Smartphone VR is a vastly different experience than using Rift/Vive. It's like watching a big action movie on your phone vs an IMAX theater. Eventually it'll catch up to where it's as good as a decent home theater experience in a few years though.
Yup, there are all kinds of strategies that are being developed to reduce motion sickness. I own a Vive and there are a few games with artificial locomotion that get me sick and some that don't. Developers are still trying figure out exactly why it works in some situations and not others but they already have plenty of best practices like you described.
I personally believe the visuals are close enough to not care but...
Rift has reduced screen door effect making it better than Vive Rift has slight smaller field of view making it worse than Vive Rift has a slightly darker screen and often people prefer the brighter more vibrant colors of the Vive. Rift has worse lens flair issues than the Vive Rift and Vive have different focal planes. One requires you to focus a few feet in front of you while the other at infinity. Some people find one more comfortable than the other.
Rift's head strap is simply better engineered to stay in place and balance the weight of the device so you can play longer. It also has integrated headphones which makes it faster/easier to put on/take off. However, if you don't have a head shaped for it the Vive's elastic bands can be more comfortable. Vive offers more flexibility for people who wear glasses as you can adjust the distance between your eye and the lens independent of how it's mounted on your head. HTC is releasing a deluxe strap that is similar to the Rift in the next couple months.
The Vive strap is annoying enough to many where you'll find plenty of people (myself included) elected to fix the problem using off the shelf parts like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
For having hand presence in VR I agree Touch is superior. However, when wielding a gun or sword type object the wands field more real/natural. Touch is exciting though because it lets you naturally do gestures which will add whole new levels to multiplayer communication.
HTC has the tracker coming out so 3rd parties can make all kinds of cool controllers and Vive has demoed their "touch" prototype. I think having multiple controllers will give you the best overall experience.
Technically speaking the Rift and Vive headsets are very close. The Rift has a slightly lower FOV resulting a higher pixel density which ends up producing slightly less screen door effect. However, people also complain the Rift has more lens flair issues than the Vive does. So when it comes to which one objectively looks better you can make solid arguments for both headsets and it comes down to which specific flaws stand out more to you.
The Rift (out of the box) is absolutely better when it comes to ergonomics but having integrated headphones is debatable... I personally decided to get rid of the Vive strap and did a variation of the welding mask mod ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) and feel that closed the gap in terms of comfort. There is an official HTC strap coming in the next few months that will resolve Vive comfort issues. It won't be included and sold for another $100 but I suspect with the Rift price cut they're going to rethink that strategy.
Touch vs Vive wands is tricky... It really depends on what game you are playing as both have their advantages and disadvantages. Touch is absolutely better for gesturing and feels closer to actually having your hands in VR. However, when it comes to holding objects like a sword or a gun the Vive wand feels more natural/realistic. HTC has a tracker module coming out in the next few months that will allow all sorts of 3rd party peripherals and Valve has demoed new controller prototypes so any advantages Touch has probably won't be long lived.
When it comes to tracking the lighthouse technology is superior. If you are just playing seated games then Rift is faster/easier to setup but as soon as you're standing and want to move around there is no contest. You can get a good room scale experience with a Rift but it is more complicated to setup and is still officially considered "experimental" by Oculus.
Openness/Compatibility is another obvious win for HTC/Valve over Oculus/Facebook. Oculus wants you to use its store and only with its hardware and has DRM to prevent other hardware from using their software. Revive is software that less you bypass the DRM and play Rift games with the Vive but Oculus could break it anytime they want (they stated they won't anymore...) and have done so in the past. HTC's new tracker module offers tons of flexibility. Valve's lighthouse technology is being used with LG's upcoming ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) VR headset. Even though I don't agree with Oculus business practices I admit i still think it's debatable which is better for VR in the long run as they are throwing tons of money into software development.
I'm a Vive owner since June and would still recommend Vive over Rift in spite of the $200 price difference. However, I still absolutely recommend you check out both in person and see for yourself.
Just having a suggested reading list sounds amazing to me! I've unfortunately never worked for a company I thought put continuous effort into training their employees to be more effective. It seems like the only employee benefit I've never had from a job... Are you hiring now?
I'm self taught but went back to school after a ten year absence and got my CS degree. I recently left my current employer because they were too willing to hire under-qualified candidates (myself included) without having a good support system in place to train them. I don't necessarily mind being in that position as I'm willing to learn on my own and it definitely keeps things interesting but this place took it too far. We're talking hiring somebody to do data entry who types by hunt and peck and then a manager not requiring them to learn. I can understand not sending them to a class during office hours but how can you justify not even picking up a copy of Mavis Beacon and requiring the employee use it.
Everybody worked insane hours flying by the seat of their pants, not because they had to but because that's just what happens in this type of environment. Steady overtime was great for putting a dent in the student loans but I could only take it for so long.
Unfortunately a phone doesn't really have the power for high end gaming and currently lacks the ability to do positional tracking. This pretty much leaves you with 360 degree video which is really the worst aspect of VR right now.
If we can get positional tracking and the ability to stream from a PC source (ie Riftcat’s VRidge) then mobile VR has a fighting chance.
The best smartphone based VR experiences at best result in result in a "neat..." response while PC based room scale + motion controls makes it possible to truly trick your brain into feeling like your in a completely different world.
Smartphone VR is the 3D TV of VR. It simply doesn't offer a significantly better experience than it's 2D counter part. I don't see this changing until we get massively more powerful smartphones and full positional tracking.
That's a silly argument. The market is always there you just need to find it.
Why would anybody watch a film at home when you could watch it at the theater with superior screen and sound? Why would anybody watch a film on their phone or laptop when their home theater has the superior screen and sound? Why would anybody watch a Youtube video when TV and Film have superior production values?
The Vive/Rift and even PSVR have shown that it's possible to make a pretty darn good VR experience for the consumer market. Sure, there are problems but to say they are no different than the 90s VR headsets is just silly. A game for VR isn't drastically different than any typical high end PC game. VR simply requires hardware a bit more towards bleeding edge end of the spectrum is all.
A multi modern setup is simply not capable of giving you the same experience as room scale VR with motion controls. VR in it's current form can't replace a multi monitor desktop environment either. It's simply too low resolution for anything other than gaming. The difference is VR can and will catch up but multi monitor desktop environments won't.
If VR fails it will be because there isn't software out there to justify it's existence, not technical limitations or even cost. Early personal computers were insanely expensive and I'm sure the same arguments were made back then too...
The software is coming. Value has announced they are making three VR games themselves. The market is small so you'll just have to give it some time for other studios not quite as invested as Valve to catch up.
In the same interview ( https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0 ) Gabe announces Valve is making 3 unique VR games. Not tiny a tiny experiment like "The Lab" but three full fledged games. That's a pretty big investment to make if they didn't care about VR and only making money via Steam Sales.
He's simply saying he VR is interesting and worth an attempt even if it fails. He also announces in the same interview that Valve is currently developing 3 distinct VR games. Not small "The Lab" experiences but full games. That doesn't sound like the actions of a company who believes VR is dead.
The full unedited version of the interview hasn't been released yet but you can see most of statement responsible for these articles here: https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t...
"We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that is consistent with our expectations." "We're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. Simply because if you're not trying to do things that might fail you're probably not trying to do anything interesting at all."
It's pretty clear he's not saying VR is dead or SteamVR/Vive is a failure.
It's a timed exclusive.... It'll come out for PC VR eventually.
Oculus is doing a similar thing where they are paying developers to release for the Rift first and then 6 months later Vive/Steam. However, I think in the case of RE7 it was originally a non VR game and they added VR support very late in development. They simply didn't finish Vive/Rift support and Sony made it worth their while to release without it.
3D failed because the experience of watching a 3D TV adds almost no value over a 2D one. The vast majority of the 3D content was shot in 2D and added in post production and generally contributes very little to the story/overall experience. Never mind the higher costs and cumbersome glasses.
The current high end (Vive, Rift, and PSVR in that order) consumer VR devices are pretty damn impressive and offer some very unique experiences. If you have the opportunity to test one out I highly recommend it.
in 2017 you can simply decide to play Doom with a VR helmet instead of a computer screen. Beside the quality of the experience (immersion, etc.) no big deal, game design isn't profoundly affected by the choice.
This isn't exactly true... Any artificial locomotion (any camera movement disconnected from your physical movement) in VR is still a big problem for many people (myself included) because it makes them sick. The current best method for minimizing motion sickness is to use teleportation which absolutely impacts on game play and design. Lots of progress has been made but using a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard to move the camera in VR is still going to make more people sick than not.
However, I periodically listen to a podcast called "Everything Vive". The number of VR games currently being released on Steam is still low enough where it isn't very time consuming to just glance at every new release. The discussions pages on Steam seem pretty active for the more popular games as well.
From what I read it's not a game designed for VR. They simply were able to tack on VR support. You don't use motion controls and it's "look to aim". They could add this type of VR support to really any other game with minimal effort.
I think the primary reason anybody is talking about it is because of the lack of VR content and that horror games work exceptionally very well in VR.
Slashdot Mirror
Smartphone VR is a vastly different experience than using Rift/Vive. It's like watching a big action movie on your phone vs an IMAX theater. Eventually it'll catch up to where it's as good as a decent home theater experience in a few years though.
Yup, there are all kinds of strategies that are being developed to reduce motion sickness. I own a Vive and there are a few games with artificial locomotion that get me sick and some that don't. Developers are still trying figure out exactly why it works in some situations and not others but they already have plenty of best practices like you described.
I personally believe the visuals are close enough to not care but...
Rift has reduced screen door effect making it better than Vive
Rift has slight smaller field of view making it worse than Vive
Rift has a slightly darker screen and often people prefer the brighter more vibrant colors of the Vive.
Rift has worse lens flair issues than the Vive
Rift and Vive have different focal planes. One requires you to focus a few feet in front of you while the other at infinity. Some people find one more comfortable than the other.
Rift's head strap is simply better engineered to stay in place and balance the weight of the device so you can play longer. It also has integrated headphones which makes it faster/easier to put on/take off. However, if you don't have a head shaped for it the Vive's elastic bands can be more comfortable. Vive offers more flexibility for people who wear glasses as you can adjust the distance between your eye and the lens independent of how it's mounted on your head. HTC is releasing a deluxe strap that is similar to the Rift in the next couple months.
The Vive strap is annoying enough to many where you'll find plenty of people (myself included) elected to fix the problem using off the shelf parts like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
For having hand presence in VR I agree Touch is superior. However, when wielding a gun or sword type object the wands field more real/natural. Touch is exciting though because it lets you naturally do gestures which will add whole new levels to multiplayer communication.
HTC has the tracker coming out so 3rd parties can make all kinds of cool controllers and Vive has demoed their "touch" prototype. I think having multiple controllers will give you the best overall experience.
Technically speaking the Rift and Vive headsets are very close. The Rift has a slightly lower FOV resulting a higher pixel density which ends up producing slightly less screen door effect. However, people also complain the Rift has more lens flair issues than the Vive does. So when it comes to which one objectively looks better you can make solid arguments for both headsets and it comes down to which specific flaws stand out more to you.
The Rift (out of the box) is absolutely better when it comes to ergonomics but having integrated headphones is debatable... I personally decided to get rid of the Vive strap and did a variation of the welding mask mod ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) and feel that closed the gap in terms of comfort. There is an official HTC strap coming in the next few months that will resolve Vive comfort issues. It won't be included and sold for another $100 but I suspect with the Rift price cut they're going to rethink that strategy.
Touch vs Vive wands is tricky... It really depends on what game you are playing as both have their advantages and disadvantages. Touch is absolutely better for gesturing and feels closer to actually having your hands in VR. However, when it comes to holding objects like a sword or a gun the Vive wand feels more natural/realistic. HTC has a tracker module coming out in the next few months that will allow all sorts of 3rd party peripherals and Valve has demoed new controller prototypes so any advantages Touch has probably won't be long lived.
When it comes to tracking the lighthouse technology is superior. If you are just playing seated games then Rift is faster/easier to setup but as soon as you're standing and want to move around there is no contest. You can get a good room scale experience with a Rift but it is more complicated to setup and is still officially considered "experimental" by Oculus.
Openness/Compatibility is another obvious win for HTC/Valve over Oculus/Facebook. Oculus wants you to use its store and only with its hardware and has DRM to prevent other hardware from using their software. Revive is software that less you bypass the DRM and play Rift games with the Vive but Oculus could break it anytime they want (they stated they won't anymore...) and have done so in the past. HTC's new tracker module offers tons of flexibility. Valve's lighthouse technology is being used with LG's upcoming ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) VR headset. Even though I don't agree with Oculus business practices I admit i still think it's debatable which is better for VR in the long run as they are throwing tons of money into software development.
I'm a Vive owner since June and would still recommend Vive over Rift in spite of the $200 price difference. However, I still absolutely recommend you check out both in person and see for yourself.
Just having a suggested reading list sounds amazing to me! I've unfortunately never worked for a company I thought put continuous effort into training their employees to be more effective. It seems like the only employee benefit I've never had from a job... Are you hiring now?
I'm self taught but went back to school after a ten year absence and got my CS degree. I recently left my current employer because they were too willing to hire under-qualified candidates (myself included) without having a good support system in place to train them. I don't necessarily mind being in that position as I'm willing to learn on my own and it definitely keeps things interesting but this place took it too far. We're talking hiring somebody to do data entry who types by hunt and peck and then a manager not requiring them to learn. I can understand not sending them to a class during office hours but how can you justify not even picking up a copy of Mavis Beacon and requiring the employee use it.
Everybody worked insane hours flying by the seat of their pants, not because they had to but because that's just what happens in this type of environment. Steady overtime was great for putting a dent in the student loans but I could only take it for so long.
Sorry, 464150 is the cut off for what we consider low ID.
Better search. So much of the internet is video now.
Dude, it's a quantum computer. It can identify every shade of green!
Cave Johnson would like a word with you.
Nope... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Unfortunately a phone doesn't really have the power for high end gaming and currently lacks the ability to do positional tracking. This pretty much leaves you with 360 degree video which is really the worst aspect of VR right now.
If we can get positional tracking and the ability to stream from a PC source (ie Riftcat’s VRidge) then mobile VR has a fighting chance.
The best smartphone based VR experiences at best result in result in a "neat..." response while PC based room scale + motion controls makes it possible to truly trick your brain into feeling like your in a completely different world.
Smartphone VR is the 3D TV of VR. It simply doesn't offer a significantly better experience than it's 2D counter part. I don't see this changing until we get massively more powerful smartphones and full positional tracking.
That's a silly argument. The market is always there you just need to find it.
Why would anybody watch a film at home when you could watch it at the theater with superior screen and sound? Why would anybody watch a film on their phone or laptop when their home theater has the superior screen and sound? Why would anybody watch a Youtube video when TV and Film have superior production values?
The Vive/Rift and even PSVR have shown that it's possible to make a pretty darn good VR experience for the consumer market. Sure, there are problems but to say they are no different than the 90s VR headsets is just silly. A game for VR isn't drastically different than any typical high end PC game. VR simply requires hardware a bit more towards bleeding edge end of the spectrum is all.
A multi modern setup is simply not capable of giving you the same experience as room scale VR with motion controls. VR in it's current form can't replace a multi monitor desktop environment either. It's simply too low resolution for anything other than gaming. The difference is VR can and will catch up but multi monitor desktop environments won't.
If VR fails it will be because there isn't software out there to justify it's existence, not technical limitations or even cost. Early personal computers were insanely expensive and I'm sure the same arguments were made back then too...
The software is coming. Value has announced they are making three VR games themselves. The market is small so you'll just have to give it some time for other studios not quite as invested as Valve to catch up.
In the same interview ( https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0 ) Gabe announces Valve is making 3 unique VR games. Not tiny a tiny experiment like "The Lab" but three full fledged games. That's a pretty big investment to make if they didn't care about VR and only making money via Steam Sales.
You can see the quote in context here: https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t...
He's simply saying he VR is interesting and worth an attempt even if it fails. He also announces in the same interview that Valve is currently developing 3 distinct VR games. Not small "The Lab" experiences but full games. That doesn't sound like the actions of a company who believes VR is dead.
The full unedited version of the interview hasn't been released yet but you can see most of statement responsible for these articles here: https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t...
"We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that is consistent with our expectations." "We're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. Simply because if you're not trying to do things that might fail you're probably not trying to do anything interesting at all."
It's pretty clear he's not saying VR is dead or SteamVR/Vive is a failure.
It's a timed exclusive.... It'll come out for PC VR eventually.
Oculus is doing a similar thing where they are paying developers to release for the Rift first and then 6 months later Vive/Steam. However, I think in the case of RE7 it was originally a non VR game and they added VR support very late in development. They simply didn't finish Vive/Rift support and Sony made it worth their while to release without it.
3D failed because the experience of watching a 3D TV adds almost no value over a 2D one. The vast majority of the 3D content was shot in 2D and added in post production and generally contributes very little to the story/overall experience. Never mind the higher costs and cumbersome glasses.
The current high end (Vive, Rift, and PSVR in that order) consumer VR devices are pretty damn impressive and offer some very unique experiences. If you have the opportunity to test one out I highly recommend it.
in 2017 you can simply decide to play Doom with a VR helmet instead of a computer screen. Beside the quality of the experience (immersion, etc.) no big deal, game design isn't profoundly affected by the choice.
This isn't exactly true... Any artificial locomotion (any camera movement disconnected from your physical movement) in VR is still a big problem for many people (myself included) because it makes them sick. The current best method for minimizing motion sickness is to use teleportation which absolutely impacts on game play and design. Lots of progress has been made but using a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard to move the camera in VR is still going to make more people sick than not.
Reddit /r/Vive is my main source of information...
However, I periodically listen to a podcast called "Everything Vive". The number of VR games currently being released on Steam is still low enough where it isn't very time consuming to just glance at every new release. The discussions pages on Steam seem pretty active for the more popular games as well.
This is not made by Valve. It's just a Portal 2 mod made by fans. It's quite well done but also short having maybe 30 minutes of gameplay.
Valve is working on multiple VR titles according to Gabe's latest AMA on Reddit though.
Out of curiosity are you playing non VR games instead or just nothing at all?
Vive owner since June and also have had streaks where I wouldn't touch it for a month. However, I wasn't playing any non VR games in it's place.
From what I read it's not a game designed for VR. They simply were able to tack on VR support. You don't use motion controls and it's "look to aim". They could add this type of VR support to really any other game with minimal effort.
I think the primary reason anybody is talking about it is because of the lack of VR content and that horror games work exceptionally very well in VR.