
What VR could, should, and almost certainly will be within two years [pdf] - modeless
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf
======
matt-attack
In case anyone missed this amazing optical illusion from the article, it's
worth looking at. I've never been so visually/mentally conflicted.

The center pieces (grey on the left, and yellow on the right) are actually the
exact same color.

    
    
       http://i.imgur.com/UYRtqA5.png
    

My brain simply cannot accept it, even after confirming it w/ photoshop.

~~~
morsch
Very nice. If you use the eraser tool to shave off a circle around the center
pieces, you can watch them get desaturated. Works particularly well on the
"yellow" one. Here's the result, but I recommend not opening it and doing it
yourself to see the desaturation in progress:
[http://i.imgur.com/WqFwLVX.png](http://i.imgur.com/WqFwLVX.png)

~~~
dcre
You rule. Because I'm lazy.

------
cpprototypes
Has anyone thought about using this new VR tech outside games? Maybe games
will perfect the tech but there is so much potential outside it.

For example the OS desktop metaphors could finally be taken to the next level.
Files, recycle bins, folders these were mapped concepts in the 80s to try to
transfer the office to a 2D computer screen.

But now we can simulate a true desktop. Imagine you enter a room, a nice
wooden desk in front of you. On the desk are documents that could be web pages
videos word docs anything. You touch it and a floating screen appears to
display contents. To your right is an infinite capacity filing cabinet. A
trash bin under the desk. Its like the real world but without the limits of
the real world.

Another interesting effect is memory. I remember reading somewhere that in
ancient times they would memorize lots of data by imagining walking through a
house. As you walk you would place relate objects like a closet to the item
you want to remember. In this way you memorize the data and its order. This is
where the phrase "in the first place...and the second place..." came from.

And its something I've noticed in real life. My desk looks like a mess except
to me. There's a order to it I understand and I can find things. A similar
thing happens with the mess of icons on my desktop. I can often find something
because I know I put it in some folder on some place on the desktop. But in
both the real desktop and my windows desktop I sometimes need help finding
things and use the search tool.

The VR desktop can be the best of both worlds. It allows that natural chaotic
organization I do with my real world desktop. But a floating search box can
appear anytime to help me.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Initial driving lessons, pilot training, Movies where you're sat inside the
scenery. Virtual conferences, meetings, lectures, school lessons. Virtual
strip clubs. Virtual weddings. The list is almost endless. If something can be
done in VR, somebody will program it.

It's gonna be so massive and so addictive, I predict within ten years there'll
be news stories about people dying in VR from malnutrition or heart failure
and clinics specialising in VR addicition.

~~~
hershel
Plus another host of side effects like:cybersickness, dissociation(a serious
mental disease) and lower sense of presence in objective reality, unstable
gait.

[http://www.quora.com/Oculus-Rift/Virtual-Reality-Oculus-
Rift...](http://www.quora.com/Oculus-Rift/Virtual-Reality-Oculus-Rift-side-
effects-of-extended-use)

~~~
glitchdout
Just like in Inception where it's mentioned how some people have become
addicted to the dream world. I can definitely see this happening.

------
XorNot
I get a bit giddy everytime I read about the upcoming-gen of VR. There's
enough big players talking about it now, with real impressive and _affordable_
hardware to back it up.

The metaverse concept is also probably the one I'm most interested in - what I
really want from high-res VR is the ability to get rid of monitors altogether.

~~~
blhack
>what I really want from high-res VR is the ability to get rid of monitors
altogether.

I don't want to get rid of them, I want to emulate an arbitrary number of them
within VR.

~~~
EthanHeilman
How would you redesign the terminal window if it existed in VR space?

* No need to worry about small line-wraps.

* A spiral of text.

* A tile hemisphere, xmonad-like, in terminals.

* Exploit depth as importance (shrink things you want to keep on eye but don't need to read carefully).

What about input?

* Finally kill off the mouse and use eye tracking instead.

* Put cameras on the HMD to decode hand movements and get rid of physical keyboards/mice/touchscreens (virtual chording keyboards, all surfaces become touch screens).

* All input devices become wireless/powerless because they collapse into haptic props. Want a control panel for a flight sim, glue a bunch of fake buttons to a wooden stand and let the cameras register the input. Same thing with joysticks.

>what I really want from high-res VR is the ability to get rid of monitors
altogether.

What I really want from high-res VR is to collapse my desktop/laptop into my
HMD.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
Everyone is trying to "get rid of the keyboard", but it's the most reliable
way I've ever seen to get large amounts of text in to a machine.

Having well made key-switches and a good placement is probably the best thing
next to just reading what I mean from my mind.

~~~
EthanHeilman
People speak at ~100-180 WPM (words per minute), with American Sign Language
~200 WPM[1]. Professional typists type at 50 to 80 WPM [2]. Here is a video of
someone signing at 120 WPM, he looks like he is moving in slow motion. [3]

Everyone is trying to get rid of the keyboard because:

1\. they take up a lot of space,

2\. typically require a desk/not mobile friendly,

3\. only supports fast entry of a limited number of characters,

4\. are far slower than the theoretical best (for instance people can talk
much faster than they can type),

5\. many of the non-alpha keys require the user to look away from the monitor.

> Having well made key-switches and a good placement is probably the best
> thing next to just reading what I mean from my mind.

In theory there are input devices that allow far more characters, at higher
speed, with fewer errors. Keyboards have stuck around both because they are a
great technology and because of path dependency. They aren't going to stick
around forever.

[1]: [http://www.dbcusa.org/index.php/About-
Us/](http://www.dbcusa.org/index.php/About-Us/) [2]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute)
[3]:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7OpQEu5-w](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7OpQEu5-w)

~~~
JoshTriplett
> People speak at ~100-180 WPM (words per minute), with American Sign Language
> ~200 WPM[1]. Professional typists type at 50 to 80 WPM [2].

That gap closes very quickly if you have to say anything other than words
(versus typing it). Saying numbers or symbols is far slower than typing them,
as is spelling out something a computer doesn't know how to spell. I'd bet
that, unless you had an optimized "dialect" for coding or a language designed
to be efficiently spoken, a keyboard will beat a human speaking code every
time.

Even being very generous with the computer's ability to interpret open/close
parentheses and brackets intuitively, having different terms for initial
capitals versus all-caps, and assuming automatic indentation and newlines:

"include s t d i o dot h, blank line, int main paren int argc comma char
pointer argv bracket bracket paren brace printf paren doublequote capital
Hello world exclamation mark backslash n doublequote paren semicolon return
zero semicolon brace"

~~~
masklinn
> That gap closes very quickly if you have to say anything other than words
> (versus typing it). Saying numbers or symbols is far slower than typing them

Might be fixable in a language with a limited variety of symbols such as a
concatenative language, or a somewhat reimagined smalltalk-ish language. Then
the few common symbols get assigned to e.g. click consonants.

~~~
rasur
I'm learning sign-language at the moment (my son is deaf, and we live in
Switzerland, so we're learning SDGS [Schweizer Deutsch Gebaerdesprache]) and I
believe you could be right on this although I do not know what those
particular symbols might be at the moment (subject to further research)

Having also used VR in the mid-90's (Virtuality systems etc), I am pretty
excited about the movement in VR (oculus) and AR (meta) at the moment.
Interesting times!

------
angersock
On a related note, the best practices release for the Oculus:

[http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/OculusBes...](http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/OculusBestPractices.pdf)

~~~
melloclello
> Content available for use on the Headset produces an immersive virtual
> reality experience, and users may have reactions to that experience,
> including simulation sickness (similar to motion sickness), perceptual
> after-effects, disorientation, decreased postural stability, eye strain,
> dizziness and/or nausea, and feelings of depersonalization (feelings of
> watching yourself act) or derealization (feelings that the external world
> seems unreal).

O_O

------
flycaliguy
I'm really interested in it's usefulness as a learning tool. An immersive
environment designed to teach a new language could be incredible and fun.

Also... sex stuff.

~~~
thret
I always thought ubiquitous VR was a race between porn and games, looks like
games will win.

~~~
glitchdout
I wouldn't be so sure:

* [http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5d_1384199712](http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5d_1384199712)

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

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bytIGCeGxo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bytIGCeGxo)

* [http://ir-ltd.net/multi-sky-3d-scan-tools/](http://ir-ltd.net/multi-sky-3d-scan-tools/)

Warning: NSFW!

------
stonemetal
Is that where SteamOS wins? Only platform to have full Oclus support + major
game studio behind it.

~~~
hershel
This could really hurt consoles. Also this require a really strong machine,
which costs a lot - which means it's harder to charge apple margins on top of
it.

Also a new platform means reducing the value of software available to
windows/mac, since everything needs rewriting.

~~~
patrickk
> This could really hurt consoles.

Absolutely. I really disappointed by the lack of 4K in the Xbox One and
PS4[1]. When blu-ray was new, it was the PS3 that really drove adoption. Now,
the newer consoles will drastically lag behind the state of the art (compared
to PCs), which will be exacerbated by the relatively long lifecycles of
consoles.

I feel once consumers experience a VR demo in the next 2-3 years, and start
seeing 4K games on PC (both perhaps as in-store demos), going back to their
consoles is going to be very disappointing.

[1] [http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-9020_7-57592390-222/why-next-
ge...](http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-9020_7-57592390-222/why-next-gen-consoles-
wont-run-games-at-4k/)

~~~
hershel
Thinking about this, maybe MS has a solution: combining VR with project spark
- it's game creation platform(with really good demos). Not sure about the
business model and hardware , but the abilities of users to travel/play in
virtual worlds created with/by friends, and the huge amount of unique content
such a platform promises seems really exciting.

------
dudeguy
The state of the art in virtual audio is keeping pace with these developments.
I've had some experience with research headphones that combine HRTF models
with head tracking, and the result is uncanny - Except that the environment
your ears are presented with has to match the strong priors from your
eyeballs. So it will be awesome to experience virtual audio and video at the
same time.

------
martialmartian
The biggest longterm impact that vr will have on humanity won't be
entertainment, it will be on research. VR and brain machine interfacing
enables navigating data/leveraging patterns in a way that current interfacing
technologies (eg mouse, keyboard, gui) only hint at.

------
jamesbrownuhh
That's really exciting. Looks like someone is actually going to nail VR this
time around.

~~~
User8712
Valve + Oculus + Carmack. I agree, they're going to nail it. This is the first
time that VR doesn't seem like a gimmick, but rather the beginning of
something great.

------
pikachu_is_cool
I'm curious - has anyone tried one of these head-mounted displays while on a
psychedelic? Do they still get that primal sense of "being somewhere else" as
described in the PowerPoint?

For example, it is impossible for me to get immersed in movies while on
psychedelic drugs; but when I'm sober I definitely can get "sucked into it". I
wonder if this phenomenon applies to VR as well.

~~~
stickydink
There's a whole subreddit dedicated to this sort of thing, /r/trees3d

~~~
pikachu_is_cool
This seems to just be centered around pot, not psychs :(

------
eoinmurray92
Would it be a good idea to have a ycombinator for the games that need to be
made. I imagine that if there existed a really good VR SDK, and distribute on
Steam, that the cost of making said games could drop. I know the indie game
industry exists now, but the VR industry is going to really need a breakout
game and a ycombinator style funding an distribution model might work?

~~~
Geee
It's really easy to start with Oculus SDK as it's already integrated into all
major (and minor) game engines, such as Unreal/CryEngine/Unity3D. So, there's
lots of people both indie and professionals who are already developing VR
games (or porting existing ones). See
[http://www.riftenabled.com/admin/apps/](http://www.riftenabled.com/admin/apps/)

Also, there isn't market yet for VR games as consumer VR isn't yet available.
Most developers are just experimenting and waiting for the final hardware.

------
hobo_mark
Waitaminute! Is this the same Valve who FIRED Jeri Ellsworth last year because
Gabe didn't see any value in the VR/AR work she was doing, to the point that
he just let her have the IP rights to her prototypes as she left?

~~~
kakugawa
Valve had two teams -- Abrash's VR and Ellsworth's AR. They decided to bet on
VR and Jeri was the unfortunate result of them focusing their resources.

~~~
teamonkey
Abrash says in the slides they're not actually working on a device internally,
except for research. I could be wrong but I remember reading that Ellsworth's
team was developing a product.

~~~
masklinn
They're not working on a production device, but they have an internal
prototype which the few third-parties who've tested it consider mind-blowing
even compared to OR's Crystal Cove. It might be the result of Ellsworth's work
though

[https://twitter.com/DaveOshry/statuses/423961443889717248](https://twitter.com/DaveOshry/statuses/423961443889717248)
(Palmer is Palmer Luckey, founder and CEO of Oculus Rift)

[https://twitter.com/TheDavidHensley/statuses/423591891171426...](https://twitter.com/TheDavidHensley/statuses/423591891171426304)
[https://twitter.com/TheDavidHensley/statuses/423592847531466...](https://twitter.com/TheDavidHensley/statuses/423592847531466752)
(Tripwire, Killing Floor & Red Orchestra)

[http://garry.tv/2014/01/16/steam-dev-days-
day-1/](http://garry.tv/2014/01/16/steam-dev-days-day-1/) (Garry's Mod author)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1vc9gz/im_a_dev_that...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1vc9gz/im_a_dev_that_got_to_try_valves_vr_demo/)
(random schmuck who got to try it)

------
MrSourz
That they're working with Oculus VR and sharing their knowledge is super
awesome!

> By showing them a prototype with low persistence, we convinced Oculus of its
> importance, and the lack of blur in Crystal Cove is a direct result of that.

------
lowglow
Who are the major players making awesome strides right now in VR?

~~~
modeless
Valve has done some foundational research and they've already released VR
support in Steam, but don't plan to sell hardware. Oculus is designing
hardware and working with Valve along with many other game devs. They will
likely release an awesome consumer product in about a year.

Oculus + Steam OS will be the best VR platform for the foreseeable future.
Everyone else is at least a year behind; probably much longer than that.

------
benched
Of the programmers who made Quake, John Cash went on to lead WoW, probably the
most inhabited shared reality yet; John Carmack went on to work on Oculus; and
Michael Abrash ... is doing whatever he's doing here - I'm still reading the
paper.

