Virtual Reality

RandallFlagg

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Pot Noodle? classy touch, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Flanging_Fred

I've worked in the VR and simulation industry for the past 20 years. I've said it before and I'll say it again, VR is still a fancy solution to a problem that doesn't really exist* There always seems to be a cheaper or more efficient solution to whatever problem you think VR will solve. 

*as yet flight/military simulation is really the only thing that has had large scale long term success in this area as training in real life is so insanely expensive.  

Drew_TNBD

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

It'll be the other way round. You'll fuck a virtual Pot Noodle whilst eating a bit of Beyonce. Tut. You're no visionary.

Sporky

monquixote said:

You are entitled to your opinion but it's not really valid.

Are you sure that's what you meant to type?

fretmeister

RandallFlagg said:

monquixote said:

You have to actually try a modern VR setup before you have a valid opinion.

Not necessarily. I need to try one to have an opinion on the quality of the experience or compare it to other setups, I don't need to try one to have a valid opinion on whether I need or want it or not.

Did you know you needed an iPod / smart phone / pc something else new before you tried it?

Reverend

My experience was that it wasn't very good.

monquixote

Sporky said:

monquixote said:

You are entitled to your opinion but it's not really valid.

Are you sure that's what you meant to type?

Yep

Myranda

VR likely will be the next-big-thing but not yet.

Due to success of the pseudo-VR like the Samsung Gear where it's really just a screen affixed to your face, with some semi-accurate motion tracking and a phone CPU and GPU powering the experience Occulus made a big thing about their upcoming $200 VR headset - which is an all-in-one version of the Samsung Gear - for "virtual theatre" experience, or games that while first person don't require movement forwards or backwards.

We think of the VR we want, and it's the Star Trek holodeck experience... what we have is:
Under-powered - One of AMD's top design peeps thinks that for a true total immersion (visually speaking) VR needs to be able to pump out 8K images per eye at 200 Hz refresh rates... The very best gaming computers with even multi-gpu set-ups can do 8K at maybe 60 Hz for one screen (and even then, in only a few games)... There just isn't the processing power in a commercially available system (yet... at the numbers suggested by AMD-man and holding to an approximation of moores law somewhere between 4 1/2 to 6 years... so we'll get pretty close soon enough).

Lack of compute power is coupled with lack of hardware - no one even makes an 8k screen small enough to work in a headset - or a cable to supply two 8k screens at even 60 Hz... and no wireless solution is remotely reliable enough at that sort of bandwidth (yet)

Motion sickness - if your eyes are telling your brain that all sorts of movement is happening, but your inner ear disagrees then you'll potentially face motion sickness - solutions so far include teleporting to move properly (rather than look-to-aim movement), bird cage like pictures around your head to give the impression of a fixed point, turning screens off and back on again if you turn too far (or turn on the control pad). Maybe VR games should come with 

Movement - best solutions for VR are the full-room setups where you move by actually moving, but no one owns infinite houses, so sudden invisible walls happen - combined with being tethered in place by cables this severely limits movements. Rolling floor solutions weigh a huge amount (I've seen one listed at near a half tonne - so the base is heavy enough to not over balance while you're hooked up to the pole) and terrifyingly expensive ... what if you then want a driving game? well now you don't need movement, but a bucket seat and steering wheel ... flight sim? good chair and joystick... who can afford limitless space a variety of chairs and controllers? - perhaps a clever re-configurable set-up able to alter a chair shape accordingly... which also has a rolling floor... 

Something I call over-immersion which results in immersion breaking - need to press a key on your keyboard? well you can't see, so you have to lift the headset (one manufacturer thought of this)... how about you're in the middle of a horror game, you've already got the heart rate of a serial killer on the run from the police, and your significant other needs your attention... noise cancelling headphones mean you can't hear the kids/washing machine/traffic and a headset means you can see nothing but the game... the SO, the love of your life, a child grabs your shoulder, or your leg... the dog tries to jump on you... Fight or Flight reaction kicks in and before you know it you've slammed a controller into the face of the person you love - when VR becomes a thing there will be a portion of the populace wandering around with black-eyes and broken jaws explaining that it's not an abusive relationship, but they're dating a gamer... kids at school explaining that the broken arm isn't child-abuse but a gamer thinking that a xeno-morph grabbed their leg yelling "DAD, MUM SAYS DINNER IS READY"... and huge numbers of dead pets... just think of all the stepped-on/kicked cats!

Games are almost universally awful (so far)

I'm actually more interested in AR done well... a little intelligence and some cameras and hopefully it will be possible to map games, or game assets to the world around you - down to little things like displaying the world as nicer and prettier (perhaps your room could look like a fabulous flower-garden... or maybe a sci-fi spaceship with a gaming computer in it... but that will have all the same technical problems as VR in addition to needing the screens to be either transparent or using a camera to map out surfaces and then layer over the real world (rather than drawing that too), so will require a lot of additional processing power if anything - and maybe lasers or ultrasound to create a 3D map ... and also re-work the game worlds in such a way to fit into your current environment while being wireless... 

The future is bright - but it's several years hence...

UNLESS!...

If the current generation of VR causes too much motion sickness or the bad graphics and screen-door effect (and prohibitive cost) put off too many people so we wind up with like a 10 year hiatus where the tech isn't popular enough to invest in... 

Nitefly

chillidoggy said:

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Well, that's alright for the chavs, what about us normal folks? 

We could take soup...

Chalky

monquixote said:

Sporky said:

Like all fake 3D it gives me motion sickness.

monquixote said:

You have to actually try a modern VR setup before you have a valid opinion.

Let's hope you never express an opinion on being eaten by a shark!

It's entirely possible to have valid opinions on things you've not done.

It's not really the same though is it. 

It's more like saying I've never eaten a pineapple but my opinion is that they are horrible. You are entitled to your opinion but it's not really valid.

I'm sure @RandallFlagg has never had the experiences of murdering old ladies or bedding Beyonce while eating pot noodle, but I'm equally sure he has a valid opinion on whether HE "needs or wants it or not."

Edit. You don't have any responsibility for teaching kids about the dangers of drugs, do you? About why they should just say No without experiencing the effects? Your broken logic might get you into trouble there...

Bidley

The current generation of VR is the real deal. I've not tried it yet, but from what I can gather it's beyond anything we've ever had before.

The "need/want" thing is a red herring. There's nothing else quite like it. But as has been said, the grumpy old farts on this forum are far from the target market.

TheMarlin

VR is a red herring for games (in the short to medium term at least).  It's biggest application will be in industry, training, medical, leisure, and military.  

The hardware needs to get faster, lighter, less intrusive, and more immersive before it goes fully mainstream.  

Its heading in in the right direction.  I see big applications in entertainment (tourist attractions, theme parks, etc). Retail will also make big use of it.  

Marlin 

monquixote

Chalky said:

monquixote said:

Sporky said:

Like all fake 3D it gives me motion sickness.

monquixote said:

You have to actually try a modern VR setup before you have a valid opinion.

Let's hope you never express an opinion on being eaten by a shark!

It's entirely possible to have valid opinions on things you've not done.

It's not really the same though is it. 

It's more like saying I've never eaten a pineapple but my opinion is that they are horrible. You are entitled to your opinion but it's not really valid.

I'm sure @RandallFlagg has never had the experiences of murdering old ladies or bedding Beyonce while eating pot noodle, but I'm equally sure he has a valid opinion on whether HE "needs or wants it or not."

Edit. You don't have any responsibility for teaching kids about the dangers of drugs, do you? About why they should just say No without experiencing the effects? Your broken logic might get you into trouble there...

Why not willfully misunderstand what I'm saying why don't you.

You don't know how much you will enjoy an experience commonly considered to be enjoyable and harmless (excluding straw man bullshit like sharks and heroin) until you have tried it.

It's surely not a controversial opinion is it?

Emp_Fab

"I don't want to try VR because I think it will be shit" = valid opinion

"VR is shit though I've never tried it" = dumbass

There.  That's all sorted.

Emp_Fab

RandallFlagg said:

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Pot Noodle? classy touch, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Dude... "She" isn't real!  That's the whole point!  You could take her from behind while wearing a chicken suit and playing 'If you liked it (then you shoulda put a ring on it) on a kazoo, if that's your thing.

Bidley

Emp_Fab said:

"I don't want to try VR because I think it will be shit" = valid opinion

"VR is shit though I've never tried it" = dumbass

There.  That's all sorted.

Isn't that two ways of saying the same thing?

chillidoggy

Emp_Fab said:

RandallFlagg said:

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Pot Noodle? classy touch, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Dude... "She" isn't real!  That's the whole point!  You could take her from behind while wearing a chicken suit and playing 'If you liked it (then you shoulda put a ring on it) on a kazoo, if that's your thing.

Presumably for this specific 3D scenario a prosthetic arse is part of the package, or it'll be like humping air.

FX_Munkee

Flanging_Fred said:

I've worked in the VR and simulation industry for the past 20 years. I've said it before and I'll say it again, VR is still a fancy solution to a problem that doesn't really exist* There always seems to be a cheaper or more efficient solution to whatever problem you think VR will solve. 

*as yet flight/military simulation is really the only thing that has had large scale long term success in this area as training in real life is so insanely expensive.  

This is pretty much my experience from working in VR in games and civil/MOD land.
There are situations where it's a very good answer, such as helicopter rear crew training, nuclear installation layouts, etc.
Basically a lot of situations where you need to be immersed but doing so in reality is either very expensive or dangerous/impossible.
We made more use of 3D projection, tracking and haptics for more situations though (non-games).
Personally I think this wave of VR is not "it" though and I think that by the time we do get there AR will be a much more useful application for more scenarios.

Emp_Fab

chillidoggy said:

Emp_Fab said:

RandallFlagg said:

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Pot Noodle? classy touch, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Dude... "She" isn't real!  That's the whole point!  You could take her from behind while wearing a chicken suit and playing 'If you liked it (then you shoulda put a ring on it) on a kazoo, if that's your thing.

Presumably for this specific 3D scenario a prosthetic arse is part of the package, or it'll be like humping air.

Of course.  The company that makes the first lifelike interactive digital robo-foof is going to make trillions of moneys.  I'm investing when it arrives.

underdog

Emp_Fab said:

chillidoggy said:

Emp_Fab said:

RandallFlagg said:

Emp_Fab said:

I beg to differ.  You won't be able to stop it taking off once people realise they can fuck Beyoncé from the comfort of their living room whilst eating a Pot Noodle.

Pot Noodle? classy touch, I'm sure she'll be impressed.

Dude... "She" isn't real!  That's the whole point!  You could take her from behind while wearing a chicken suit and playing 'If you liked it (then you shoulda put a ring on it) on a kazoo, if that's your thing.

Presumably for this specific 3D scenario a prosthetic arse is part of the package, or it'll be like humping air.

Of course.  The company that makes the first lifelike interactive digital robo-foof is going to make trillions of moneys.  I'm investing when it arrives.

"Robo-foof" is quite possibly the best thing I've read in weeks, love it