
Why we're all-in on virtual reality - lux
https://www.campfireunion.com/blog/post/26/why-were-all-virtual-reality
======
fossuser
> "Imagine a phone call with a family member halfway across the country, and
> seeing them right there in the room with you. Not on a screen, but sitting
> right across from you."

I feel like an often overlooked part of VR videochat is that everyone has a
giant box attached to their face so how do you do it well? I guess you could
have an avatar and some clever ability to detect facial expressions of the
person wearing the box, but that's hardly better than actually seeing them.

That said I have a DK2 and the presence you get is impressive. Especially the
ability to lean into the environment because of head tracking.

This game really impressed me: [https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-
die](https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-die)

[Edit] For those looking towards AR, hard AR is pretty hard. Notably the
ability to draw black. Michael Abrash has a really good blog post about this
problem and others: [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-
hard-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar-
anytime-soon/)

~~~
idrios
Oculus, Sony's Morpheus, Microsoft's Hololens- these are all just the next
step in the VR/AR movement. Currently it's at a stage where the tech requires
a box with cell phone screens on your face (or in the case of my favorite AR--
Innovega's iOptik--sunglasses and a projector). This isn't the final stage of
VR though. The next big leap might be bionic eye implants that directly
stimulate your optical nerves (Second Sight's Argus II could be the start of
this).

The hardware will continue to get better as these companies put more time and
money into them. Entirely new companies will be made just to create algorithms
and applications to improve the VR experience (how do you make an avatar of a
person feel like the real thing? I don't know but I bet Oculus would pay a lot
of money for the rights to that algorithm).

In the meantime, you are correct about black in AR being a challenge. I'm be
curious how that one will be solved

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petercooper
For me it's funny to see this pop up now. Just this week I've been getting
heavily into VR and loving what I'm seeing. Finally corners are being turned.
I feel a sense of something approaching a vital "tipping point" as I felt with
blogging in the early 00s and Twitter in the late 00s.

For anyone who's not yet convinced, see if you can get a go on the Samsung
Gear VR. It's actually better than the Rift 2 in many ways (I've got the Gear
plus both Rift kits) in that it's quicker to get going and the headset and
visuals are better. Play a game called "Dreadhalls" and be prepared to be
_absolutely terrified_ and, if you have earphones in, be 99% to believing
you're in the environment getting attacked by all manner of creatures. (And I
should stress, playing this game in VR has been the most extreme experience
I've had in a while - it's that good and has won me over on VR.)

My employees have been enjoying all the equipment in the past week or two and
I've found that people's tolerance for it still varies. One person can't
experience any VR without feeling sick afterwards, whereas others have no
issues at all. I think increased realism, resolution and immersion will help,
as well as increased exposure. But whatever the case, we live in exciting
times and VR is only going to become a bigger deal over the next few years.

~~~
shostack
As someone who went from zero to puking in < 5 minutes playing Mirror's Edge,
I am super worried about VR.

I have been dreaming of true VR and AR for ages, and as current tech begins to
be consumer ready (and affordable) I long for the day I can fully immerse
myself. But my motion sickness makes me worry that it will be a new frontier I
am entirely locked out of :(

Do you happen to know of any places in the Bay Area where one can go to try
these various devices and experiences for free to get a sense of this? I
simply can't justify spending the money unless I know with great confidence I
won't puke after short usage.

~~~
brotchie
The question is, would you also puke if you were doing the Mirrors Edge jumps,
rolls, swings across large vertical drops in real life?

~~~
ams6110
I doubt it. Motion sickness mostly comes from a discontinuity between what you
are seeing and what you are feeling. Though extreme motion even without a
visual disconnect, especially wavy or circular motion, can do it to people who
are sensitive.

------
hokkos
I think VR is overselled, never underestimate the effect of intrusiveness on
the user. This is the same reason we have less 3D movies than a few years ago,
the novelty factor fade and the gains from the medium have to be sufficient to
beat the intrusiveness. VR is cumbersome, a large part of the population will
probably never be able to use them and users now prefer low engagement medium
due to the constant distraction life we are in now.

~~~
fossuser
Maybe - though the presence you get from VR is really something new.

3D was intrusive for minimal gains (even in the best case of Avatar it wasn't
that different of an experience). If you've been able to play with a DK2 and
some of the better experiences it really is different.

Even with the huge improvements made recently there are still really big
changes that would make things even better. (100x higher resolution on the
small displays, 90hz and 90fps on mobile, graphics hardware way beyond where
it is now).

VR puts a strain on modern hardware, but it really gives you something new and
maybe that sense of presence will be enough that even with the intrusiveness
users will want it.

------
daenz
It's hard to tell where VR is overstated and where it's understated. The
possibilities seem endless, but I wonder if the vast majority of them exist
for tech-savvy people. It's a safe bet that there can be mainstream adoption
for games, but outside of games, I'm not convinced your average consumer will
desire to use VR for other things.

~~~
natrius
When knowledge workers head to the office, it won't be by driving to a
building. It'll be by putting on a VR headset and working in a virtual world
that is superior to the physical office in many ways. You can work with anyone
in the world. There are infinite meeting rooms that can be accessed
effortlessly. Everyone gets a private office when they want it.

Communicating with loved ones changes too. Why catch up on the phone when you
can sit in a living room with them?

Virtual reality is not a niche pursuit.

~~~
untog
There are a lot of unanswered questions in there, though. If I'm sat in a
living room with my loved ones, what am I looking at? A live 3D video of them?
What is capturing that video? Will I see them wearing a headset? Because
that's going to look pretty bad.

Something I think people often forget about VR - it's going to be really weird
to be totally disconnected from the environment around you. If you're plugged
into a meeting and your kid runs into the room to get your attention, how will
they do it? Probably by poking you, scaring the bejesus out of you.

I just don't buy the idea that VR will make our lives more "real". It'll lead
to living in weird bubbles.

~~~
dshankar
That's because you treat VR vs AR vs reality as three different extremes.

They're not.

Think of them as a spectrum. VR + stereoscopic image passthrough gets you an
AR-like view of the real world around you. These overlays allow you to pick up
coffee cups, see when your kid is poking you, etc.

------
Zikes
A lot of questions about how much interest there could be outside of video
games, and that's okay! To be honest, video games could be a great proving
ground for the technology. Gamers are used to being early adopters and tend
not to be afraid to try new things, and after VR developers have sufficiently
experimented in arena they can branch out in earnest.

Even if it winds up being a primarily gaming-related accessory, I think it can
still achieve success.

~~~
prawn
I think there will be some eventual movement in remote working, virtual
offices, etc. The hard part of telepresence is contact, but physical contact
isn't something that is an issue in a typical office environment - it's facial
expressions, screen sharing, etc. Once the resolution can handle virtual
screens and facial tracking can handle some level of expressive avatars, we'll
see some movement.

Bosses will be more comfortable with remote workers when they can keep track
of them like other workers in what feels like a real office.

Businesses will start to reconsider leasing an expensive physical office and
instead leave their workers in home offices, while having them interact in a
virtual space. Virtual desktops, virtual screens, look sideways or behind you
in the room to see virtual colleagues.

In a small web business, I can spend $xk on goggles, have everyone work from
home, and save $x0k on rent. Then imagine game chat from consoles applied to
an office. A whisper goes to your team, a shout to everyone. Employees could
set their status to leave-me-alone to be left off everything but the most
crucial announcement - that's an improvement on current open plan offices
where you only option is headphones. A toggled HUD could show what the rest of
the team is working on, etc.

Before avatars have expressions, I can imagine people working in a virtual
office full of helmeted Daft Punk colleagues.

------
ianhirschfeld
My company, The Soap Collective, recently entered the space as well. It's a
ton of fun, I wish you the best of luck!

~~~
lux
Awesome, you too!

------
pshc
Winnipeg of all places! How did that happen?

~~~
lux
We were so cold last winter that we had to create our own virtual escape plan
;)

Just happens to be where we're from, and it's actually a great city to live in
with a very vibrant arts and indie dev community.

~~~
throwaway999666
One day, one day I will see a Canadian talk about Canada without whining about
the cold or the winter straight off the bat.

~~~
lux
It's a joke man :)

~~~
throwaway999666
And such a good one!

------
cafebeen
To give a little context on how old VR is, see this picture of Ivan Sutherland
from 1967:

[http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-
output/14/35...](http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-
output/14/356/1888)

------
joesmo
For me, there's only one question: will it make me motion sick?

Only if they can fix that issue will it become something even worth thinking
about for those of us who suffer from motion sickness. I hope it can be
addressed.

~~~
lux
I don't think you can solve that 100% with current mobile VR headsets, and any
game that separates your in-game movement from your actual physical movement
will cause some people to feel sick.

I think developers are learning how to work with the hardware though, and
things are getting much better. Plus the hardware itself is improving on that
front too, for ex:

[http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-
new...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-newell-says-
noone-gets-sick-using-vive-vr)

The Vive is quite a step up from the Oculus Rift DK2, and having played with
it myself, that claim actually holds up pretty well.

------
juliangregorian
Haha, Montreal isn't _only_ known for it's gaming sector. (it's also where
much of the online porn industry is engineered)

------
bitwize
Because it's the new hotness again. What is this, 1993?

VR, AR, whatever kind of reality besides actual reality, they all have a long
way to go before they can approach not being eyehurty. None of the
manufacturers have addressed a major cause of eyehurt: the mismatch between
perceived distance and actual distance throwing off the eye's focusing
mechanism. And that's just one of many hurdles to overcome before we can jack
into the Metaverse or otherwise enjoy VR as anything but a nifty five-minute
demo.

~~~
pyrocat
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Have you tried it out? People use it for much
longer than 5 minutes without any pain. I don't think anyone is expecting to
wear a VR headset for 24 hours straight. It's not all extremes.

~~~
palmer_eldritch
> I don't think anyone is expecting to wear a VR headset for 24 hours
> straight.

I'm pretty sure some people expect to do just that, especially in the gaming
community. Although, I'm not sure it's going to be worse than spending 24h+
gaming on a regular screen while heavily imbibing energy drinks...

------
jkot
VR is around the corner ... for past 30 years. For now I would just love to
have 3d display which actually works (no headaches etc).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms)

~~~
jamesjamesm
Have you had a chance to try the Oculus developer kit at all?

~~~
lux
And if so, I can assure the consumer version is far and away better than the
DK2, as is the HTC Vive. I haven't tried Oculus's motion controllers yet, but
the Vive dev kit controllers are amazing already.

------
bunkydoo
I think VR is going to end up being an intellectual holocaust if it keeps
going the direction it is going, people designing the technologies seem to
view it as a way to keep the "inferior" contained in a world that caters to
their every emotional desire.

Just look at all the porn and gaming comments..

Augmented Reality is the real way to go, VR simulations have their time and
place - but this technology is nothing more than an overinflated dream from
80's sci fi.

~~~
azinman2
Have you ever tried VR porn? It's very compelling to be someone else.

