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The Road To VR
An anonymous reader writes "Stack Overflow co-founder Jeff Atwood has posted about how much progress we've made toward commercially viable virtual reality gaming — and how far we have to go. The Oculus Rift headset is technologically brilliant compared to anything we'd have before, but Atwood says there are still a number of problems to solve. Quoting: 'It's a big commitment to strap a giant, heavy device on your face with 3+ cables to your PC. You don't just casually fire up a VR experience. ... Demos are great, but there aren't many games in the Steam Store that support VR today, and the ones that do support VR can feel like artificially tacked on novelty experiences. I did try Surgeon Simulator 2013 which was satisfyingly hilarious. ... VR is a surprisingly anti-social hobby, even by gamer standards, which are, uh low. Let me tell you, nothing is quite as boring as watching another person sit down, strap on a headset, and have an extended VR "experience". I'm stifling a yawn just thinking about it. ... Wearing a good VR headset makes you suddenly realize how many other systems you need to add to the mix to get a truly great VR experience: headphones and awesome positional audio, some way of tracking your hand positions, perhaps an omnidirectional treadmill, and as we see with the Crystal Cove prototype, an external Kinect style camera to track your head position at absolute minimum.' Atwood also links to Michael Abrash's VR blog, which is satisfyingly technical for those interested in the hardware and software problems of VR."
They want their I-glasses! back.
What would you consider virtual reality? A direct neural interface that simulates all senses like in the Matrix, or just putting some headset that shows a high-res screen before each eye, plus headphones?
So twenty years after the first big wave of VR hype, we're barely able to project realistic pictures, but 3D printing will get us Star Trek replicators soon??
The articles were filled with very optimistic visions of a VR future that was "coming soon"
I worked for Disney Imagineering R&D at the time, so money was available to buy some stuff and play with it
We bought the "state of the art" system, and hooked it up..it was not super impressive
When we showed it to the President of WDI, he said "don't show this to anybody else, it makes us look bad"
Years, and many millions of dollars later, we managed to create our own VR headmount display and opened "Imagineering VR Lab" at Epcot
It was better, but still nowhere near lived up to the hype
"Toilet Overflow co-founder J.Q.Public has posted about how much progress we've made toward commercially viable virtual sex gaming — and how far we have to go. Tripping the Rift headset is technologically brilliant compared to anything we'd have before, but Public says there are still a number of problems to solve. Quoting: 'It's a big commitment to strap a giant, heavy squid on your face with 3+ cables to your erogenous zones. You don't just casually fire up a VR experience. ... Whores are great, but there aren't any in the Steam Store that support USB or Firewire today, and the ones that do support Apple can feel like artificially tacked on novelty experiences. I did try Prostate Simulator 2013 which was satisfyingly hilarious. ... VR is a surprisingly anti-social hobby, even by playa standards, which are, uh low. Let me tell you, nothing is quite as boring as watching another person sit down, strap on a dildo, and give an extended VR "experience". I'm stifling a yawn just thinking about it. ... Wearing a good Vibrating Squidset makes you suddenly realize how many other systems you need to add to the mix to get a truly great sexperience: headphones and awesome positional furniture, some way of tracking your hand positions, perhaps an omnidirectional treadmill, and as we see with the Crystal groove prototype, an external Kinect style camera to track your head position at absolute minimum.' Public also links to Hugh Hefners's VR blog, which is satisfyingly technical for those interested in the hardware and software problems of VR"
Put an accelerometer in the headset. Problem solved.
They have accelerators in the headset. It doesn't do much good when at times the head can move at constant velocity. For sensing gravity and rotational movement, it works well, but translation movement is impossible to do reliably with accelerators lacking any sort of frame of reference.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Exactly, I believe Oculus's crystal cove prototype from this year's CES used a combination of accelerometers and the tracking camera to keep the accelerometers synchronized with their true position. In the final version they said the camera probably won't even be necessary anymore, but just this prototype version still requires it.
Then throw in a gyroscope.
It's a big commitment to strap a giant, heavy device on your face with 3+ cables to your PC
Granted, but then again, a lot of particular prominent, even more special purpose successes require a pretty big commitment. Rock band did well and no one is going to claim it's trivial to whip out the guitars and drumset. Granted their success did not endure, but primarily because the experience lacked sufficient variety, it did show people were committed to go through some hoops. Similarly, *really* sitting down to enjoy a feature length movie requires some commitment (doing so without commitment is possible, but much less enjoyable.
there aren't many games in the Steam Store that support VR today
And there weren't many games that supported accelerated 3D graphics when 3dfx voodoo came out. Being too discouraged by that leads to a chicken and egg situation. It's probably also off putting that the set of available titles are at best adaptations of existing games or very basic things. The reason being that the quality games take longer and as such are still in progress (Star Citizen is one I'm really looking forward to). Crystal Cove demonstrates they will have capabilities the dev kits aren't even equipped to help publishers prepare for yet. Oculus is doing the only thing that might have a chance, building up a lot of excitement and coming in at an approachable price point to try to break the chicken and egg situation.
Having your eyes so close to the screens means the display is effectively very low resolution.
This is one area that has me pretty worried and waiting (that and the availability of good positional sensing). I'm really hoping they will be able to use at least a 2560x1440 OLED display (thanks to the mobile resolution pissing contest, Samsung looks ready to announce a shipping product with 2560x1440 at 5.2", 560 ppi seems very promising to construct a display out of, even if magnified).
VR is a surprisingly anti-social hobby, even by gamer standards
Very, very rarely is gaming remotely entertaining to mere observers. A lot of very popular things are *always* equally anti-social (texting, reading books, listening to music on headphones, pretty much doing *anything* on a smartphone or even tablet, laptop, or computer).
Notice how quickly we get into geez-this-is-a-lot-of-equipment territory.
The same can be true of racing or flying games, but that doesn't stop the vast majority of people making do with simpler controls. Just because you *can* take things very far at a very high price, doesn't mean you have to. The external tracking of the head is going to be baked into the headset cost (and not that expensive, as Kinect has shown) Headphones are straightforward as is positional audio in the headphone situation. Beyond eyewear and headphones, things get optional pretty fast. Wiimote-grade tracking for hands I certainly see as a big value add, but things start falling off real fast beyond that (the treadmill I'm skeptical would do anything to pull me that much more in as I think it would still feel very very off, but would wear me out greatly).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They have gyroscopic in there already. That's how they can do yaw and such. Still does nothing to help you with linear movement.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Even if it did need to have something like IR cameras to observe IR leds in the headset (or vice-versa, as the Wii did), I don't think it would be too bad.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
...or something like that. Even if VR isn't quite up to spec yet, this would be a great way to get people in front of the Oculus &c. that aren't willing to shell out cash on pre-release hardware and software. That's how a lot of my friends and I got into games when we were kids - we'd go try them out at LAN cafes in town. With an investment into all of the stuff the article mentions - the omni-directional treadmill, the advanced sound system, and the headset of course - you could probably set up an hourly rate that makes the investment back pretty quickly just out of curious people.
Then when it gets really good - higher resolution, or maybe even Caprica level - upgrade to that and you'll be busy forever.
I missed out on seeing Avatar in 3D in one of those IMAX theaters. (With the screen that covers your peripheral version.) I didn't bother to watch it on cable since apparently the part that made it impressive is in that environment it's like you're in the movie. With these VR glasses it seems there's now finally a setup that can display that movie(and other) properly.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
I do hope they have redundant power system and 2N for computing units.
Relying entirely on accelerometers and gyroscopes works for a very brief amount of time, before suffering from massive drift.
What Oculus is doing is relying on the onboard tracker for low-latency real-time data, and using the external camera to correct for drift.
I got my rift a few weeks ago, and haven't had too much time to play with it yet, but these are my findings. The experience is truly quite new and incomparable to any non-stereo 3D tech, it is much more immersive, yet also very intense! Many game genres, like flightsims, space-fighters, etc, will no longer be relaxing, or even enjoyable the way they are on 2D screens, simply because it is now almost a real simulator. You will get sick, and you will need hours/days/months of training to be able to cope with the new level of realism. The stereo 3D images, combined with head-tracking, are now feeding much more info to your brain than just a visual scene, it's telling your brain you should be feeling G-forces (that the inner ear obviously doesn't register), and it can give you a very bad disembodied feeling when you don't see your arms or body when looking down. With the current oculus rift dev kit, you also still feel like you're looking at the world through a gas mask or hazmat suit or the likes, resolution is quite low, and you clearly see pixels. Even though it doesn't weigh too much, you will feel its weight on your cheekbones after a while too. I had no problem with the cables. For playing existing games, without native rift support, there are currently two "drivers" (read directx wrappers), that double render the scene in stereo and map and distort it for viewing on the rift, and also adjust the view transform in accordance with the head-tracking. (Vorpx (commercial), and Vireio (free oss)). Of course this doesn't work well for all games and genres, but it is very nice to be able to check out your favorite games this way. The most disturbing and nauseating things are the silliest things, like when the games loads and the scene freezes, or a cut-scene comes up with limited camera freedom, a HUD that requires you to refocus on a different plane, etc.. Of course it does have advantages too, like you can now turn off the guidance-lines in racing games that tell you when to brake etc, because now you'll FEEL you can't possibly take that turn at those speeds. First-person games are a lot more immersive than third-person games, which feel a bit weird when controlling a single character and viewing it from behind. Half-Life 2 (with buggy native support) did give the best experience for me so far, when Alyx first appears, it really feels like she is standing right in front of you. Quite amazing indeed. Overall you really feel like you're in the HL world, only thing killing it atm is the low resolution. Anyway, imho, VR-tech should be around, but it will always exist side-by-side with watching a traditional screen, it will not replace it, at least not in its current state.
They have accelerators in the headset. It doesn't do much good when at times the head can move at constant velocity. For sensing gravity and rotational movement, it works well, but translation movement is impossible to do reliably with accelerators lacking any sort of frame of reference.
I agree... Also, the system should track eye movement as well. And what about body suits? Animation companies have been using body suits to track human movement for a while now. Why use an external camera when you can just slip into clothing with sensors in it.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03...
"The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that âoeruns on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.â Fiction â" with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions â" offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other peopleâ(TM)s thoughts and feelings. The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters."
Also: http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/you...
I'm not saying choose one or the other. I'm just asking, overall, at its best, and perhaps after the novelty has worn off, how does the level of engagement compare between immerse VR and a good "page turner" novel? Which do you feel better about afterwards?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The summary talks about all the devices that you need to complete virtual reality. The fact that you need all those devices should make it clear: this isn't virtual reality, nor even a step toward it. It is immersive gaming, but until you are directly raising/lowering voltage on neurons, you aren't creating a virtual reality. You're just shaping this reality to create an optical illusion. Virtual reality means truly constructing a brand new reality for the mind to perceive, from the direction of gravity to the sensation of having eaten a satisfying meal or having additional (or fewer) arms and legs.
Until they solve the motion sickness issue, there will be no VR. Everyone I know who tried Oculus Rift has had horrendous motion sickness, even those who never are bothered by it any other time.
Here's an interesting take on the latest VR craze, Cyberith Virtualizer + Oculus Rift + Wii Mote for Skyrim. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7n5kRRHDpw
At least it will get more gamers out of their seats and add a little cardio to go along with their dragon slaying.
I have set my lower threshold for VR:
When I can go to a paintball place and play "CS". Take a fake gun, run over a real terrain that I can see in the virtual world, and my "shots" register as if they were real and take players out of the game once they are "dead" in-game.
Once we get to that level of head-tracking, arm-tracking, freedom-of-movement (i.e. running around in an arena / studio / forest and having the VR know exactly where we are and overlay the virtual world accordingly, thus allowing me to only camp on some high perch if I can physically get there myself), virtual-overlay-over-real-world, and convincing colour/resolution/graphics then I'll consider it proper VR.
Fact is, we were decades off that years ago and we're still decades off it now. Back in the Quake days, I was saying that someone really needs to set up a cyber-cafe type place, with the equivalent of a paintball "arena" inside it (make it bland, or green-screen, or filled with tracking dots, just make it cheap and let the VR fill in the gaps), and - back then - one of those huge stupid VR headsets on your head so you look like the kids from Knightmare running around. Hell, even for Quake-era graphics we'd still struggle to make it convincing even today (even if you mapped perfectly the arena into the virtual world).
The problems of VR are not simple computing problems. It's much more about ergonomics, persistence-of-vision, instantaneous feedback, movement through 3D space, miniaturisation and precise tracking than anything to do with the software you actually run.
And, of course, some obvious things:
- a flat 2D surface in front of your eyes is *not* like a 3D world when your eye tracks (no matter how close it gets). It does not "curve" the same way. So now you need a tiny, bright, hi-res, portable, low-power FLEXIBLE display too which doesn't distort the image too much. Oh, two of them.
- You cannot place g-forces on the user that they aren't creating themselves (so lots of fancy flight sims are nice, but you still need to be in a seat that moves you about)
- Being moved upside-down can only really be replicated by being moved ALMOST all the way upside-down. It's hard to cheat, in a local gravity field, without interfering with the internals of people's ears. (Maybe when we get to space? But then who wants VR when you're in space?!).
- When you solve all these problems, there's still not much call for it except for gaming. You're again limited to what the human body can do whereas before you were, well, able to do whatever the software let you. Imagine Minecraft VR... it'd be the most boring day out in the world (and I actually quite like Minecraft). I can remember back in the 80's, towns in the UK would commission VR walkthroughs of new shopping centres etc. and use the old VR headsets to show people. Last time I saw one? The 80's. How old is something like VRML? Netscape 2.0 (remember the days of places giving you "3D flythroughs" of their new buildings?).
It's not that we couldn't do this before, it's that we gave up because it wasn't commercially viable for a long time because nobody was buying it. I don't doubt we can make it more viable, but whether it'll be mainstream? That's a seriously long way into the future. I've yet to see a Google Glass user, let alone an Oculus Rift user. Anyone remember the Nintendo VR attempt - Virtual Boy? No? Probably a reason for that?
I'm quite happy that Valve are buying into the Oculus Rift and pushing it forward as it's undoubtedly the closest to a consumer VR tech that we have. But we're a long way off it being anything more than a Wiimote-like gimmick.
I think Rift is in the right direction -- I've played with a few HMDs and many VR systems, and although the resolution of the Rift is extremely poor, the comfort is better than almost any HMD that I've tried.
The State of the Art in VR is not HMDs but systems like the CAVE (check out the C6 at Iowa State) where the user is in a room with head tracking and a 3D input device, and each wall (including the floor, ceiling, and the wall you entered through in the case of the C6) is a 16 megapixel rear-projected 3D display updated in real-time. The experience is very much like being in the alpha version of the Holodeck (the walls disappear for the head-tracked user wearing the 3D glasses, and any object can be walked around).
The problem with these systems, of course, is that they take up real physical space and have been prohibitively expensive for the last 2 decades. To get something equivalent to the human eye, you need close to 100 Megapixels (updated at >60Hz) with a 180 degree field of view (to avoid feeling like you're seeing the world through welding goggles). The CAVE gives you this experience, at a great price. The real problem is that it is used almost exclusively for demonstrations to visiting dignitaries and funding agencies at the places fortunate enough to have them. The genius of the Rift is that it will have a huge developer and user base (at least compared to current VR systems). What is created by this developer and user base will feed into State of the Art VR research (which has, unfortunately, stagnated horribly for at least a decade) and lead to the creation of something cool. (I'm hoping for a 100 Megapixel equivalent eye tracked VR helmet with vergence and accommodation compensation -- or true real-time digital holography -- or light field displays).
[Incidentally, 3DTV could have been the basis of home based VR systems if the game console companies had had the vision to add head tracking and embrace it for what it is -- a very affordable VR display. For those of you who have never tried it -- the experience of head tracked 3D is VERY different than just 3D. But the 3D hate is too strong -- primarily driven by people who don't see 3D, are too sensitive to the effects of current display tech, or those who have had the misfortune of having experienced badly calibrated 3D]
In one case you're in another person's head in another person's world. In the other case you're in another person's world, but still in your own head and in control of your own actions. I promise being in your head and making your own decisions is better.