset with a pass-through camera (which can be done today with off-the-shelf parts, it's just not in a commercial product yet) and I see no difference.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#155

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #120

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…

> 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. I agree. It reminds me of the 3D TV hype. Yes, they exist, and yes, some people use them, but it's still marginal. On an unrelated node, I still can't believe MS killed Kinect. It is fun, it…

They did not kill the Kinect hardware, just the console experience.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#156

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

kayoone wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an Oculus Rift devkit and later the full version and loved it, but I actually have doubts about it only being a content problem. VR has some inherent problems (lack of any outside visibility, motion sickness, space restrictions) that are hard to solve and keep many people away from it. For me it only really worked in racing games where i was not moving at all and even then it is quite exhausting.

> 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…

I've used the Quest in my backyard after the sun had gotten low enough to be behind a tree. It works quite well, and the extra space was a huge boon.

It should be noted that the Quest runs the Snapdragon 835 SoC, the same SoC in the Go and every other standalone headset you can actually acquire right now (specifically, Lenovo Mirage Solo and Vive Focus). It's the same SoC as the Google Pixel 2. In other words, it's old. It's why Oculus had to drop the framerate from 75Hz on the Go to 72Hz on the Quest: the added overhead of the camera tracking and higher resolution display left too little frame budget for applications.

I will immediately buy the first headset with an 855 in it. Not only will the raw performance be substantially better, but it has custom silicon in it specifically for doing image-based tracking, as well as processing higher resolution video feeds. Quest is just a preview of what is to come. I'm pretty sure we're going to get the first, decent pass-through camera modes in the next gen of mobile VR headsets.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#157

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

deckar01 wrote: post #136

russellbeattie wrote: post #35

I spent $69 on a Daydream headset a month or so ago just to play with it, only to find out it didn't work with my phone. I kept it just in case. Then Google cancelled it. It'd be nice if they opened up that code as well...

Daydream didn't support 2:1 ratio displays for some reason. Most of Google's own flagship phones moved to that ratio. All they had to do was add black bars to the side to simulate 16:9, but they never did. I actually got Daydream to work by hacking the phone's hardware configuration to trick it into thinking the display was 1920x1080, but it caused the Android Moto launcher to freeze and crash too often. I purchased…

Nobody is making phone-slot-in headsets that are more than just "plastic Google Cardboard" anymore. Both Daydream and Gear VR are out, and there are no other projects in the works. You will not get that headset. Your best bet is to use a Daydream View (hopefully purchased on eBay so you're not paying $70) as a comfortable, well constructed Google Cardboard.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#158

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

djmips wrote: post #151

moron4hire wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying every developer is a psychologist, but getting advice from users is definitely the blind leading the blind. More concretely, there are a number of different artifacts of current VR systems that will cause different side effects, depending on how long you expose yourself to them. Unfortunately, the common vernacular lumps all of those issues under the title of "simulator sickness". While simulator sickn…

So Valve and Occulus both basically just gave developers an SDK and said have at it. There were some pointers, easily ignored and there was no QA like you might have with Nintendo that would tighten up some of these issues across all VR apps. Then you have the endless variety of computer specs and a bunch of different VR hardware. It's so easy for a bad app, bad hardware, bad configuration, bad advice to upset the ap…

I agree completely. That said, I think those of us who have actively been in the industry more than at least a year have had to work through their own crappy software enough to at least intuitively know the issues. No, I won't take the advice of any ol' random developer, but I have not seen any users who were not also developers who knew what was what.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#159

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #83

moron4hire wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you buy the headset that they didn't list the phones that are compatible with it?

Why would I have ever thought that Google would artificially limit compatibility? It never crossed my mind. I just assumed the listed phones were popular examples - and since mine had the same version of Android as the Pixels/Galaxies, I didn't worry about it. When did you decide to become an internet troll?

I'm not trying to troll you, I'm legitimately asking. Everywhere I've seen it for sale has very prominently listed for which phones it's compatible. It's more warning than you will get when buying an NVMe SSD only to find out you have purchased the wrong connector version for your PC.

Re: Google Open-Sources Cardboard

#160

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

djmips wrote: post #144

celticninja wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably a key demographic for them tech enthusiast, gamer with disposable income to cover these sorts of purchases, but the motion sickness aspect would need to be non-existent for me to spend any money on one of these.

One thing about the wild west of VR is that even if one single game solves the motion sickness aspect there are dozens more of first time developers who through ignorance or lack of care will create games that cause motion sickness.

Yeah, I don't know what it's like in Unreal land, but I suspect the learning curve tends to keep the amateurs and those not interested in going the extra mile to create a great experience away. With Unity, there is so little in the way of tools for creating good VR experiences, and many of the default tools and settings are actively bad for VR.

Unity's default stuff is so bad for VR and I've replaced so much of it in the last three years that I'm pretty close to having my own game engine. In another year, I could be completely off of Unity and running on just Xamarin.