Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

aws.amazon.com

41–50 of 126 posts

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#41
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 3D TVs failed to reach mass adoption why would this?

Because 3D in a TV is kinda ok, VR is actually affecting.

I'm not convinced that most people are going to care. 3D was cool, but putting glasses on was too much friction. Putting an entire headset on is, I think, a bridge too far.

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#42
post #3

Looks heavily influenced by Unity. Kinda random that Amazon is building a web based Unity competitor. Doubly weird when you consider that this is their second game engine project. They are already building one called Amazon Lumberyard, forked from the serious AAA game engine CryEngine [1], and it appears at first glance to be entirely separate from this one. Is Amazon really getting value out of all the dev time they…

AWS will take a shot at nearly every meaningful service that can be shoe-horned into what they do. Some will work, some will fail, they'll keep taking shots. It's really that simple for Amazon. Not much is off limits.

Ten years from now, the majority of AR & VR experiences will not be derived from traditional gaming engines like Unity. They'll be built & live on AWS, GC, Azure or similar. It'll be done so as to remove as many units of labor from the process as possible.

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#43
post #28
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WARNING: "Snow Crash" is a comedy! Over the years people mentioned the book in comments about metaverses and VR. But nobody said it was a comedy. I was buying it with the expectation of getting some serious science fiction about a topic I'm interested in. Instead it starts off with some pizza delivery science fiction parody.

I think you need to listen to reason. Snow Crash is serious business!

Reason is capitalised, unless you mean actual reason.

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#44
post #20
post #3

Looks heavily influenced by Unity. Kinda random that Amazon is building a web based Unity competitor. Doubly weird when you consider that this is their second game engine project. They are already building one called Amazon Lumberyard, forked from the serious AAA game engine CryEngine [1], and it appears at first glance to be entirely separate from this one. Is Amazon really getting value out of all the dev time they…

> Is Amazon really getting value > out of all the dev time they are > putting into building game engines? What an odd way to think about projects like these. It seems obvious that the answer is "of course not, yet ". You could have asked the same question about AWS in 2001. Why is a bookstore putting all this effort into some online hosting platform for third parties?

AWS was reusing their existing infrastructure and expertise and opening it up to 3rd parties.

I'm unclear why Amazon needs a custom game engine. They must have some plans to enter this area, maybe make their own VR headsets?

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#45
post #29
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this may be their first foot in the door towards the inevitable development of a Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment where millions of people will eventually spend most of their time. The 2nd coming of VR is cooling a bit right now but with the advent of improved hardware I don't see why it won't heat up again reaching mass adoption within a decade.

>>>Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment If anyone has an app for AR, Amazon has an app for AR. Maybe they're expecting us to browse the aisles virtually in the very near future?

Nearly every valuable and or volume product (not every copy of every product) will be scanned for VR/AR purposes, so you'll be able to actually examine it from most or all angles. There's no scenario where Amazon doesn't do this eventually. The applications for clothing alone (which they're extremely determined to be huge in) makes it a big obvious must. Near-term it'll be ugly, 20 years out it'll be so good as to be the routine way to shop for a lot of products (you won't bother with basic well understood purchases, things in generic boxes, like advil).

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#46
post #13
post #5

What's Amazon really trying to do here?

I think this may be their first foot in the door towards the inevitable development of a Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment where millions of people will eventually spend most of their time. The 2nd coming of VR is cooling a bit right now but with the advent of improved hardware I don't see why it won't heat up again reaching mass adoption within a decade.

>The 2nd coming of VR is cooling a bit right now

It's true and it's unfortunate, we're just starting to see "affordable" hardware with decent performance. I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Rift, at 400 euros for the headset and the controllers it's pretty decent value IMO. Too bad VR seems to have lost some of its hype in the past year or two.

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#47
post #44
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Amazon really getting value > out of all the dev time they are > putting into building game engines? What an odd way to think about projects like these. It seems obvious that the answer is "of course not, yet ". You could have asked the same question about AWS in 2001. Why is a bookstore putting all this effort into some online hosting platform for third parties?

AWS was reusing their existing infrastructure and expertise and opening it up to 3rd parties. I'm unclear why Amazon needs a custom game engine. They must have some plans to enter this area, maybe make their own VR headsets?

I can think of a couple of reasons why Amazon might be interested in VR, from displaying 3D views of their products to constructing a virtual mall for browsing.

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#48
post #30

omg took me some time to find the actual product page: https://aws.amazon.com/sumerian/

Welcome to the future! Throught the magic of Virtual Reality, we can now transform your boring 2D slides into perspective-mapped boring 2D slides [1]! Incredible! /s

[1] https://d1.awsstatic.com/product-marketing/Sumerian/sumerian...

Re: Amazon Sumerian: A way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences

#50
post #24
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this may be their first foot in the door towards the inevitable development of a Metaverse/Oasis type VR multiuser environment where millions of people will eventually spend most of their time. The 2nd coming of VR is cooling a bit right now but with the advent of improved hardware I don't see why it won't heat up again reaching mass adoption within a decade.

If 3D TVs failed to reach mass adoption why would this?

Content availability issues aside, I think it's because it's single user. TV is often a social pastime, and if anyone involved has issues with 3D, no-one gets to use it.
Post reply on HN