Virtual Reality

[Brad]

I could live in VR at this point, I play it so often!

The unnatural parts of VR are the walking around and waving your arms around and pulling triggers to simulate your hand movements. Take those away and have you seated, with a steering wheel and pedals and suddenly the whole experience is so close to real life it's amazing. Same goes for flight sims.

[Asura]

Will it be a good game for a complete VR noob do you think? I'm just thinking of the 'VR legs' thing. I've already been advised by a VR owning friend to steer clear of No Man's Sky till I've got a bit more used to VR.

It'll be perfect.

Games with cockpits are some of the best games for new people at VR.

The vast majority of motion sickness comes from a dissonance between your senses and your visual frame-of-reference. So, for example, if you're in an FPS and your character falls over, but you're standing vertically, this is very disorienting for most people.

But, if you put the player in a Mechwarrior-style robot, and have the robot fall over, while you look out from the cockpit, most people find this easier to cope with - because the cockpit stays still relative to you, and your chair.

This is one of the reasons driving games work so well.

If you play a lot of those games, over time, you'll build up to the point where you can check out standing stuff. I'm at the point now where in Bonelab on Quest I'm doing the Parkour levels, flinging myself around, swinging off ropes etc. and it doesn't bother me - but it took me a little while to get to that point.

[wakka]

Awesome good tips guys.

I’m planning on Horizon being my first game and I’m kind of assuming that they’re gonna have tailored that for people new to VR. I could be wrong though. If it’s a bit too rough I’ll focus on GT7 instead. Resi 8 sounds like it’ll probably be a bit much right out of the gate.

[Asura]

Awesome good tips guys.

I’m planning on Horizon being my first game and I’m kind of assuming that they’re gonna have tailored that for people new to VR. I could be wrong though. If it’s a bit too rough I’ll focus on GT7 instead. Resi 8 sounds like it’ll probably be a bit much right out of the gate.

Horror games vary. Some people are fine with them; personally I find them very difficult going.

[nonny]

Awesome good tips guys.

I’m planning on Horizon being my first game and I’m kind of assuming that they’re gonna have tailored that for people new to VR. I could be wrong though. If it’s a bit too rough I’ll focus on GT7 instead. Resi 8 sounds like it’ll probably be a bit much right out of the gate.

I may be way off but I got the feeling that was the Astro's Playroom offering for the PSVR2... where it's going to introduce a whole range of VR mechanics to show off what the device can do and then throw a few more proper levels at you later on to round out the offering.

Admittedly that's what I've got from just watching trailers etc... I haven't really been tracking the game closely

[Asura]

I may be way off but I got the feeling that was the Astro's Playroom offering for the PSVR2... where it's going to introduce a whole range of VR mechanics to show off what the device can do and then throw a few more proper levels at you later on to round out the offering.

Yeah, what I would say - I think it's going to be divisive, because I think there are a few Horizon fans out there who are expecting a full-on title in VR, and it's already been quoted as ~6 hours long.

I strongly expect it's going to be a linear experience, built how you describe; so when it comes out, some people will probably complain about that.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/metas-vr-division-saw-a-14bn-loss-in-2022

Meta's VR division posted losses of $14bn in 2022, a chunky increase on the $10bn loss made the prior year

[CMcK]

What on earth are they spending all that money on? It probably cost less than that to develop the PS5 and Series consoles put together.

[wakka]

Yeah my expectation is that the Horizon game will 100% be a fully linear corridor. I think it’s meant to be about summiting a mountain so I’m assuming it might draw on ideas from The Climb. That’s just a guess, though.

But yeah I think it will be an introductory game rather than something tailored for VR experts.

[Neon Ignition]

I can only imagine Meta is sinking tons of money into R&D and marketing along with its Metaverse plans and that money generated from software sales doesn't hit the sides. There's zero chance it's reflective of the market as otherwise the likes of Sony etc wouldn't touch it with a barge pole but it also makes it feel clearer as to why the likes of MS etc have stepped away from it.

[Asura]

MS etc have stepped away from it.

MS are a bit weird, though. They've stepped away from it because, dating back to the Advanced Warfighter thing from years back, DARPA have been exploring mixed reality for soldiers. Some of it has proved fruitful; in particular there are various XR things that have become routined for helicopter pilots. But they wanted on-foot soliders to use this tech (that's what the original Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games were about; they were based on extrapolating from the documents about these real-world things).

But it's failed because of course it's failed, because soldiers, when knee-deep in a warzone, dont want to wear a bulky VR headset, any more than a consumer wants to wear one at, say, a concert, or while on a run. And the tools they provided, while theoretically useful, don't provide anywhere near enough benefit. The technology's several quantum leaps from where it needs to be.

There's a white-paper about AR doing the rounds - that to get full-on AR, which is in absolute lockstep with human vision (to the point where it's totally rigid, it's welded to where it's meant to be), you would need a display with an FoV of 210/135 and 60PPD, along with 1800hz refresh.

For reference, the Quest 2 has a PPD of ~22, FoV of 104/98, and a display of 120hz.

Only the very top-end headsets by Varjo and Pimax get to 135 degrees FoV, and they're like strapping a heavy shoebox to your head, so only work in very isolated contexts (temporary theme park rides etc.), and the 1800hz framerate is kinda absurd (but necessary, as human eyes don't have a consistent framerate so you basically need to brute force it).

I think it's fair to say that those sorts of uses for AR will only come about with changes in display technology that are simply beyond our present understanding. We're talking sci-fi stuff, either projecting the displays into the brain, or some kind of Star Trek level holographic display that can create genuine, 3D structures built out of light. Neither of these things are likely to happen any time soon.

[Neon Ignition]

If it's not for that reason then it's probably for fear Sony will accuse them of trying to monopolise the industry

[wakka]

I think it's fair to say that those sorts of uses for AR will only come about with changes in display technology that are simply beyond our present understanding. We're talking sci-fi stuff, either projecting the displays into the brain, or some kind of Star Trek level holographic display that can create genuine, 3D structures built out of light. Neither of these things are likely to happen any time soon.

Yeah, I agree. I'm always a defender of the potential of XR/MR headmounted computing, because I do genuinely believe it will be transformative in the future in the way that microcomputing, then laptop computing and smartphone computing were in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s (and beyond).

But I'm also fully aware that we are a long, long way from the technology being at a point where this actually takes place. I think the technology we will eventually use will eliminate problems we foresee today in ways that we can't even anticipate. It's kind of like if you told someone in 1995 that one day you'd be able to watch movies on your phone - they might have asked how much it would cost per minute.

Fundamentally today's headmounted technology is still incredibly crude - basically primordial. The true enmeshing of the digital and physical world that Zuckerberg (I think correctly) envisions is still 20+ years away.

There's an interesting, and very long, essay here about why we keep hearing so much about VR and AR, but why widespread adoption never seems to be any closer - and gives some thoughts on where the tens of billions Meta is spending is probably going:

https://www.matthewball.vc/all/why-vrar-gets-farther-away-as-it-comes-into-focus

Basically, the answer is simply vast quantities of technological R&D. The problems they are trying to solve are hard, and it's going to take thousands of highly paid people a very long time to crack them.

It's interesting that CMcK mentions above that the cash Meta are spending far outstrips the development costs of the PS5 and Series X, because the article does address how much easier it is to develop those machines than the more challenging AR headsets (PS5 and Series X don't need to be small, don't need batteries, don't need to do complex calculations about the world around them, can have fans, are basically single-purpose, etc).

But while truly useful, mainstream AR remains relatively distant, I don't think it's quite fair to say that it's 'Star Trek', or so out of reach as to be fully sci-fi in the way that everyday space travel or a human city on Mars is. It's coming, probably in the next couple of decades, and I think it's fascinating to observe the progress we'll make along the way.

[MartyG]

This looks interesting. From the people that created the Big Screen VR app.



It's a 3D printed prototype, but if this ends up anything like this small in final production I could definitely be interested.

[Asura]

It's a 3D printed prototype, but if this ends up anything like this small in final production I could definitely be interested.

It looks great! But it's wired and requires a tracking base-station setup

But it'll be a game-changer for people for whom that isn't a deal-breaker.