Re:Oculus Rift is Shipping
by deathanatos on Monday March 28, 2016 @11:44PM
(#11379350)
I worked at a museum with a planetarium. The way it was explained to me was that if the stars move — as far as your brain's visual processing is concerned — you must be moving. After all, the stars are fixed points of light; they never move unless you are yourself spinning in some manner — except, of course, in a planetarium.
We also had a flight simulator; but with that, the movements of your body mostly matched the movement of the plane (you couldn't feel forward/backward acceleration, i.e., acceleration on an axis perpendicular to your chest, as otherwise, you'd be actually moving around in the building). This never made anyone sick. The planetarium, however, regularly made people feel ill, and occasionally I'm told, actually lost their lunch, whereas nobody ever lost their lunch in the flight sim AFAIK.
I have limited, hands on, VR experience. However, last week I went to the California Academy of Sciences, and they had this show called "Impact" going on.
Due to the way their spherical projector in the planetarium is setup, it takes most of your field of view. That particular show had a camera that moved smoothly, but seldom in sudden movements. Instead, it had would accelerate to a given speed, and that gives you the impression you are moving.
I though it was a little bit disconcerting for the first couple of minutes, then I adjusted just fine. My wife was sick for half an hour afterwards. Her son was so-so during the show, perfectly fine afterwards. The feel is exactly as you described, you feel that you should be moving, but aren't.
That was an eye opener for me. I didn't think that a stationary display would ever make me feel anything (I used to be a flight sim fan, and nowadays I play a lot of Elite: Dangerous).
I haven't reached any conclusions about VR tech yet, other than it is probably not suited for my wife.