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Valve's SteamVR: Solves Big Problems, Raises Bigger Questions
An anonymous reader writes: When Valve debuted its SteamVR headset recently, it came as somewhat of a surprise — it certainly hasn't gotten the same level of hype as the Oculus Rift. But people who got to try out the new headset almost universally impressed with the quality of the hardware and software. Eurogamer has an article about the device expressing both astonishment at how far the technology has come in three short years, as well as skepticism that we'll find anything revolutionary to do with it. Quoting: "R demands a paradigm shift in the thinking of game designers and artists about how they build virtual space and how players should interact with it. We're only at the very beginning of this journey now. ... but this process will likely take years, and at the end of it the games won't resemble those we're currently used to. In short, they won't be Half-Life 3."
The author thinks simulation games — driving, piloting, and space combat — will be the core of the first wave, and other genres will probably have to wait for the lessons learned making sims good. He adds, "...the practical challenges are great, too — not least in persuading players to clear enough space in their homes to use this device properly, and the potential for social stigma to attach to the goofy-looking headsets and the players' withdrawal into entirely private experiences. I still think that these present major obstacles to the widespread adoption of VR, which even more practical and commercially realistic offerings like Morpheus will struggle against."
The author thinks simulation games — driving, piloting, and space combat — will be the core of the first wave, and other genres will probably have to wait for the lessons learned making sims good. He adds, "...the practical challenges are great, too — not least in persuading players to clear enough space in their homes to use this device properly, and the potential for social stigma to attach to the goofy-looking headsets and the players' withdrawal into entirely private experiences. I still think that these present major obstacles to the widespread adoption of VR, which even more practical and commercially realistic offerings like Morpheus will struggle against."
And what in the world would you use a computer for at home? Keeping a list of recipes?
Will VR addicts be called meat heads because of the neck muscles they'll build up?
I'd use it to work on my horrible spatial navigation skills and figure out exactly why I consistently think I'm going the right way when I'm going either 90 or 180 degrees away from it.
Quoting: "R demands a paradigm shift in the thinking
Yup, I bet it does if you're used to something like Python or Matlab for your data munging.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
pictures coming! Can't wait for all of the pictures of people wearing these things strapped to their heads (already some have appeared).
It almost looks like they need a counter weight on the backs of their heads to keep from falling face first into their desks.
Let me know when the eyeglass sized (and looking) versions come out.
We all know that's what we want to use it for.
I think people are too focused on the VR headset and not considering the problem of peripherals enough. When you put on a VR headset, you essentially demand a HOTAS type control system, so your hands never have to wander around searching for where to go, as you're not essentially blind to the world.
I've been thinking a lot about what sort of controller would be optimal for a shooter or other first-person game in which you wanted to be able to look, aim, and move independently. You'd essentially need a movement control for your off hand, and an aiming device for your main hand. It could be a concept similar to the Wii remote with it's attached single-hand joystick - only I'd prefer an aiming device with a proper pistol grip and trigger, and they'd both need to be independent and wireless so you're not getting cables caught on anything. A standard two handed gamepad is just not going to cut it, I think. If this can be cracked, then we'll certainly *may* see shooters and first-person adventure games. If it ends up feeling clumsy, then probably not. It's really hard to say until someone tries it out.
Hell, even if the technology is really only broadly used for flight sims and other "in the cockpit" sort of games, it's still a win. I used to play quite a few flight sims ages ago, and the limited field of view was incredibly frustrating. The prospect of being able to look over my shoulder to track potential targets sounds incredible. Granted, not everyone is going to have a HOTAS system, but for those of us who do, it's going to be awesome.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Solution: don't buy those game. Also, I find it lame too. Even a real holodeck would be too nerdy.
Being old enough to have lived through the last VR fad, the Oculus Rift and its imitators hold no excitement for me. On the other hand, some new space combat games would be terrific - Freespace 2 is getting a little long in the tooth. Presumably we'll be able to play them on regular, non-head-mounted displays as well. Just need some new force-feedback joysticks. Don't know why, maybe it's for lack of space sims, but they've pretty well disappeared.
Most of the technologies of the early web came from the porn industry, and there is no reason to believe VR will be much different. Ignoring what is probably the most lucrative aspect of VR, and how that will shape every other entertainment industry seems shortsighted.
Game development especially suffer from a degree of hubris of what exactly they bring to the technology field. Valve is but one player looking to monetize this new tech, where porn has already been investing and experimenting with different means of interactivity for nearly two decades, with the rest of the entertainment industry attempting to catch up.
Virtual porn will be the driving force behind how VR is adopted, with other industries stroking themselves at being pioneers.
I think a lot of people are unaware of just what a huge paradigm shift in gaming is on the way, once VR and kinect-style motion capture are integrated. Giving the player a character in a game, the model of which seamlessly moves to remain in sync with their real body, matching their innate sense of proprioception, is going to be a game changer (pun intended).
Imagine a world like Skyrim, but one where if you look down, you see yourself as your character. Arms and legs doing exactly what they're doing in real life. Wiggle your fingers in front of your face, you see your character do exactly the same. The sense of immersion is going to be immense and breathtaking. I can't wait :D
When we get to VR5, then the tech will be ready.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I shouldn't get into the details of my project, but I've been thinking this over. We're going to need lots of testing for a paradigm shift in interfaces.
Okay, so your basic game camera modes are top-down, isometric, third person, and first person. Simulations build on that with chase cams, orbital cams, fixed cams, and mobile cams that rotate around the subject. In VR, each one of these will have consequences, and those consequences need to be known.
Let's start with the obvious. First person will work, right off, no changes. It's the most suited to VR. Third person will work, but where we feel like we're watching our characters when we're in third person mode on a screen, in VR we it will feel more like an out of body experience. That is, if we continue to identify with the character, otherwise we'll feel like some kind of disembodied entity following a protagonist. We have to keep the player from feeling compelled to look "around" things, so keeping from obstructing the player's view will take on a new importance. If a tree gets in the way of the shot, instead of feeling like a tree is in the way, we'll feel like we've run into a tree.
But speaking of disembodied entities, that's exactly what top-down and isometric views will feel like. So, let's hone in on that. Will virtual worlds feel like shoebox dioramas or will we feel like birds, aircraft, or perhaps deific figures peering down upon the world? These analogies can be expressed literally in virtual spaces, so playing with them in interfaces can potentially do amazing things for the experience. Imagine a city-builder game, top-down, in VR, where the occasional cloud or birds below are timed and positioned just right to reinforce that feeling. Now imagine that the borders of the window and map make us feel like we're looking down on a model. Tilt-shift post processing can become very important, very soon!
Now we come to sims. Making these the first wave of VR games is a gimmick. It's like the gratuitous addition of objects protruding from the screen in 3D movies; done just to let us get the full experience. What do you imagine in VR? Feeling like you're flying, roller coasters, feeling like you're going very fast. But look at 3D. Having arrows or monster claws or whatever come out of the screen is neat the first few times, and then it takes more finesse. Simulations will probably be just like that. But there's a much bigger issue to think about here. It becomes apparent with simulations, but applies backward through this post all the way to first person.
Hone in on that rotating cam. Can you see the potential for motion sickness and dizziness? Uh oh. That same potential applies everywhere. The awesome thing about VR is that you can feel like you're there. The tricky thing about VR will be that you feel like you're there. I foresee posts about people throwing up while playing flight sims; not even trying to be funny. So, there's some balance between free movement, the rush of certain kinds of motion, gameplay, and the not-so-nice things our brains will do to us under certain conditions.
And we have absolutely no idea how to quantify or even accurately describe the balances involved in this. VR is going to rock when it fully takes off! I can foresee even an entirely new cinematic experience where we watch movies shot such that we can feel like the director or cameraman as we go. Imagine The Matrix with a character selector and cam changer similar to video games. Yes, please! Right? But VR is also going to involve some pain. We need labs quantifying these boundaries and building limits into engines, and we need that starting two years ago!
This writer clearly never played Half-Life 2 in VR - it's fantastic. Of course Valve does eventually have to get around to making it.
Somebody out there decided that as a developer, I'm not allowed to have ideas about the future of development... I wonder how many Slashdot moderation points are spent by people who favor competing sites and want to try and make Slashdot less useful for discussion. Funny thing about that is that a lot of the competitors have made their platforms useless for discussion for years and refuse to improve anything. I guess if you can't discuss, you disrupt, and if you can't develop, you cheat. Well, in terms of the understood "you" anyway. I don't.
What if I told you that Valve's VR has been here all along and it was hiding in plain sight -- inside the Oculus Rift itself? Early on, Valve worked with Oculus to improve their head mounted display. The Oculus Development Kit 1 added Valve technology and became the Crystal Cove prototype. The prototype was re-released as the Oculus Development Kit 2. Oculus continued to receive assistance from Valve, but then in March of 2004, Oculus was purchased by Facebook.
For reasons not published, the cooperation between the two companies ended. Oculus went ahead and developed a Crescent Bay prototype, which was very similar to the best of Valve's prototypes at the time, but with the alternate camera arrangement that was used on Crystal Cove. The Crescent Bay prototype was not sold to the public, perhaps related to issues involved with the split between the two companies.
What you've seen with the Valve/HTC Vive is actually the culmination of Valve's ongoing research which Oculus has benefited from. After the split (and losing Abrash to Oculus), Valve continued to work on the hard problems and developed a new tracking technology based on lasers and inexpensive photodiodes, and controller input. The Valve/HTC Vive prototype is the latest public revelation of their ongoing work. It isn't any wonder that Valve's "new headset" has gotten high praise -- they've been breaking ground for some time, you just never knew.
We can expect both HTC/Valve and Oculus to evolve between now and the release of their first consumer product.
Remember how crappy controls in 3D games were? Then Nintendo came out with Super Mario 64 and everyone went "oh yeah this is how it should work". But what about fighting in 3D? Ocarina of Time and z-targeting pretty much established that. Now I admit that story wise Nintendo doesnt always excell. But I don't think anyone can make controls more intuitive then they can. Hell even Mario Galaxy with its insane physics is easy to pick up and figure out how to move when you are jumping from one floating asteroid to another.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I did yet another run with old HL2, but with the rift. It just works!
- played with xb360 controller, got used to it within minutes
- had a chair with rotation, helped a lot
- aiming by actually looking through the weapon
etc
I'm trying to parse this:
games won't resemble those we're currently used to. In short, they won't be Half-Life 3
If "they" = "games" :-) :-(
half-life 3 should be released before all this VR stuff
else if "they" = "those we're currently used to"
many more years before HL3 is released
Typical of Valve to be so obscure...
as much as I love games I'll be happy if I can plug a DK6 (3 gens from now) in my laptop and get 9 virtual 30 inch monitors instead of my crappy one 15 inch monitor
I'll be even more happy if I can edit 3d in VR even if only to make non VR 3d
Not related to Valve's offering specifically, but in general: can a VR headset + software be used to add actual, real-world value?
There's no question that just having a legit, consumer-grade VR headsets will create value all in its own: people writing software (games) and doing other stuff to use VR headsets. But, what ways can we leverage the tech to do other things?
Can a VR headset + software make me a better software engineer? I've been stuck on two monitors for about 25+ years since I had two 80x24 dumb terminals side-by-side.
I feel like I should be able to do more stuff with a theoretical total-wraparound display. But the truth is, I'm (and as an industry, we're) not utilizing the graphics capability in code and structure visualization today: I've still got an IDE with a tree on the left, and some additional search capabilities (like the ability to see all the places my code could be being called from) than maybe I had 15 years ago, but by no means does that translate into using even 1/3 of the screen real estate I have: it's mostly a big-ass text editor window plus some smaller windows, and a running instance. I'm still debugging with a debugger that's not vastly better than I had 20 years ago, I'm still using text files, I still spend most of my time figuring out how to use various libraries someone else has written to do something and writing a small amount of glue, etc. Does all of this have to change too before I can get a serious increase in productivity?
Could someone use it to understand trading or markets or visualize business processes and procedures better, and make better decisions?
Does anybody else see VR headsets replacing / substituting for large screen TVs ? You would think that a VR headset ( even several ) with integrated headphones, even in 2D mode, would be much less expensive that 60+ inch wide screen TVs, not to mention less noisy than a home theater setup.