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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."
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.
Have you changed hemispheres semi-recently?
I had the same issue when I relocated from Australia to the UK, I had gone from have a good sense of direction to always being about 180 deg out. It wasn't till my old man said it is because the sun is on the wrong side that it clicked. In the southern hemisphere the sun is always to the North, in the Northern it is to the south. Sub-consciously I must have been drawing on that.
Valve already had a pair of position-detecting wands for your hands (similar to the playstation Move system). The bigger problem is movement. Movement by pressing a button detaches your apparent movement from your physical movement, which is going to be incredibly disorienting. The treadmill-style system someone else has been working on will probably work as a solution, but it's likely to be very expensive.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
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!
I'm not at all surprised at how advanced Valve's VR offering is. They were actually working on VR long before the Oculus Rift started. For some reason Valve canned the project and let go of all their staff including Jeri Ellsworth. Many of these people were then snapped up by Oculus. Because Valve didn't sell their project to Oculus, Valve would have retained all their previous VR work to use when they restarted the project.
One reason why the Oculus Rift could be shittier than the Valve one is that Valve holds the IP to do something better and is not selling it to facebook.
If I am not mistaken, Valve did the ports for Left4dead, Portal 2 and HL2 to the Rift. Valve is definitely not a newcomer to the VR game.
I hope it is Valves VR that takes off. Valve only cares about gaming and doing it well. If facebook wins you can bet they will augment targeted ads into the VR.
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.