Another was how Siemens was able to reduce training times for oil rigs by significant periods [1] using VR tech.
> "Architecture is another field that is seeing rapid adoption of VR"
My architect is going to bring over a SketchUp model of the work he has planned on our house and I'll be loading it up with some software for the Vive [2]. He doesn't usually do that final step, but he's very interested in trying it out.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1422600/
[1] https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-f...
Even outside of studies that specifically look at VR there is a lot of research into general learning, training and education that tends to support the hypothesis that VR will be a powerful tool for this type of application.
When I use LeapMotion I dont get motion sickness. Huge win!
reinvented museums - TiltBrush [1]
court-side sporting events - NextVR [2]
Not to mention architecture [3], communication [4], collaboration [5], medicine [6], 3d modeling [7], game development [8], film [9] and the myriad of other industries I'm forgetting. Also if you haven't tried any of the latest games on Oculus Rift or Vive you're really missing out. They've gotten incredible since the consumer launch last year.
[0] http://thewavevr.com/ [1] https://tiltbrush.com/sketches [2] http://nextvr.com [3] http://insitevr.com/ [4] https://web.facebook.com/spaces [5] http://bigscreenvr.com/ [6] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601911/better-than-opioid... [7] https://www.oculus.com/medium/ [8] https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/12/15/editorvr-experimental-b... [9] https://www.oculus.com/story-studio/films/henry/
*Disclaimer: I work or have worked for a few of these co's.
It's $900 + big clunky thing on your head vs $500 for a really nice 4k monitor.
Something like Onward is pretty special for its realism, but its not a better game than Rainbow Six was 20 years ago. There are some other fun games but the novelty wears off quickly. It's like a really expensive ($1300 setup) Wii. The current experiences aren't worth the money.
The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional games. There are also limitations on how ambitious VR games can get given the current size of the market. There's some very compelling experiences starting to appear already though in my opinion.
I think it's a mistake to put too much emphasis on the current relatively high cost of hardware as a guide to the future potential of the medium. We know that price will come down and if you compare it in real terms to the cost of early PCs it already looks quite affordable.
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 hardware will improve regardless of gaming success.
This might be an unfixable flaw in the VR market, but really all of this stuff seems like good business opportunities to me. If what people want out of VR is cheaper, better hardware and better games, and there isn't a fundamental flaw with the concept of VR, of course.
It is a two sided market, with a chicken and egg problem.
Gamemakers don't want to invest in a market with very few consumers, and consumers don't want to invest in a headset with very few games.
The Nintendo Entertainment System came with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt at no additional cost. Sega made the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog.
To each their own.
Onward is a vanilla game that's improved because of the "experience" of VR (and yes, it's very cool), but I'd take better gameplay any day. The game that finally combines gameplay with VR, that'll be exciting.
The Oculus Rift is $500, $598 with the Touch controllers and and extra sensor.[1]
What's the Rift at that price missing compared to the Vive?
The Vive already has an accessory ecosystem as companies are more willing to invest in the more 'open' system. You can buy a thinner cable, various comfort gaskets, a complete wireless solution (only in China for now), non-controller trackers to attach to your body or objects in your playspace (still mostly devs doing this), a foveated rendering plugin (just anounced), etc.
You get a slightly wider FOV and a lot more room if you wear glasses. Also a built-in camera, which is a little gimmicky, but a godsend if you want to move a chair, read a text message, move the cat, etc without taking your headset off.
You're also supporting Valve and SteamVR which does not engage in the dirty business of exclusives or "walled garden" approaches like the Facebook/Oculus model. There are also privacy issue with the Oculus software. Even when its not running it has a encrypted connection to Facebook's server constantly.
Lastly, it seems to be the dev favorite. A few of the betas I've been involved with have been Vive-only.
That said, the Vive needs a price cut. It occasionally gets $100 off. I'm hoping they make that permanent.
Lighthouse tracking is indeed excellent, and tracks a larger volume. However, the Rift's sensor approach is /currently/ almost indistinguishable from Vive's tracking. Its historical performance, significantly hampered by a bad software update, has no relevance to someone considering an HMD today.
A third sensor is only $59, not $79. Saying "worse, you'll need to spring for..." implies this is somehow a severe negative, when the reality is that the extra cost of a third sensor still leaves the Rift over $100 less than a Vive (the magnitude of price difference depends on shipping costs and how you value the bundles of free software).
Again, while Lighthouse tracking can be considered "more premium", the general consensus is that the Rift has more fit and finish, is significantly lighter in the front and thus more balanced, has better optics (larger sweet spot and less screen door effect), and the convenient integrated audio (which can be removed if you have high-end headphones) all lead to it being thought of as "more premium" in other ways. The Vive's design, while exceedingly functional, is more "hacker chic" than "honed design".
Of course, the above positives on the Rift are traded off by a slightly smaller field of view, a somewhat dimmer screen, and less compatibility with glasses vs. the Vive.
Additionally, complaining about the cost of a third camera is disingenuous when you then talk about all of the other incremental (added cost) options available to the Vive. Some will come to Rift (e.g., wireless), some bring the Vive to parity (e.g., thinner cable, comfort gaskets, and [unmentioned] a more comfortable head strap with integrated audio), and some are truly cool (e.g., eye tracking and trackers) for those wishing to really be at the cutting edge of VR. But all significantly increase the cost delta.
Finally, implying something nefarious about the "encrypted connection to Facebook's server" is really beneath the level of discourse I expect from HN. The Oculus software checks for updates over a TLS-encrypted session - that is all, as has been confirmed by network analysis. Frankly, I would be upset if it didn't use encryption to protect my information.
The Vive is a fine product, and stands on its own. You do not need to provide misleading or biased information about its competitor to promote it.
The fact is, both HMDs are great. Do you have a 15'x15' space? Buy a Vive. Is price a factor, or do you run on lower-end hardware? Buy a Rift.
Otherwise, try them both, see which fits your face better, see which trade-offs work for you, and buy the one that makes you happy.
You can't go wrong, and VR is SPECTACULAR.
There are VR experiences were 2+ people are in the same sim in the same space. There are also VR spaces (arcades, tradeshows) where if there are 2 rifts near each other (2 adjacent booths) the rifts interfere with each other
The fact that you bring up Facebook shows that you are a technology zealot, and such people are always adverse to facts.
In most other respects Oculus is a bit better than Vive IMO: better ergonomics/comfort on both the Rift headset and Touch controllers, built in headphones (a big plus for convenience and comfort over the Vive), easier setup, slightly better optics, better handling of dropped frames thanks to timewarp.
The Oculus on the other hand uses image sensors with a limited field of view, so it is much easier to lose tracking on your hands when you move quickly, bend over, or turn around. They will sell you a third sensor to expand tracking to 360 degrees, but at that point you are basically buying a shitty Vive.
The FoV is pretty good on the Oculus cameras albiet a bit less than the vive's lighthouse. With two cameras I don't run into many issues unless playing Onward or something that requires me turning 360. I'm travelling atm so I actually just use one camera.
Very "comparable" and I'd argue you're actually getting more value for the $200 cheaper Rift than the Vive due to comfort and ergonomics of the HMD and controllers.
I still want to stand on the 50 yard line during a live game, or position myself wherever the action is, with fully realized 3D models of the players.
A crossover between game / social experience / musical fantasy. They have live shows once a week and have been gaining momentum within the VR community quite rapidly.
Important to remember we are quite literally still just beyond the one year mark since consumer VR devices hit the market. It will only get better.
I agree the Gear is not where VR is going in the future. You need full room-scale immersion to really "feel" like you are experiencing something truly new and exciting. 360 sports videos are NOT the future of VR.
> This item is currently unavailable in your region - http://store.steampowered.com/app/453000/
Really great internationalisation there. I'm guessing they're having the standard problem of not being able to get worldwide licenses for the builtin music.
It's literally doing all of the stuff you mentioned, if you look for it. The blocker is that most people don't have a headset to experience it.
The same thing could be (and was) said about the early internet.
Obviously he is biased but still pretty big statement from a CEO of the most popular game engine.
What AR not-so-obviously does is takes the internet and changes it from a limited access interface, wherein its a technology that has points of access that are limited to terminals that you have to actively access to an interface that you passively interact with.
An interface that you have to seek out, to an interface that seeks you out.
You mean someone that has a personal financial interest in a market growing is talking about how that market might grow. That's not very surprising to hear, don't you think?
It's like stating that computers are bigger than electricity.
My source on this? I worked at one of the first consumer ISPs in Canada, and we regularly had people coming in to sign up because they heard about "this Internet thing" but did not have a computer.
Most people thought we provided one with the service, and some people just didn't understand that you accessed the Internet through a computer.
So, if by "VR" you mean Vive/Rift-level VR, very few people will have a computer already lying around the house that can cut the mustard, even if they bought that computer relatively recently.
https://pifflelab.com/2012/07/22/computers-the-1990s-you-pai...
I would advance the hypothesis that the prospect of the internet back then seemed much worse compared to dropping a few hundred to have Vive hardware shipped to your door and plugging it in. But the people who built the internet saw what it could be, not the garbage that it was.
And we're still in the beta stages; this stuff only gets better with time.
As a day one Vive owner I also agree these kinds of statements are fairly bullshitty. VR doesn't remotely compare to the real experience of a real outing. Nor is it able to do much outside of gaming and there are probably valid reasons why. Gamers are used to being in virtual spaces, using VR is fun, etc but its also isolating, uncomfortable, expensive, and low res.
The good news is that "games" encompasses many categories of experience. Social fun like Rec Room, or RPG's, or MMOs, or shooters, or playing pool, or pingpong, etc. Its a varied experience and I think its a little dismissive to say something like "Oh but its only games now?" Games are huge! Why are we discounting this incredible part of the human experience and something part of all human cultures? This is like saying, "Oh you're in love and getting married? That's just endorphins and patriarchy." Its dismissive to an extreme.
That said, I've watched a bit of youtube with my Vive and can certainly see it making in-roads with consumption of media, but even the best pool simulators, gun range, or pingpong simulators not only feel nothing like the real thing, but they're barely a fraction of the fun of the real thing. If futurists are banking on VR replacing many real experiences, well, they better be ready to be disappointed. VR's strengths aren't being a digital version of real experiences, its making fantastic worlds and experiences of its own that feel 'real' and interesting.
I know of at least one music venue that is currently being built with VR attendance as a major goal.
For concerts and sporting events, you need the right cameras, video pipeline, and bandwidth. One potential camera is here: https://www.orah.co/
But how many music venues were built with the bandwidth requirements of high-resolution 360 streaming video in mind? My guess is almost none. The bandwidth to support things like that is an industry in itself.
As far as after-the-fact concert attendance, I know that at least Red Bull had a major presence at Bonnaroo (a major music festival with an attendance of around 70,000) last summer, and they were shooting concerts with 360 cameras with the intent of sharing them online.
(According to this article, they may have actually been live streaming, but I'm not sure: https://www.axs.com/bonnaroo-2016-to-be-livestreamed-on-red-... I know first hand that they were there shooting stuff on gopro rigs, though, which requires post processing, so probably wouldn't have been live)
Clearly VR is still in very early stages of its development, so I don't see how what's being done right now provides any valuable insight into its potential.
> the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry.
Whether that romanticism exists or not doesn't change the technology or what can be done with it, so I don't see why that's a reason to be skeptical of it.
It's quite something to use one of these systems, I was responsible for maintaining one a few years ago. Our demonstration trick for visiting guests was to put a chair inside the cave that matched the coordiantes of a virtual helicopter cockpit command chair. We could sit guests in the chair, turn the system on, and ask them if they could comfortably reach the switches above their heads. They'd stretch out their hands and be able to give a confident yes or no within seconds.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STMcWUtQr1Y
Before that, there was Ivan Sutherland's "Sword of Damocles" - arguably the real beginning of AR/VR (Philco had an earlier system, but it was meant for tele-operation, whereas Sutherland's system used computer generated graphics):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Damocles_(virtual...
Interestingly about this system - and isn't mentioned much - is a part of it called the "Twinkle Box" - it was a three-dimensional position tracking system that used light "beams" (generated by some form of slit-scanning mechanical system) to track an object...sound like anything familiar?
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1500278
Further back than that? Well - Hugo Gernsback had some kind of idea about a TV or such you strapped to your head:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/ralph-124c-41-a-...
It is based on lots of research showing that VR exposure therapy is extremely effective.
the sudden panic reaction when you perceive something that looks like a spider[0], really isn't going to keep you safe when it counts, while acting calm, rational and with common sense will.
heights can be dangerous but my fear of heights is not doing much of protecting me. the heights I may encounter but prefer to avoid aren't actually dangerous (see-through/grated floors are the worst :) ). the situations that are dangerous, I'd rather have my full faculties if I were to find myself there.
[0] i know people who react very strongly to just an image of a spider. living in NL where there's zero dangerous wildlife (just 1 or 2 endangered species of tiny poisonous snake, a lost/dead wolf every few years and 17M humans), that's quite an irrational fear but I won't mess with that because the panic reaction is very real and involuntarily. For fun, however, we tried an experiment where I very slowly drew a cartoon spider, to see at what amount of legs the reaction would kick in :) turned out drawing tiny hairs on the legs did way more for the response than whether I drew 5,6,7, 8 or 9 legs (at which point the other party didn't think it was fun anymore, so I had to end the experiment). and just in case you wondered yes I play with my own phobia in a similar way, whenever I find myself on a perfectly safe balcony that triggers my acrophobia, I like to see how many minutes I can enjoy the view before the GTFO feeling becomes overwhelming (on balconies it's not quite immediate, but still very strong when it kicks in, making it an interesting process to observe).
I think that's insane, and we should do what fighter pilots do... some hours of "normal" flying, and LOADS of time in a simulator dealing with extreme cases.
So... know of any good VR driving sims that attempt to model commuter traffic?
One of the main players in that area is a man named "Rudy Darken"; he was instrumental in quite a bit of the "Dismounted Soldier Training System (DSTS)" - and developed quite a few interesting input devices (one was a 360 degree treadmill with force feedback - think of two overlapping treadmills at 90 degrees to each other, with the surface made of rollers place parallel to the direction of travel of the belts - the part in the "center" of the intersection is such where you can walk, and move both belts at the same time, and your direction of walking determines the relative speed of the belts).
They've also long had networked simulator training systems, which also were setup to participate as part of "real" on-the-ground training and war-game simulations (that is, ones using live bodies and vehicles, aircraft, etc).
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if your scenario wasn't part of that already.
I'm using room-scale VR to build and explore virtual film sets (HTC Vive, Unreal Engine) and scenes.
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, which have been hit-or-miss? (the Samsung Gear VR commercials make VR look ridiculous, IMO)
AI is a similarly romantic industry, but the difference is that there are many practical, non-gimmicky applications of AI now and already implemented on your phones/PCs.