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VR Is Not Dead

yadin.com

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Re: VR Is Not Dead

#31

Post by chii »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26

IMO this blog post can be summarized as "Even if nobody actually wants to use VR for extended periods, it's cool so it will be coming in the future eventually!!" VR is the perfect metaphor IMO for how "the tech industry" at large has lost its way. It's no longer about using technology to solve long standing human problems, it's about how tech firms can find ways to insert themselves in the fabric of human existence s…

wanting to own the platform first before the "killer application" became known is how they intend to keep extracting rent for said killer application when it appears.

Consumers need to be wary, and take steps to prevent such an outcome. Unfortunately, most consumers just simply dont know they're in a chess game with corporations they deal with, so don't see any setup moves as being threatening.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#32

Post by Animats »

From the article: "The main theme in the Spanish Golden Age playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La Vida es Sueño (Life is a Dream) from 1635 is the contrast between subjective and objective perceptions of reality."

Huh? Is this AI slop?

The basic problems with VR are well known. First, the headgear is too bulky. Carmack, who headed Oculus for a while, says that it won't get traction until the headgear is down to swim-goggles size, and won't go mainstream until it's down to eyeglass size.[1] "AR glasses", with just an overlay, achieve that, but it's not a full virtual environment.

Second, a sizable fraction of the population experiences some nausea, and a smaller fraction will barf.[2] That's worse than roller coasters. When visual and vestibular data disagree, the brain doesn't like it. The most successful VR games, such as Beat Saber, keep them locked together, but then you're stuck in one spot. There's a really good discussion of this by Phia, a VR influencer who started using VR as a teenager and spends a lot of time in VR.[3] She has practical advice on tuning VR systems to minimize nausea (interocular distance matters!) and how to introduce new people to VR (it takes repeated exposures of increasing length.)

VR Chat continues to grow, driven by young people who worked through the problems. VR Chat used to prevent free movement - you had to teleport from one seat to another. But experienced users wanted more freedom, and VR chat now allows it if you opt in. Really good users can do gymnastics with full body tracking while in VR.

It's not just put on the goggles and have fun. You have to acclimate. Learn the gestures that drive the system. Practice. If you go for full body and face tracking, your avatar has to be calibrated to match your joint lengths and you have to strap on sensors. (Which are now good, small, and wireless.) You need a safe open space where you can move, where there are no dangerous objects nearby, and the VR system knows the real world safe boundaries. VR is a sport, and takes the preparation of a sport.

So it works, but is not mass-market.

[1] https://next.reality.news/news/oculus-cto-john-carmack-outli...

[2] https://www.pcgamer.com/vr-still-makes-40-70-of-players-want...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixdNKc53VZQ

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#33

Post by parpfish »

echelon wrote: post #25
daemonologist wrote: post #9

VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…

I like VR and immersion in theory. I like being able to look around, but I absolutely hate the movement controls. I know some people complain of motion sickness, but that doesn't bother me. I just want controls like Mario or Zelda on a regular joystick. Why can't this be done? It doesn't even have to be first person. I'd play a third person game like Mario or Zelda with a VR camera tracking them. I just want that kin…

I always thought a great compromise would be games that gave you an overhead “gods eye” third person perspective. People seem to be obsessed with making VR games first person, but that’s where the movement problems come in.

The game Moss did this well for a platformers. But it could also be really fun for realtime strategy/simulation games (StarCraft, sim city) or sports games like Madden.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#34

Post by rustystump »

daemonologist wrote: post #9

VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…

There are many games for vr that cannot be done without the tech. It isnt all about immersion but facilitating unique experiences.

What held it back from mainstream imo is an inherent space issue (you need room) and a lack of multiplayer participation (need even more room). Compared to sitting on a couch in a small studio with a few friends, it doesnt stand a chance.

The other problem is most peoples first experience is with some shitty mall vr room where the “game” consists of free unity assets slapped together in a way that makes marky marks horizons look polished. Few people start off with something like the half life one.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#35

Post by paldepind2 »

jerkstate wrote: post #5

With AI, VR is even more promising. I have been working on a Gaussian splat renderer for the Quest 3, and by having Claude and ChatGPT read state-of-the-art papers, I have been able to build a training and rendering pipeline that is getting >50 fps for large indoor scenes on the Quest 3. I started with an (AI-driven) port of a desktop renderer, which got less than 1 fps, but I've integrated both training and renderin…

Sorry if this is a basic question, but what's you workflow for feeding the papers into the LLM and getting the implementation done? The coding agents that I've used are not able to read PDFs, so I've been wondering how to do it.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#36

Post by echelon »

parpfish wrote: post #33
echelon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like VR and immersion in theory. I like being able to look around, but I absolutely hate the movement controls. I know some people complain of motion sickness, but that doesn't bother me. I just want controls like Mario or Zelda on a regular joystick. Why can't this be done? It doesn't even have to be first person. I'd play a third person game like Mario or Zelda with a VR camera tracking them. I just want that kin…

I always thought a great compromise would be games that gave you an overhead “gods eye” third person perspective. People seem to be obsessed with making VR games first person, but that’s where the movement problems come in. The game Moss did this well for a platformers. But it could also be really fun for realtime strategy/simulation games (StarCraft, sim city) or sports games like Madden.

That would be fantastic.

I think even being the Lakitu camera in Mario 64 would work.

And you're right, it would kick ass for strategy, sim, and sports games.

I wonder if folks have tried building the movement and camera before the main gameplay loop. Just to see what feels right.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#37

Post by sunaurus »

manbash wrote: post #23
nkrisc wrote: post #10

In my experience in the real word, VR is a lot like racing sims. No one I know owns a VR headset, no one I know talks about it, no one I know is very interested in it at all, but both exist as ticketed experience at places in and around malls. So from where I'm sitting in my middle class suburbs, it's certainly not dead, but it's basically the modern equivalent of those actuated flight sim entertainment experiences f…

As someone who has both interest in VR and racing sims (and other sims), and tried VR and loved it, I am genuinely NOT INTERESTED in owning a headset for the obvious health reasons that come with using one. There is no way this ever can be close to safe for your health than, say, not using it.

I'm really curious what you consider to be the obvious health reasons - it's far from obvious for me.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#38

Post by bee_rider »

ghywertelling wrote: post #12
daemonologist wrote: post #9

VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…

The most important quality of any successful trend (eg windows, internet, smart phones, cloud computing) has been convenience. Which is also the reason why I think Meta Glasses have a real chance to take off.

Meta Glasses will just recreate the whole “glasshole” response that Google Glasses got, except with a company that has even worse of a reputation.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#39

Post by j45 »

VR isn't dead. It's not alive either.

It's just not it's time yet for mass adoption, however it might be.

VR/AR continues to have an increasing footprint of usage and adoption as the technologies evolve.

This has been the same cycle for over 20 years.

Once we get past 4K displays to 8K at a reasonable cost level, it again will introduce a new audience to VR/AR, and a larger and larger existing audience will sit here nodding along.

VR has gotten much better and it's fine for whomever it works for, it doesn't have to work for everyone, even if a big company took a bet on the timing of it being now.

Re: VR Is Not Dead

#40

Post by furyofantares »

socalgal2 wrote: post #22
daemonologist wrote: post #9

VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…

I feel that's like saying "I can get just as fully immersed in a book so who needs movies?" They're different experiences. I don't need Tetris or PacMan in VR. Conversely, Half-Life 1/2 etc are not remotely intense as Half-Life Alyx. In the first 2 you're watching a movie. In the later you're in the world of Half-Life

It is like saying that, and it is a fine response to someone saying "VR isn't dead because immersion."

The reason movies exist isn't simply "immersion", it's a different experience than reading a book.

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