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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

#271

Post by brozaman »

blackearl wrote: post #244
mhh__ wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR simracing can be hit and miss i.e. rf2 looks amazing but is rough around the edges (Hungaroring in the wet in a GT3 car is amazing in VR) but assetto Corsa looks awful. Don't bother with anything worse than an Index these days, the Vive is amazing in beat Sabre but awful if you want to read the dials.

assetto corsa is great because of the modding community. there are some hybrid fantasy/real life maps that are amazing. You can have these great casual drives through "California" mountains that are inspired by real life. I had a blast playing it with a wheel setup If you want a more realistic sim, iRacing is supposedly top dog, but it's subscription based.

I have both assetto corsa and iracing and high end equipment (fanatec highest end pedals, fanatec DD2 wheel and fanatec gearbox) and I'm not going to renew iRacing.

I enjoy Asetto Corsa better, regarding the physics, I consider they are about as good, graphics are so much better. The good thing of iRacing is the online competition, which is simply superior on every single aspect, but not worth the subscription model nor the costs.

It may make sense if you run ovals, dirt ovals or rally cross, but since I only run on circuits, it's not worth the money to me.

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

#272

Post by brozaman »

mhh__ wrote: post #200
tentboy wrote: post #150

Sim racing, or for those unaware of it: basically racing games with realistic physics and usually a competitive online racing field, is incredible in VR. The sense of speed and immersion with a good wheel and pedal setup in VR is unmatched by a monitor based setup. I tried it at a VR arcade and kept adding time to my session to keep playing. I have a fairly nice and expensive sim racing setup at home right now, but m…

VR simracing can be hit and miss i.e. rf2 looks amazing but is rough around the edges (Hungaroring in the wet in a GT3 car is amazing in VR) but assetto Corsa looks awful. Don't bother with anything worse than an Index these days, the Vive is amazing in beat Sabre but awful if you want to read the dials.

My experience is quite the opposite, I think it looks excellent, and the only one which looks better in my experience is project cars 2 (but is inferior on every other aspect).

Sure, the text might be a bit blurry (like on every other game), and the dials look worse than desirable but driving at speed I think the immersion is unmatched.

I have a gtx 1080 and oculus rift s. I haven't tested yet ACC.

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

#273

Post by ekianjo »

war321 wrote: post #269
ekianjo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and VR will eventually become the new gaming platform that publishers wants to release on. I predict the opposite. It will sell a few headsets maybe (a peak), but that alone will not change the course of the technology at all in 2020. Plus, Half Life's popularity in 2020 has nothing to do with its popularity 20 years ago.

It pretty much stole social media headlines with just a post saying "tune in a few days for our next VR game". Valve have plenty of clout still, and Half-Life still draws plenty of eyes.

Social media fanatism or outrage hardly reflects the market as a whole.

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

#274

Post by ekianjo »

kalado wrote: post #165
ekianjo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, the evidence they cite for VR declining seems to be entirely within the space of 3DoF VR, like Google's Daydream and VR video: If VR were such a hot market surely you would not see the Google Daydream news and Samsung killing off GearVR. You have to take in account all news, positive and negative, to get an actual view of how the market is doing. And also the investment. And investment in VR has been in the d…

Holding your phone in front of your eyes with some glass inbetween is a bit of a difference to a real VR Headset. And don't ignore how active the porn industry is in the VR space.

Do you expect porn to bring VR mainstream?

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

#275

Post by ekianjo »

gfodor wrote: post #176
ekianjo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the quest 1st gen? There have been headsets for VR for quite a while already, including phone-based VR prior to that, so it's hardly a "first gen" product at all unless you narrow down the definition to mean exactly what you want it to mean.

Most people in the VR industry would strongly argue (myself included) that the Quest is the first legit attempt at a consumer VR headset. Before the Quest I never told anyone to go out and buy a VR headset. Now, if they ask, I recommend buying it. The one rough edge with the Quest is the weight. If they knock it down a few ounces I'd argue the Quest is basically the MVP for some startup to create a breakout killer ap…

What killer app for VR though? It is not like nobody tried to do VR games yet. The lack of any real worthy software after years of developing games is a sign that it is probably far from obvious that VR games will be a thing beyond a gimmick.

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

#276

Post by HellDunkel »

war321 wrote: post #270
HellDunkel wrote: post #207

Uncomfortable to the point of sickening. Space and price are valid point but for me its the sickening impression of fake motion, staring at screen so close to your eyes, burrliness, wheight of the headset and silly looks.

Looking silly is the one critique of VR I just don't get. Your in the safety of your own home and either A) live alone or B) live with a significant other/parents/roommates. In which case, who cares what they think you might look like while enjoying yourself?

Years ago i remember working at a company where a vr presentation was cancelled because some high level automotive management folks refused to wear a headset because it might mess with their hair. Thats just one example. I personally dont like to put on these headsets too.

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

#277

Post by falcor84 »

skizm wrote: post #262
falcor84 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand what you mean. I can come up with several different engineering approaches to make a sword controlle suddenly stop. And I can come up with even more ways to inflict mild pain (e.g. electrical stimulation). What makes you say "never"? If there are people willing to pay for better immersion, I believe the technology won't be that far behind.

How would you make a "sword" stop mid-air? A companion sword-fighting robot that mimics the movements of the enemy you're seeing? I'm not saying never, just without nano-bots and a fully mutable IRL environment to go with the headset. Electrical stimulation wouldn't stop your hand moving forward, nor would it simulate hitting something in any way (unless it was stimulating your brain's pain and motor centers I guess)…

How about this as a very early idea: start with something like the Virtuix Omni that allows the player to freely move and rotate. Add 3 thin metallic pillars surrounding the device, going up to about 2m, which would rotate with the player. At 2 different heights on each of these pillars there would be a pully controlling a slightly elastic cord via fast acting actuators. The other end of each of these ropes would be connected to the sword controller.

Most of the time, there wouldn't be much tension coming from the cords (other than perhaps representing gravity pulling on the sword's mass), but when a hit needs to be simulated, the right cords would rapidly tense, according to the simulated properties of the object being hit.

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

#278

Post by saganus »

saganus wrote: post #243
iguanayou wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get any of the "seat of the pants" feeling of course, and the graphics, while super impressive, don't compare to real-life low and slow VFR flying (although hopefully MS Flight Sim 2020 changes that). It doesn't replace the real thing. BUT I enjoy flying VFR in busy airspace with the PilotEdge network, and also IFR flying. For the communications and IFR flying, the mental tasks you do in the sim are identic…

What is VFR and IFR?? I know nothing about flying but it's something that I am always thinking about learning, but if VR is good enough to scratch that itch, I'm up for it.

Thanks for the responses!

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

#279

Post by scottlocklin »

ggreer wrote: post #250
scottlocklin wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would need a 105 watt-hour battery. That's the same amount of energy in 90 grams of TNT. It's the same amount of energy as 11 milliliters of gasoline or a third of an ounce of fat on a piece of steak. Batteries (and explosives) are shitty at storing energy compared to hydrocarbons.

Danger comes from energy density and ability to release that energy quickly. Fat doesn't explode. Neither does gasoline, though I wouldn't be comfortable carrying 11ml of gasoline in my pocket. Existing batteries sometimes do explode and cause injury. The problem would be far worse if they had 7x more energy in them.

I did use the example of gasoline, but I don't know why you'd be uncomfortable carrying 11ml of it in your pocket. Let's change it to 11ml of ethanol which is basically the same energy density. In principle you should be able to extract the energy using a fuel cell or even a heat engine. Since we're talking about futuristic cell phones, it seems more than possible to squeeze more energy into Captain Kirk's federationphone.

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

#280

Post by jkestner »

gmueckl wrote: post #29
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, m…

Good observations. CAD users typically have one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse or 3D mouse. If you took out the mouse-screen translation and directly manipulated the object/scene with your mouse hand, I think you'd have the best of old and new. This calls for mixed reality, or visibility of your keyboard in VR.
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