How to Get into VR • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Get into VR

#101

Post by munchbunny » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:34 PM UTC

Namrog84 wrote: post #49

aVReality wrote: post #39

Perhaps counterintuitively, I see/hear more interest in VR for business/productivity than for gaming, right now. I think it comes down to stimulation: we're used to gaming and other entertainment being high-octane, exciting experiences. But work/productivity is boring. VR, by virtue of its immersion and fantastical interactions, can bring more excitement to productivity uses (which are typically boring), while adding…

I think VR is still so early and there is still no 'viral winning app' that 100% justifies VR. There is a lot of searching and scrambling for it. Perhaps it is in business and productivity. There is limitless potential for VR, but the tech isn't quite there for many use cases. And worse yet, is there is still no single app or game that is like, this is the single reason you buy into VR. With rising property costs in…

I've been tossing around the adoption issue as well, and I think the "viral winning app" issue is maybe the wrong way to think about it.

The viral winning app sells a device, but not an ecosystem. I don't think the iPhone for example had a single viral winning app. It was more a confluence of enough capabilities merged into your phone that it became really helpful to own a smartphone. I suspect that's how VR will go if it succeeds. It eventually hits a price point and there are enough individual reasons to own and use a VR headset that it begins to make sense for everyone to own one.

Re: How to Get into VR

#102

Post by Animats » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:36 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #92

Animats wrote: post #40

Somebody at YC likes "Ready Player One", which is a stupid book. (Essential skill for taking over a big company: ability to play a perfect game of PacMan.) "Snow Crash" was ahead of its time. Yet the plot of Snow Crash would play out the same if everybody simply had modern phones. Where's the killer app for VR? VR headsets have been around for years. The current generation of technology works adequately. Yet other th…

> You can plug into Second Life or High Fidelity with a VR headset, but few people do. Which was disappointing to me, because among the crowds in SL/opensim/highfidelity there are many creators and early adopters.

Crowds? High Fidelity? Where? I've tried it, and it's mostly empty.

High Fidelity may have made the mistake of bringing up their world empty. They should have used a terrain generator and SpeedTree to fill the world with virgin, natural terrain. Then let people buy real estate, clear it, and develop.

This would also impel people to do good graphical work. SpeedTree builds a good-looking nature. It would encourage people to try to do as well with what they build.

Re: How to Get into VR

#103

Post by GraffitiTim » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #8

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, whi…

We are using VR to help people overcome fears at Fearless.

http://FearlessVR.com

It is based on lots of research showing that VR exposure therapy is extremely effective.

Re: How to Get into VR

#104

Post by moron4hire » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

centrinoblue wrote: post #100

moron4hire wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no good AR headsets right now. The Hololens doesn't have enough field of view, processing power, or battery to make it very useful, especially not as a development computer of any kind. And while the Meta 2 is tethered to a PC, it's also garbage. I'm not aware of any others that its actually possible to acquire right now.

I'm fine with a tether. I just want something simple that plugs into an HDMI or thunderbolt port and projects my laptop screen into the headset

That's what I'm saying. The Hololens works (for some value of "works", as far as the simple demos go) but doesn't tether. The meta 2 tethers but doesn't work.

Re: How to Get into VR

#105

Post by whicks » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:39 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #97

whicks wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's $900 The Oculus Rift is $500, $598 with the Touch controllers and and extra sensor.[1] [1]: https://www.oculus.com/cart/

It's $800 + tax for the Vive (you probably want to buy some light stands, too). What's the Rift at that price missing compared to the Vive?

Nothing, as far as I'm aware. At $598 you'd get the headset, controllers, and two tracking cameras. Also any of the free games that come with the Rift/Touch.

Re: How to Get into VR

#106

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #76

mattnewport wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little 'game' around it is pretty fun I find. The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional…

I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns. With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at $400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset, slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers figure things out? Or perhaps VR hard…

VR hardware will continue to improve because it drives all sorts of demand for chips and software, and nobody wants to be left behind. The Hacker News audience may be jaded about it, but it still is interesting to average people. It's just too expensive and too confusing, and the software isn't very good yet. I have no idea how popular VR will but I know better headsets will come out in the next two years and prices will come down.

Re: How to Get into VR

#107

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #76

mattnewport wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little 'game' around it is pretty fun I find. The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional…

I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns. With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at $400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset, slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers figure things out? Or perhaps VR hard…

VR hardware will continue to improve because it drives all sorts of demand for chips and software, and nobody wants to be left behind. The Hacker News audience may be jaded about it, but it still is interesting to average people. It's just too expensive and too confusing, and the software isn't very good yet. I have no idea how popular VR will but I know better headsets will come out in the next two years and prices will come down.

Re: How to Get into VR

#108

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #76

mattnewport wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little 'game' around it is pretty fun I find. The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional…

I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns. With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at $400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset, slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers figure things out? Or perhaps VR hard…

VR hardware will continue to improve because it drives all sorts of demand for chips and software, and nobody wants to be left behind. The Hacker News audience may be jaded about it, but it still is interesting to average people. It's just too expensive and too confusing, and the software isn't very good yet. I have no idea how popular VR will but I know better headsets will come out in the next two years and prices will come down.

Re: How to Get into VR

#109

Post by corysama » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

centrinoblue wrote: post #100

moron4hire wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no good AR headsets right now. The Hololens doesn't have enough field of view, processing power, or battery to make it very useful, especially not as a development computer of any kind. And while the Meta 2 is tethered to a PC, it's also garbage. I'm not aware of any others that its actually possible to acquire right now.

I'm fine with a tether. I just want something simple that plugs into an HDMI or thunderbolt port and projects my laptop screen into the headset

https://www.reddit.com/r/HMDprogramming/ is about discussing programming inside VR. Not a lot of activity. Current headsets are still equivalent to MCGA solid-angle wise. Best so far for programming seems to be the "Pimax 4K VR" https://medium.com/@n4ru/mobile-full-stack-development-in-4k...

Re: How to Get into VR

#110

Post by matt_m » Wed, May 03, 2017, 8:49 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #34

haydenlee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a professional VR developer I'm unaware of this crisis. There's also about as many headsets sold as people thought there would be (and way more GearVR's than expected). I haven't gotten sick from a VR experience (that I wasn't half-way through building) in over a year. The headsets are good enough that they don't make you sick by default (like they used to) and to make somebody sick you have to go against best des…

I'm not a VR developer, but from an outside perspective it actually looks like there are a few different crises. 1) Developers seem to be interested in heavyweight VR systems like Vive and Rift, while users (based on sales figures, anyway) seem to be interested in inexpensive, cordless systems like GearVR and Cardboard. Which leads to the awkward situation where all the innovative software is coming out for hardware…

IMO Cardboard / GearVR is so different from the Vive / Rift+Touch right now that it is more useful to look at them entirely separately even though they are both technically "VR".

Cardboard and GearVR are relatively convenient and inexpensive but do not seem to be a very compelling product, since it is inconvenient compared to a monitor and frequently causes motion sickness, while offering few advantages. I have both and barely use them.

Vive and Rift+Touch are incredibly expensive and inconvenient (cumbersome set up, tethered, not portable). But a lot of the content basically never causes motion sickness (even for sensitive people). I think there is at least the beginning of a compelling product since I've had a chance to let a variety of non-technical people use it. Even if they're reluctant to try it at first, there is usually one of the programs they enjoy and keep using for quite a while.

I don't want to oversell the Vive - there are a lot of problems starting with the low resolution. But the problems with the high end systems will inevitably improve over the next few years - there will be more content, the resolution will improve, the cost will decrease, it will be more mobile etc. Also, I'd expect the Vive to be a relatively low capability device in the future - there's a lot of tech being shown off these days with eye / facial expression / body tracking that hasn't been integrated into a mass market product yet. It will be interesting to see what applications benefit from those.

The current low-capability systems seem like a dead end though, they've been available for a while and don't seem to have taken the world by storm, and once more capable mobile systems come out that will be the end of that UI paradigm. Simple things like reaching out and picking something up or moving it aren't possible, for interactive content the differences are really fundamental.

As far as the comfort issue goes, the weight distribution can be improved a lot without waiting for next-gen display technologies. PlayStation is the best this generation with a rigid band the headset hangs down from, and LGs upcoming one can flip up without taking it off all the way. Certainly putting all the weight on the face is a bad idea though and harder to avoid for phone-based systems.