By the way, is “pinning” relative to your visual field (ie always in the same part of your view wherever you look) or to your “physical” location in the virtual space? It would be nice to have a big window pinned beside me that I could turn to and look at occasionally.
You honestly believe the “physics” of all things aren’t there yet for proper VR and won’t be for decades (!)?
You know what was “decades” ago? The internet or games like Doom. I think you VASTLY underestimate the speed of technological improvement and the fact it’s ever accelerating.
I’m not a researcher but I follow the developments in the area (always good to know as Programmer what might be possible in the future) and the “physics” is certainly not what will stop VR from becoming a success, no (current) technical hurdle is really a problem that would take decades to solve.
There is for example a lot happening right now with what AIs can already do (latest example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhH2Cc4thJw ) and if we are talking “decades” then we might not even have classical simulations anymore but AIs which will simply “guess”/“imagine” worlds and hugely cut down on processing power (and manual labor needed to create such worlds).
I don’t think people fully realise/appreciate what is currently happening right now because most of it hasn’t reached a wide audience yet or is still mostly researchers doing their thing but it will totally transform our society (even more than the internet did). Games are of course just a tiny part in all of this but there will be huge changes in this area within the next 5-10 years too.
So the biggest issue VR will face in the future is not what COULD be done but what people will actually do with it to make it interesting enough as consumer product.
VR is a colossal failure in the market so far, which isn’t surprising, at least not to me anyway. And it will continue to be.
What I mean by physics is the ability to project very high definition images directly into the human eye – without strapping a pound of equipment on your face. Wake me up when that’s possible.
It stays fixed in 3D space wherever you put it, so you can certainly pin it beside you and look occasionally.
You can move it in all three axes, scale it up/down, ‘snap’ to a cylindrical grid that will make it curved in the horizontal, or position it off-grid so it stays flat.
It’s an overlay, so it’s always visible even if you position it behind something in the game world.
I cant read the article but while I may agree with the first line, the second seems a stretch. So far Augmented reality hardware has flopped as badly as VR and seems likely to continue to do so. Low tech AR using your phone like Pokemon Go might have a decent future, but beyond that the customer has spoken loudly so far and the answer is “no thanks”.
Both Google and Microsoft have failed to generate enough customer interest in the AR space just as Facebook & Valve & Sony have in VR. Maybe Magic Leap will be the thing that makes one of these markets explode?
I think VR will be a slow-burn. Current generation works and is amazing, but theres still problems to make it highly desirable.
I don’t know that anyone expected Wii-levels of market penetration – Facebook in particular seems to have a long view on the subject. Current VR is impressive and exceeded the expectations of everyone I demoed it to over the holidays. They were all disappointed once I explained the price/system requirements. The biggest hurdle is cost; everyone in that sample of 5 families owned a Wii, no one owned a gaming pc or PS4. If they do a good job with the Oculus Go or Vive Focus, I can see it taking off (for a time, at least.)
No, it isn’t.
Even if you gave them $1000 each, they’d struggle to use it regularly because it requires so much configuration and setup, and for previous little payoff versus a regular game. It’s also uncomfortable (for all) and nausea-inducing for some.
Well fuck, I’m going to throw my shitty VR equipment in the trash now that I’ve learned it’s not impressive. Damn it.
In terms of regular use, the only setup is putting it on my head.
Connecting the PSVR is about has complicate a VHS, maybe easier since you don’t have to configure the clock :D
VR it don’t feel natural and make you feel bad if you use it too long. And I don’t think games are the best use for VR. I think is place will ultimately be somewhere between a tool and a toy.
I just want to be able to play audio files from an app running in the background while I’m inside. There are some experiences I like to spend hours in, and having my own soundtrack or being able to listen to podcasts would be a plus.
Over the holiday break, I decided it might be time for me to enter the VR world. I’d do some research, look at the games available vs games coming out, as well as taking the temperatures of those playing those games and figure out how to proceed.
And what I’ve discovered in my hours of research ended up being sadly quite simple: stay away.
That’s too bad; while I can’t say it’s lived up to the massive hype and the content has been somewhat anemic, I can say that for me it has been money well spent. It’s the most engaging and novel tech device I’ve owned in at least six years.
Things that improve greatly with VR:
- Animals. they are cuuute in VR, and you want to pet every animal you see.
- Fashion, music people, dance. Is hard to describe it, like having people in a bar spontaneously start singing opera. People like rappers are really cool in VR, their physicality, manners.
- Cameras travelling trough minecraft maps, probably any computer generated landscape, maybe just travelling trough cool places. That Allumere demo in the demo disc.
- Any type of chat in VR. But it expose you to other people, and other people is hell.
Things I trough would be cool in VR but where so-so:
- Vehicles moving really fast.
- Games like Skyrim, beyond “I am hitting the head of this wolfie with a blade and saying “bad dog” out loud in real life”.
- Games in general.
Quite the opposite. The “too bad” part would have been laying out between $300 - $600 for a VR setup with the current lay of the land.
And I say this, fully cognizant of the fact that I’m largely speaking to VR owners who now have at least some investment in bringing others along to grow the marketspace.
A phone is useful for this.
For me the money was well-spent, but I had realistic expectations going in. I’m a tech geek, and the presence factor of even the current gen technology blows me away.
After playing a VR game for a while, my dog will sometimes wander into the room and brush up against me and it’s this weird disorientation as I look down with my headset on, confused (and startled as hell) as to what is touching my leg and why I can’t see it. Then I suddenly remember that I’m not on some other world, I’m in a spare bedroom in my house and that’s my dog wondering what the hell I’m doing flailing my arms around.
VR has offered some really breathtaking moments and for that it was worth the cost for me. No, I don’t use it as my primary gaming device (not even close), but I don’t regret buying it at all. I’ve gotten far more out of it than I have on my PS4, for example.
The worst part about VR for me is going back to non-VR games. Everything feels so flat (no pun intended). It’s kind of hard to describe, but playing a game by staring at a monitor feels really shitty after feeling like I’ve been IN the game. I get used to it again after a few hours, but it does take a bit of an adjustment. And games like Elite? I can’t even fire it up without the VR headset anymore.
This is really the only reason I have that is holding me back. I have games with VR support that I would love to see in play. But for the life of me, I have, maybe, a 5x5 square of unused space, in even my biggest room, beyond walkways through the rooms. The placement of sensors and movement room places this squarely into the Wii category for me, I don’t think I know how to fix that.
The other mystery is just how well it works for some of the games that it’s enabled in. I could see Elite or a flight sim working very well, I’ve used TrackIR before, and it’s limited in how much you need to worry about. You could use keyboard and mouse and look around without too much difficulty, thumbs up there.
But say, Fallout 4. How on earth does it work there? There is way too much going on, and the requirement for some games to use the VR controllers makes it even more tracking necessary, and we get back to the small space issue.
I’m also waiting on rev 2 or even 3 of some of these products. The last thing I want when I dip my toes in is crappy resolution or usability issues.
Quite the opposite. The “too bad” part would have been laying out between $300 - $600 for a VR setup with the current lay of the land.
And I say this, fully cognizant of the fact that I’m largely speaking to VR owners who now have at least some investment in bringing others along to grow the marketspace.
Very true. To each his own, I guess. I’m generously out $500 on VR, but $270 of that is for a phone which has many uses. It’s worth it to me based on the entertainment it has provided. I am planning on buying in to PC VR at some point, just not sure when.
I urge caution to everyone I speak about VR to in real life. Better to let the technology speak for itself. That said, there is a lot to be excited about. It has a very high “cool” factor (which is also why caution is good).
But if you have any doubts at all, why not wait for the next generation at least. I’m convinced it’s here to stay regardless of whether or not it takes another decade to catch on. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.