LGR - HTC Vive Review & Ramble (mostly ramble...)
Added 2016-06-30 16:08:55 +0000 UTCHere's my second, more involved look at the Vive. This ended up WAY longer than I'd planned, haha. Hope you enjoy anyway!
Comments
I feel like there are a lot of things that need working out. And not just technical limits. As most of those will be fixed in time. There are some ethical issues that need solving too. But I've been convinced I need to try it. I think the arcade idea is a must, and maybe it's the best short term answer until we solve the other issues. With the technology limitations, it's all seems to based around the fact we can only fool two of our five main senses and one more than nobody seems to count as the true sixth sense. Motion and gravity. Even with our eyes and ears cut off to the real world. Move us around and turn us upside down and we'd know about it. We need to be able to fool these and other senses for it to truly work. Otherwise the Oculus and HTC are to true VR what Wii Sports is to professional bowling. The ethical part truly worries me, with video game violence I've always been on the side of gamers, there was no way it could cause problems on a mass scale. However in VR, your actually going to have the feeling like your beating someone to death with your own hands. You're going to see the digital life leave thier eyes from the point of view of your own. People talk about punching real walls not in the game and leaning on invisible tables because they believe they're really there. What happens when you believe you killed someone and you really felt like you did it and you were rewarded with a high score. I'm not saying ban VR. But we need to talk about this as it's the young kids that growing up now that will think this is as normal as TV is for us. We need to figure out the limits of us using the tech just like we worked out the limits of TV & Movies with ratings. Also. F**K THE DOG that is expensive. But great rant. Not enough people talking about this stuff and just playing with this stuff. I can tell that you've really wanted this to work since the 90's also. At least we're past the lawnmower man phase. We'll get there!
David Marsden
2016-07-07 05:25:42 +0000 UTCSo, what's the verdict? :) Opinions swayed at all or mostly the same?
LGR
2016-07-07 03:29:10 +0000 UTCThere are early versions of all those in the works right now, and the ones I've played look quite promising! But yeah, I'm sure you're not alone among other developers who would want to dive into this stuff if they could :/
LGR
2016-07-07 03:28:29 +0000 UTCGetting the screen closer to your eyes definitely helps with blur, but it also makes it hugely uncomfortable for me. Presses against the bridge of my nose too hard! And yeah, supersampling is a fantastic thing indeed, I can't wait til hardware supports it more easily
LGR
2016-07-07 03:26:40 +0000 UTCThe arcade system NEEDS to come back for more people to understand what makes this current crop of VR special. It's just too hard to grasp without experiencing it. I'm happy that certain theme parks are starting to feature VR.
LGR
2016-07-07 03:25:50 +0000 UTCI think what's going to be interesting is like Second Life or something like that in VR. I have used some of the social apps for the Gear VR and it's like a sci-fi movie to feel like being in a space with other real people. There needs to be more experiences like that that don't feel cheap and fake. These experiences are so immersive and so tricky on the brain that you forget about reality. We need a big open space, where we can forget about reality with other real people. I think omni-directional treadmills as opposed to room-scale are where things are ultimately headed if someone can figure out how to make them feel better on the feet and not strap you into a weird harness to figure out if your your standing, sitting, or crouching. I like the idea of the limitless movement possibilities of a treadmill over the limitations of a room. The body tracking could be done with some sort of haptic suit. There are several being developed right now. As for the cost of these things, I think we need to see the arcade system come back for a time. We can make due with the headsets that are available right now at home but have arcades where all the latest and greatest equipment is being rented out. Instead of trusting a small group of extremely wealthy people to buy these headsets, if they were offered to the public in an affordable, piecemeal fashion, I think more people would try it and the market would grow. Right now it seems like a bit of a gamble and I would hate to see VR die because nobody wants to buy into it.
Kevin
2016-07-02 04:55:13 +0000 UTCRe vorpx it does work but you are correct they do make you sick. worth it for aliane isolation. the theatre thing try bigscreen beta, its awesome!
Christian Earnshaw
2016-07-01 11:27:36 +0000 UTChi mate, re the blurryness cut down the foam that fits to your face. the bur will disappear. also look into the supersampling thats going on currently. as thats makes a HUGE difference too. its like another vive Heres the link <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4q4bu3/update_chaperone_switcher_on_the_fly/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4q4bu3/update_chaperone_switcher_on_the_fly/</a>
Christian Earnshaw
2016-07-01 11:26:43 +0000 UTCI have only just started this. I'm in for a treat. You're a smarter guy than I think you give yourself credit for and you understand the tech. Looking forward to your insight. Before I watch it all. My observers opinion, having not tried this and only using stuff like leap motion and google cardboard, I feel like this will be seen as Wii/Kinect 2.0 in the near future. And from what I can see current VR let's you do anything you want as long as it's anything you can do in a small room mostly standing still. I see the next step being AR stuff that a company is working on. Where they project the image directly in your eye retinas from a pair of glasses. Also I see current VR maybe being a great arcade choice and not useable for 90% of society at home. But I want to be wrong. I mean living rooms were just a room you sat down in. Now they're mostly focused around a TV. Maybe there will be a VR room in the future? Let's see if my opinion changes after this. Thanks again.
David Marsden
2016-07-01 07:07:08 +0000 UTCIt's also worth mentioning that the Oculus deals with game developers do not prohibit those games from coming out on the Vive, if they had a Vive version coming, it's still on it's way. The general rule, and I think a key modifier, is that the Oculus exclusives are timed exclusives, meaning the Oculus store has first dibs on sales of the product. Admittedly I don't know how long those exclusive time frames are, but it's not Oculus buying the developers or games, it's Oculus offering extra funding in exchange for timed exclusivity, still kinda shit but not as bad as flat out exclusivity, and it seemed good enough for the developers to agree to it. It does however mean these games can better than if they never got the cash at all. Unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation going around on this topic and general public opinion has already decided what it wants to believe (mostly PCMR).
Leigh Beattie
2016-07-01 07:03:30 +0000 UTCThe Pokemon comment was a good point. Many different genres could make use of VR; especially room scale VR, and there exist some studios with a record of pushing limits. Far beyond the FPS, I'm imagining Final Fantasy; not as a first person environment, but as a more fleshed-out world that can envelope you during those traditional stand-offs, and within story-driving scenes. A good balance could create a great experience. The series specializes in carrying you into another world, and allowing you to feel for the characters and their struggles. Placing yourself within that world could be the final trick that Final Fantasy has up it's sleeve. Standing at the ruins of Zanarkand and hearing that piano as the wind howls around you... The possibilities are endless, even in games more grounded in tradition.
Paul
2016-07-01 06:57:44 +0000 UTCIt's quite interesting actually the way you're talking about the lighthouses and tracking. The light houses for the vive are actually incredibly 'dumb' and don't track anything, all they do is bathe your room in laser light from little laser wheels they rotate at something like 60hz? It's actually the headset and controllers that are technically tracking the base stations as they pick up on the laser light and using time of flight calculations they can use their arrangement of sensors to deduce their orientation and position. Which is the exact opposite of what the Oculus does, where it has emissive LEDs on the headset and controllers, and the cameras/sensors look for those arrangements of LEDs in their field of view to ascertain the orientation and position of the device. Because the light houses are dumb its very easy to just add other headsets and controllers as it's up to the controllers to figure out where they are and not the base stations.
Leigh Beattie
2016-07-01 06:43:23 +0000 UTCFull game ideas which would be AWESOME with the Vive: * Swordfighting and spellcasting with weapons and magic you MAKE * Tomb Raider styled exploration and treasure hunting * Ping Pong or Pool * Oversized board games * A standard Pokémon RPG in first person! :o ...I wish I had the time and money to make these happen. I could usher in the games which would make people want VR given how dry the market is for proper gaming experiences... but geeze, now is very much the wrong time for this stuff to be coming out as far as my own ability to develop anything for it. :/
Kris Asick
2016-07-01 03:59:06 +0000 UTCI am totally with you also on it being what we envisioned VR to be. I really enjoyed exploring the scenes in the lab - especially being able to bend down and look underneath things, etc. Really is remarkable.
Lon Seidman
2016-06-30 18:35:31 +0000 UTCI love my Vive, it's amazing.
Lon Seidman
2016-06-30 18:33:47 +0000 UTCPerfect way to spend my lunchtime.
Zabe
2016-06-30 18:06:29 +0000 UTC
