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Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#21

Post by fyfy18 »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #15

What I think virtual reality would be immediately useful right now: for anyone working on 3D modeling/animating/CAD. It is very finicky to view and manipulate 3d data on a flat 2d monitor, VR headsets and manipulation devices should be a godsend to those professions. (Also, they have a lot more money to throw than ordinary consumers, they would be willing to pay thousands on a superior workflow.) If VR software devel…

I will admit that I am not a professional, but in my spare time I have designed some parts in CAD software (Fusion 360) which I've then 3D printed. My experience was once I understood the key bindings to manipulate the view, it was very easy to spacially understand what was going on, even with parts that had layers hidden below other layers (you just turn off the layers you don't care about). I'm not really sure how a VR headset would have helped in my case, but as I said, maybe this is just because the work I was doing was simple.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#22

Post by rusk »

jplayer01 wrote: post #11
timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

> the most popular genres, like fps, rpg, action-adventure I'm not sure why you think so. I can't think of a genre where VR wouldn't work in some form, but especially anything first-person should work just fine. edit: Downvoting, classy. Yeah, let's ignore first-person games like Sairento, Budget Cuts, Boneworks, etc. which are fantastic because they're first person and how immersive it is to be inside a game as the…

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#23

Post by xallace »

newzombie wrote: post #17

The very main reason VR isn't taking off is because it has no killer app , that is, an app that other platforms can't have, and that people love. End-of-story. What's to understand here is that it's not said that this killer app "exists". If VR is only a cooler screen, then it will sell like cooler screens. Now maybe it's a killer screen, that is a screen that everybody wants. I guess there is a competitive advantage…

the killer VR-app for me was racing simulation but it is a very niche market. and way too expensive for most people

VR-Goggles, high-end PC, good steering wheel (G27 at minimum) racing seat, ... and ideally dedicated room for the setup

it was great fun (did it for 2 years) but got rid of it because it consumed too many hours

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#24

Post by jplayer01 »

rusk wrote: post #22
jplayer01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the most popular genres, like fps, rpg, action-adventure I'm not sure why you think so. I can't think of a genre where VR wouldn't work in some form, but especially anything first-person should work just fine. edit: Downvoting, classy. Yeah, let's ignore first-person games like Sairento, Budget Cuts, Boneworks, etc. which are fantastic because they're first person and how immersive it is to be inside a game as the…

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Being downvoted for an uncontroversial opinion is also boring and quite shitty, and becoming quite typical of this site. Wish the site would finally get rid of the fucking downvote system. If people disagree, they should actually comment and talk about it, instead of blindly downvoting whatever opinion they happen to disagree with.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#26

Post by armitron »

Sensationalist article that is completely out of touch with reality on both social and technical levels. Oculus quest is a game changer - obvious to anyone that puts it on - and the fact that it’s not even mentioned says a lot. I doubt she has even tried it.

On a social level, it is comical how myopic her vision for VR is and how far off the mark the focus on VR arcades lies. The big selling point of VR in the near and not so near future is not expensive social experiences on somebody else’s commercial infrastructure but escapism and social experiences including work in the comfort of your own home.

Global warming, rising populations, terrorist attacks, widespread decoherence, pollution and decay in our urban centers are all powerful accelerators and extremely synergistic for the future of VR.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#27

Post by reportgunner »

jplayer01 wrote: post #24
rusk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Being downvoted for an uncontroversial opinion is also boring and quite shitty, and becoming quite typical of this site. Wish the site would finally get rid of the fucking downvote system. If people disagree, they should actually comment and talk about it, instead of blindly downvoting whatever opinion they happen to disagree with.

Why don't you simply go to all the sites that are better than this one ?

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#28

Post by rkho »

Truly immersive VR experiences are great. The park I went to in Tokyo recently had some fun licensed ones:

+ A Shin Godzilla themed helicopter raid which required a customized "cockpit" to ride in with rumble capabilities, + A Dragon Quest free-roaming VR adventure which required a LOT of space to enable + A Mario Kart race which, again, required a customized "kart" to ride in which simulated the physics of every sharp turn I took.

The first and third attractions were about five minutes long each. I don't doubt that there was a lot of engineering effort required to even get to that much content nor the fact that I would likely grow very tired of having to play an extended version of each for, say, an hour or two.

I think for at least the time being, this is how VR is going to be adopted: As a theme park experience where short novelty experiences people want to have is made available with the space and props already provided to enjoy it.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#29

Post by gmueckl »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #15

What I think virtual reality would be immediately useful right now: for anyone working on 3D modeling/animating/CAD. It is very finicky to view and manipulate 3d data on a flat 2d monitor, VR headsets and manipulation devices should be a godsend to those professions. (Also, they have a lot more money to throw than ordinary consumers, they would be willing to pay thousands on a superior workflow.) If VR software devel…

I currently hack together a mini mesh modelling tool in VR for very specific reasons. I find that creating a UI for something moderately complex isn't all that easy. The common idiom is to treat your controllers as laser pointers, but precision is limited. So you need big UI elements to have easy to hit targets. With the number of simultaneous UI elements thus limited, you need to create hierarchies and menus fast, making interaction cumbersome.

Also, using VR controllers in thin air for a prolonged time becomes a workout. The human body isn't quite made for keeping arms in these poses for extended periods of time.

However, being able to view and manipulate a virtual object directly in 3d space is pretty darn sweet. Just bending your head or moving your hand beats manipulating virtual canera perspectives and gizmos for precision 3d interaction on a screen.

I nearly forgot: the Unreal Engine editor has a VR mode that brings in the nornal 2D GUI as floating windows. I didn't like that very much, but people seem to be OK with it. I don't know any other DCC software that has VR support.

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