
How to Get into VR - vincentschen
https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-get-into-vr/
======
minimaxir
> _The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction.
> Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to
> build_

Incidentally, the high _romanticism_ of VR one of the reasons why I am highly
skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive
concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what
is it doing _now_ outside of games, which have been hit-or-miss? (the Samsung
Gear VR commercials make VR look ridiculous, IMO)

AI is a similarly romantic industry, but the difference is that there are many
practical, non-gimmicky applications of AI _now_ and already implemented on
your phones/PCs.

~~~
haydenlee
immersive concerts - TheWaveVR [0]

reinvented museums - TiltBrush [1]

court-side sporting events - NextVR [2]

Not to mention architecture [3], communication [4], collaboration [5],
medicine [6], 3d modeling [7], game development [8], film [9] and the myriad
of other industries I'm forgetting. Also if you haven't tried any of the
latest games on Oculus Rift or Vive you're really missing out. They've gotten
incredible since the consumer launch last year.

[0] [http://thewavevr.com/](http://thewavevr.com/) [1]
[https://tiltbrush.com/sketches](https://tiltbrush.com/sketches) [2]
[http://nextvr.com](http://nextvr.com) [3]
[http://insitevr.com/](http://insitevr.com/) [4]
[https://web.facebook.com/spaces](https://web.facebook.com/spaces) [5]
[http://bigscreenvr.com/](http://bigscreenvr.com/) [6]
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601911/better-than-
opioid...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601911/better-than-opioids-
virtual-reality-could-be-your-next-painkiller/) [7]
[https://www.oculus.com/medium/](https://www.oculus.com/medium/) [8]
[https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/12/15/editorvr-
experimental-b...](https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/12/15/editorvr-experimental-
build-available-today/) [9] [https://www.oculus.com/story-
studio/films/henry/](https://www.oculus.com/story-studio/films/henry/)

*Disclaimer: I work or have worked for a few of these co's.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I've found the gaming experiences pretty mediocre.

It's $900 + big clunky thing on your head vs $500 for a really nice 4k
monitor.

Something like Onward is pretty special for its realism, but its not a better
game than Rainbow Six was 20 years ago. There are some other fun games but the
novelty wears off quickly. It's like a really expensive ($1300 setup) Wii. The
current experiences aren't worth the money.

~~~
mattnewport
For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow
and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a
monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little
'game' around it is pretty fun I find.

The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage
of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional games.
There are also limitations on how ambitious VR games can get given the current
size of the market. There's some very compelling experiences starting to
appear already though in my opinion.

I think it's a mistake to put too much emphasis on the current relatively high
cost of hardware as a guide to the future potential of the medium. We know
that price will come down and if you compare it in real terms to the cost of
early PCs it already looks quite affordable.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns.

With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at
$400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset,
slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the
industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers
figure things out? Or perhaps VR hardware will improve regardless of gaming
success.

~~~
georgeecollins
VR hardware will continue to improve because it drives all sorts of demand for
chips and software, and nobody wants to be left behind. The Hacker News
audience may be jaded about it, but it still is interesting to average people.
It's just too expensive and too confusing, and the software isn't very good
yet. I have no idea how popular VR will but I know better headsets will come
out in the next two years and prices will come down.

------
Clubber
"Silicon Valley" touched on this last week:

“It’s a VR play,” Bachman says. “That’s the frothiest space in the Valley
right now. Nobody understands it but everyone wants in. Any idiot could walk
into a fucking room, utter the letters ‘v’ and ‘r’, and VC’s would hurl bricks
of cash at them.

“By the time they find out it’s vaporware, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into
this.”

~~~
ryandamm
The show is about a year, year and a half out of date. Anecdotally, the
funding climate for VR was stupid in 2015, more restrained in 2016 and today.
(I think AR might be frothier at this point.)

That said, I haven't seen the episode yet, but the show is usually pretty spot
on.

~~~
Clubber
There was a lot of hype, but from what I understood watching the experience
videos, the first experience is amazing, then boring because there isn't
anything else to it. Like a boring game with great graphics.

I suspect once better games or software are written for it, it may improve.
Perhaps training and whatnot, but I don't see what it offers over headphones
and a big monitor setup, other than nausea, hot eye sockets and possibly a
headache. Like I said, I haven't experienced it yet though. Maybe I'm just
getting old and crotchety.

AR is also interesting. I'm not quite sure how much more helpful it would be
over your regular ole' eyeballs. Maybe identifying wildlife or something.
Currently a HUD for cars is the most useful thing out there and it's been
around for years. It's not groundbreaking though, I can just look down a few
more inches. Also, you can't do much more with a HUD as far as information
goes without distracting the driver. I would definitely like to identify speed
traps before I get there. The police have been trying to collect revenue
around my neighborhood (for my safety of course) and I almost became a donor.

AR reminds me of the segment where Colbert made fun of the "tech" cup that was
able to identify and confirm what you just poured into it.

[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/9nzwjt/the-colbert-report-
vess...](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/9nzwjt/the-colbert-report-vessyl-
digital-cup)

IMO, for something to really matter, it must be related to: communication,
automation or transportation. (CAT) I just made that up, so if someone wants
to put that in a textbook or something, I want credit. You can just use
"Clubber."

Also, their cellular network idea was pretty good, but it would make much more
sense to do something like that out of WIFI because there isn't a centralized
provider to snoop and restrict bandwidth.

I don't want to spoil it, this season is pretty good.

~~~
SirHound
> Also, you can't do much more with a HUD as far as information goes without
> distracting the driver.

Overlaying your current route over the road itself rather than on an
abstracted representation would be a good one.

~~~
Clubber
I was thinking about that and it would have to be perfect if it traced the
actual road. Imagine if it traced slightly off the road or into another lane,
the first person who would follow it into oncoming traffic would put an end to
the whole project.

Maybe recognize and highlight exit signs that you need to turn off on. It's
usually high on the windshield and therefore not as distracting.

Parking assist is another thing that isn't quite right. It alarms me when I'm
still a foot or two away. When I turn it off, I park much more precisely. It
probably made a hell of a lot of money though, selling to car manufacturers.

------
Animats
Somebody at YC likes "Ready Player One", which is a stupid book. (Essential
skill for taking over a big company: ability to play a perfect game of
PacMan.) "Snow Crash" was ahead of its time. Yet the plot of Snow Crash would
play out the same if everybody simply had modern phones.

Where's the killer app for VR? VR headsets have been around for years. The
current generation of technology works adequately. Yet other than first person
shooters, there's not much to do in there. You can plug into Second Life or
High Fidelity with a VR headset, but few people do. Using a VR headset to
simulate a screen so you can watch a movie is more trouble than it's worth.

~~~
skizm
You know what's funny? I actually think Ready Player One nailed the only use
case that might be a game changer for VR: remote schools. You can just make
all learning materials virtual. VR school means no physical real estate,
buses, cafeterias, bullying, janitors, you can cut like 90% of support staff,
the list goes on. Also if you divide people by location (like we do now) you
can still coordinate field trips and/or social events that I'm sure parents
and nay-sayers would claim are lost with virtual schools.

Honestly I think if we had the right software we could do remote schools
effectively right now. The largest barriers are going to be (as always)
legislation, bureaucracy, and cultural. I mean companies still balk at remote
workers, I don't see governments jumping at remote teachers and students any
time soon unfortunately.

~~~
Animats
_Ready Player One nailed the only use case that might be a game changer for
VR: remote schools._

Edison thought education would be the killer app for the phonograph. Zworykin
thought it would be the killer app for TV. The One Laptop Per Child people
thought it would be the killer app for laptops. The tablet people thought it
would be the killer app for tablets.

Education doesn't seem to be a technology problem. Would Udacity or Coursera
be better with VR? Probably not.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The One Laptop Per Child people thought it would be the killer app for
> laptops.

No, they didn't.

They thought laptops would be a useful enabling technology for a particular
model of education, but did not think that education would be the killer app
for laptops (a product that was so we'll established by that time that
thinking about it even _needing_ a "killer app" at that point is senseless.)

~~~
sbierwagen
[http://pages.ucsd.edu/~bgoldfarb/comt109w10/reading/Kraemer-...](http://pages.ucsd.edu/~bgoldfarb/comt109w10/reading/Kraemer-
OneLaptop-Vision-vs-Reality.pdf)

>Negroponte seems to question whether teachers are needed at all. Speaking
about providing the rural poor a solid educational basis for development at
the 2007 Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich, Germany, Negroponte said:
“It’s not about training teachers. It’s not about building schools. With all
due respect [to Hewlett-Packard’s e-inclusion efforts], it’s not about
curriculum or content. It’s about leveraging the children themselves.

>David Cavallo, OLPC’s chief education architect, says, “We’re hoping that
these countries won’t just make up ground but will jump into a new educational
environment.”

The OLPC people thought they were going to cause a literal, actual revolution
in learning. Didn't happen.

------
Tossrock
It's exciting to me that there are still this many naysayers, even here on HN.
That suggests there's still time to enter the field before the inflection
point hits.

~~~
psyc
The everyday discourse on HN is dominated by naysaying. Vision doesn't stand a
chance here.

------
deepnet
At least in my case VR simulator sickness was nascent prioproception.

Fast paced and hectic movements performed in VR would make someone sick if
performed in real life.

Back in the day, playing FPSs with shutter glasses, I realised the motion
sensations were tied to the motion. Then the sensations became a feature not a
bug.

Once I understood the feelings they stopped making me nauseous. VR-
prioproception improved my FPS performance. Feeling orientation and velocity
really helps.

And immersion goes off chart.

Hard to know what way one is pointing in space, sometimes there are scant
motion cues.

But in VR with prioproception When your stomach jumps into your mouth, pulling
insane high-G maneuvers as bolts of laser fire crackle past your ship. With
prioproception you sense it, becoming as Tudyk said "a leaf on the wind".
Fully Embodied. No mind, no controls, you just are.

My vision for VR is a web browser, informed by Gibson's original vision of
cyberspace, XEROX Park's 3D information sorting and VRML97 with Unreal style
portals as hyperlinks.

IMHO The VR in Snowcrash was mundane. Predating the net, Gibson saw further,
to a paradigm shift coming from a new knowledge tool.

Gibson's later 'locative art' idea is a nice twist on Augmented Reality - you
have to go somewhere to see the virtual art overlayed on that place - it is
site specific.

~~~
westoncb
Do you mean 'proprioception'?

Btw, I'm working on something that I think has some relation to Gibson's
vision of cyberspace—just the '3D information sorting' part though:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvfMthDInwE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvfMthDInwE)
(that video is very outdated unfortunately, but here's a newer screenshot:
[http://symbolflux.com/images/avdscreen.png](http://symbolflux.com/images/avdscreen.png))

~~~
deepnet
Have you seen Underkoffler's Oblong ?

    
    
      https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture

~~~
westoncb
I haven't. I'll check it out—thanks!

------
gfodor
One thing that I think can get lost is that to "Get into VR" if you are
already a great software engineer you may not need to learn anything new, just
find a place to work where you can immediately apply the skills you already
have, towards a VR-oriented product. From there, look for opportunities to
develop VR-specific skills like the ones mentioned in this article.

For example, at our company (AltspaceVR) we have a _huge_ need for engineers
of all stripes, not just the types of folks you'd normally think of for what
is traditionally thought of as a "game" (this term, too, is probably about to
become very stale.) It's a huge challenge for us to get great engineers who
are not in the games industry to realize that working in this space, depending
on the application, can be much like hopping, say, from a web app to a mobile
app. Are there new skills to learn? Yes, tons. But that doesn't mean you are
starting at ground zero nor that your current skills aren't going to highly
valued and critical to an organization's success.

We need people to help build our backend systems (Rails, Kafka, etc), manage
ops (Ansible, Datadog, AWS), create deployment tools, build UI (React, but
rendered in VR!), work on our mobile app (React Native), build analytics
pipelines, the list goes on. In fact I'd argue if you are looking at an
organization that doesn't understand the need for such a wide spectrum
engineering talent to deliver a great application, you should be careful!

Basically for VR companies who are working on _applications_ that will
leverage VR, the "VR-specific" slice of the engineering work is probably a lot
smaller than you'd expect, just like for companies developing mobile
applications, the "mobile specific" part of engineering work is only a part of
the effort.

In other words, don't think you can't get into this field just because you
aren't a graphics geek.

(Oh yeah, we're hiring :)
[https://altvr.com/careers](https://altvr.com/careers))

~~~
justin66
There is some fundamental irony in a VR company not allowing remote work
(during the first year of employment).

------
aVReality
Perhaps counterintuitively, I see/hear more interest in VR for
business/productivity than for gaming, right now. I think it comes down to
stimulation: we're used to gaming and other entertainment being high-octane,
exciting experiences. But work/productivity is boring. VR, by virtue of its
immersion and fantastical interactions, can bring more excitement to
productivity uses (which are typically boring), while adding legitimate value
(e.g., building better relationships with remote employees through business
collaboration in VR).

~~~
munchbunny
I'm working on a VR game at the moment (solo side project for now), and one
thing I notice is that you very quickly hit immersion limits for even simple
interactions when you use the Touch or Vive controllers. The UX is actually a
really hard problem!

I can see why that leads to an enterprise approach where UX is a bit less
important.

More specifically, I'm building a juggling simulator. Other apps and games
have simulated throwing and it looks and feels convincing, but once you have
to throw multiple things per second, the immersion totally breaks with trigger
based grabbing. I've been experimenting trying to find a better approach.

Originally I thought it could be a nice fun little project, not really trying
to make money. But it took all of maybe five hours of Unity programming to hit
untrodden territory! Now I'm starting to nerd out on the immersion and design
problem.

~~~
aVReality
Juggling simulator sounds awesome...I've always wanted to learn how to juggle!

I'd definitely agree that design challenges are worth nerding-out over...and
probably the most difficult aspect on VR development. You don't even want to
know how much time we've spent tossing around interface ideas...

That being said, I disagree that UX is less important for enterprise. UX is
maybe even more important for enterprise. As a gamer, trying VR is an obvious
next step. For enterprise, not so much; the bar is much higher for getting
someone to start using 3D software whose functionality currently works on a 5"
diagonal screen, a la mobile phones.

~~~
munchbunny
"UX is less important" is probably the wrong way to describe it. "UX can be
more trained" is closer to what I meant. In business applications (Photoshop,
for example), some degree of tools training is assumed, so there's some
allowance for unnatural feeling ways of doing input that can be learned, so
you have a bit more room to fudge the design. Games and consumer software are
somewhat less tolerant of the UX acclimatization issues.

------
moron4hire
I've only seen the talk in person and I've not been able to find a resource
online that enumerates exactly what he means, but Dr. Ken Perlin gives an
excellent talk (with live demo) about how AR could potentially change the
human communication completely.

The gist of it is: assuming ubiquitous access to an AR system that provides a
completely shared experience, people will naturally start using that shared
experience as a communication tool. We will draw what we mean when words
become difficult. We will riff on those ideas in a real-time simulation. And
with the mind-set or combination of services, it may as well be, or could
actually become, a physical reality.

If you've seen any of his more recent, HTML5-based demos (he has completely
switched off of Java) involving visually-oriented, live-programmable
environments with physics baked-in, it's almost completely targeted at this
dream of communication. He has said he's not in it for graphics or VR/AR
anymore, it's the communication aspect he's after.

~~~
GFischer
Sounds reasonable, VR or AR need to be a means to a goal, not the goal in and
of itself.

I share that vision, I believe AR and VR will enable some truly amazing
experiences and interactions - the currently limited means of communication of
the Internet still amaze me, but we can do so much more...

------
adamnemecek
To learn shader programming, check out ShaderToy
[https://www.shadertoy.com/](https://www.shadertoy.com/)

its insane how short some of these implementation are.

~~~
cr0sh
I'm not a shader programmer, but I think the key to making proper shaders is
to understand that the shaders are a parallel computational system based on
vector/matrix math (linear algebra), and being able to conceptualize how to
use that for graphic purposes (within the context of a pixel vs vertex
shader).

It seems that some people (software developers) can do this, and others
struggle. Myself, I'm kinda in the middle - then again, I haven't really tried
anything with shaders beyond simple examples and such. But my "aha" moment in
parallel calcs of this nature came to me during the course of the original
2011 ML Class (MOOC) taught by Andrew Ng - it used Octave as the programming
language, and we had to implement a neural network.

The "serial implementation" was first implemented (and was really slow), but
then we were "challenged" to do the same using only vector/matrix math. I
struggled wrapping my head around it, but then a lightbulb went on, and I
realized what it was all about. Granted, behind the scenes a still very-much
serial process was happening (likely using BLAS), but I could understand the
conceptual underpinnings (and that they applied to all similar parallel
systems - like clustered processors and GPUs). It was a real revelation to me
at the time.

Even so, there is something special about these people who can see and do
similar things at a "frame buffer" level; some of that stuff is down-right
beautiful and amazing to watch (and the code oftentimes so small, as you
noted).

~~~
adamnemecek
That's only a part of the story. The linear algebra and the GPU execution
model are like the first step. To write a shader, you have to understand quite
a few things about light, materials etc which is the hard part.

------
soared
While this was super interesting to read it was fairly disappointing. I'm
hoping the entire series focuses on VR and this wasn't our only post. They
lead off with

> We talked to college students interested in engineering, business, and
> technology to figure out what resources would be most helpful to them. Then,
> we reached out to experts from academia, industry, or some combination of
> the two.

But we all ended up with was a blog post with some links to online courses and
books. Is yc doing ...more? I was expecting something like an actual online
course/intro with low requirements to get in. IE let me use my laptop camera
and some html/css/js to see what building in AR is like.

~~~
haydenlee
Here's an example of using your laptop camera and html to see what building AR
is like:
[https://github.com/jeromeetienne/AR.js](https://github.com/jeromeetienne/AR.js)

~~~
soared
Exactly what I've wanted to see and with an easy demo. Thank you!

------
benjoho
Another good resource for those starting out in computer graphics/VR. It's the
textbook for our VR class at UIUC.

[http://vr.cs.uiuc.edu/](http://vr.cs.uiuc.edu/)

------
anderspitman
Just wanted to add my voice to the author's plug for Rainbows End (book).
Although I didn't find the story especially engagin, the technological ideas
and perspective on VR were inspiring. Bonus if you're into genetics or
bioinformatics at all (similar to Jurassic Park in that respect).

~~~
anigbrowl
Seconded. I ended the book very impressed with Vernor Vinge's _ideas_ but
found the story and writing almost insufferable. I tried it again a few years
later and had the same experience. If it were a movie, it would win all
technical oscars and blow lots of minds.

Neuromancer, on the other hand, has aged astonishingly well. Even though
Gibson is a sort of awkward writer, I _believe_ in the people he writes about.
If it were a movie, it would bomb but the actors would say it was the best
work they ever did.

------
centrinoblue
Does anyone have a good resource covering Headset Hardware reviews and specs?

I researched this recently looking for an HDMI compatible AR headset to try
command line coding with but it was tough to find concise feature/spec/price
comparisons.

Sign of the times I guess.

~~~
moron4hire
There are no good AR headsets right now. The Hololens doesn't have enough
field of view, processing power, or battery to make it very useful, especially
not as a development computer of any kind. And while the Meta 2 is tethered to
a PC, it's also garbage. I'm not aware of any others that its actually
possible to acquire right now.

~~~
centrinoblue
I'm fine with a tether. I just want something simple that plugs into an HDMI
or thunderbolt port and projects my laptop screen into the headset

~~~
corysama
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HMDprogramming/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HMDprogramming/)
is about discussing programming inside VR. Not a lot of activity. Current
headsets are still equivalent to MCGA solid-angle wise. Best so far for
programming seems to be the "Pimax 4K VR" [https://medium.com/@n4ru/mobile-
full-stack-development-in-4k...](https://medium.com/@n4ru/mobile-full-stack-
development-in-4k-vr-dd963bd7cd7d)

------
euske
Everyone is talking about the hardware cost, but people seem to have forgotten
the software cost, which will have a much bigger impact to the industry
overall.

Yes, there will be a few great VR apps and games that actually add to the
experience, but what an average VR app is going to be? Making something in VR
doesn't necessarily make it better. You have to make a good game/app in the
first place. And then there's an additional cost for VR. Now you have one more
element to screw up.

Look, even a regular standard PC could be 10x more useful if all the software
is better built and run flawlessly. Instead we ended up with half-baked
glitchy mess. Making a good VR app won't be easier than this. The profit break
even point will be higher because people have a higher expectation. It seems
the industry is ill-fated.

------
sevensor
> VR is a new medium

This is just blatantly not true, at least not on the implied timescale. VR has
been around for literally decades, including immersive VR with head and hand
tracking. I know because I used it in 1998. The current VR hype cycle is based
on this all having gotten a lot cheaper and faster.

To top it off, listing _Snow Crash_ and _Neuromancer_ as suggested reading is
just silly. Those are the exact same books we were reading during the last VR
boom, and while they're two of my favorites, they're both laughably wrong
about VR. Specifically, VR is bad for the exact use cases presented in these
novels! VR is, was, and will continue to be a product with niche appeal. We'll
see the market expand because it's cheaper, but it's not an effective user
interface for most applications.

~~~
mncharity
The folks coming from film/video to VR speak of it as a new medium. Describing
it as analogous to the early days of cinema, before the now familiar cinematic
idioms had been developed. The folks working on WebVR say similar things wrt
web idioms. And, to a perhaps lesser extent, gamedevs do too (motion,
controls, showing state, haptics, accessing inventory, etc). And almost none
of these communities were active in past VR waves.

So perhaps you and the article are using the phrase "new medium" differently.

------
Keyframe
There seems to be certain momentum behind VR development, but I'm afraid it
will fizzle out on mass market. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it
(talk about VR) reminds me a lot of talk about VR in 90's, just on a larger
scale. I hope I'm wrong, I just don't see it now for some reason. Maybe if it
dies out a bit and then another wave comes around with improved tech and maybe
riding on the haptics of the future... who knows. As for AR, I don't see it at
all. I just don't see it living outside of commercials with happy people
clicking on their phones. What I'm sure is that VR, dead or not on the mass
market, will continue to live on in niche varieties (as it did after 90's
fizzle out) like job trainings (space, military, medicine..) and such.

~~~
mncharity
This time phones and China exist. Phones will continue to drive display and
other tech. China has a dynamic manufacturing sector, to keep churning
headsets. And has internet cafes, to support game dev. And VR seems to be
catching on in US non-governmental industries like realty.

This VR wave seems much more a "look what we can do with current societal
phone experience, and phone manufacturing tech", than a "let's struggle again
to make something novel and hope it catches on".

As for AR, how about this - picture sitting down at your work desktop/laptop
screen(s), and having lower-than-screen-resolution 3D, with direct hand
manipulation, surround you. Not interested?

What else might go badly? The patent trolls are spinning up -
BillGates/IntellectualVentures have announced it as a focus. But asia seems
still insulated enough to keep going, even if the US sidelines itself. A media
freakout seems increasingly unlikely (about VR at least), and would be limited
to the US. A game market may grow more slowly than expected, but no longer
seems able to vanish. What else?

So while takeoff trajectory is perhaps uncertain, I'm having trouble seeing
how this wave might fizzle?

~~~
Keyframe
I'm just not sure it will succeed this time around (en masse). VR needs killer
apps, price going down (it's not only about headset), and even more advanced
tech in order to be (more) successful. Everyone's talking about
headset/displays, but I can't remember anyone talking much (any) about haptics
and total immersion - which would be a right and killer direction.

As for AR, we've seen Pokemon Go as a success. It was a perfect storm. Even if
you disregard AR/Camera segment, one could possibly categorise geolocation
segment as AR. There are AR apps for museums, but it's debatable how much of a
success that is.

Have you used anything with 'hands in the air' for much time? I did use some
3D digitisers with haptic feedback before (in 3D work) and 'gorilla arms'
syndrome is real.

------
intrasight
The elephant NOT in the room here is Apple. I think one can safely assume that
Apple is very actively doing R&D to solve the very hard problems with VR - and
they will probably succeed. It'll probably be a walled garden like iOS, but it
will still move the market.

~~~
ktta
Are you sure? Because everyone is still waiting on the Mac mini and Mac Pro
that is overdue. I really doubt apple's doing anything in the VR space.

~~~
pswilson14
Apple doesn't have much incentive to build new Mac minis and new Mac Pros.

~~~
intrasight
Exactly. But they do have a big incentive to participate in the next big wave
of personal computing.

~~~
ktta
Apple has never been about spearheading the 'next big wave'. It's modus
operandi has always been step in late, but do it right.

VR as I see it now isn't any where close to being the big wave that people are
anticipating it to be. I think we still need a bunch more computing power and
time before it has any chance of disrupting anything.

Even then I doubt Apple will get into VR. Apple is very elitist when it comes
to adopting industry standardds. That hasn't stopped it from getting a good
foothold in the personal computing market. But it did pretty much kill Apple's
chance at making money in the hardcore gaming sector. Which I think will
happen again with VR.

~~~
intrasight
I, for one, anticipate it being a big wave - perhaps even the biggest after
smartphones. I think it's what comes next. And I for one wouldn't miss the era
of walking around poking our index fingers at 5" screens. I do hope that there
are senior folks at Apple thinking the same, because I think Apple has the
resources to do VR well.

~~~
ktta
Flying cars are what comes next after cars, and that's been going on for
several decades now isn't it?

VR does have great potential, but not as it is right now. IBM and Xerox have
put in a lot of money then in a lot of things. And Google is throwing money at
several things too. But seldom do the big wave things pan out as expected when
we want them to.

~~~
intrasight
Some things require major scientific or technological breakthroughs. Other
things just require smart people and people with money willing to take a
chance on them. Flying cars falls into the former (needs battery
breakthrough). I think VR falls into the latter.

------
gavanwoolery
For those interested in how NOT to get into VR, I present:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHlaVNOKGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHlaVNOKGM)

------
artur_makly
VR Porn i believ will be the biggest of all social consumption. last year i
had a chance to try it (out of sheer curiosity and nostalgia) . it was way way
to real. the end of society.

------
BatFastard
Everyone in VR thinks they are creating things for the first time. From 2000
to 2009 I founded and ran the second largest VR company in the world. The
number of firsts that my team had was amazing.

What really amazes me is now that VR is growing. Zero people have talked to me
about what my team learned. Its like the past never existed...

~~~
khuknows
Well... what did your team learn?

~~~
BatFastard
I will boil down 10 years experience into a few words, "its hard, and
expensive". Leveraging the real world paradigm works great in some situations
and not at all in others. There are some things that 2D will always be better
for, like search and shopping.

------
rezashirazian
I've always been sceptical of VR. As much as I was amazed by Oculus the first
time I tried it, I never thought it was going to catch on. All for the sole
reason that humans do not like to have things on their faces.

Any technology that needs to mount on the user's face will have to propose a
huge value proposition.

------
mixedbit
A very interesting development in this space is WebVR. You can use WebGL to
create widely available (95% of browsers) web-based 3D experience and thanks
to WebVR the experience can upgrade to VR for visitors that have VR hardware.

------
damaru
Why are VR posts devoided of any talk about porn technology development. I
think a huge market for VR will be the porn industry, and it seems quite
untapped at this point.

------
JokerDan
I would love to get my hands on a VR kit in order to look into AR and UX
design, but sadly, I do not have the money to invest in a HTC VIVE or similar.

------
return0
First they should ask if you want to get into VR. I mean, there is a certain
crisis, as the hype did not live up and obvious problems (sickness) remained
obvious.

~~~
haydenlee
As a professional VR developer I'm unaware of this crisis. There's also about
as many headsets sold as people thought there would be (and way more GearVR's
than expected). I haven't gotten sick from a VR experience (that I wasn't
half-way through building) in over a year. The headsets are good enough that
they don't make you sick by default (like they used to) and to make somebody
sick you have to go against best design practises.

~~~
smacktoward
I'm not a VR developer, but from an outside perspective it actually looks like
there are a few different crises.

1) _Developers_ seem to be interested in heavyweight VR systems like Vive and
Rift, while _users_ (based on sales figures, anyway) seem to be interested in
inexpensive, cordless systems like GearVR and Cardboard. Which leads to the
awkward situation where all the innovative software is coming out for hardware
that very few users actually own. (And then that market gets segmented even
further -- with Rift development now orienting around Rift + Touch, for
instance, which leaves users without Touch behind.)

2) "It hasn't made _me_ sick in over a year!" is not an answer to concerns
about VR making people sick that is going to get people to rush out and buy
hardware. Once a product has developed a rep for making people sick (not
_everybody_ , of course, but all it takes is _enough_ people), it can take a
long, long time to shake that rep off.

3) There's a fundamental problem that nobody in this generation of VR has been
able to really solve yet, which is _making a headset that is comfortable to
wear for long periods._ Even simpler solutions like GearVR are heavy enough
that you feel their weight after wearing them for 30 minutes or more, and with
developers pushing the platform towards bigger/deeper experiences, the trend
in hardware doesn't seem like it'll be running primarily towards weight
reduction. This could lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of pushing the tech
further and further away from a mass audience, as VR enthusiasts (i.e. people
who don't mind the weight of existing hardware) demand higher-resolution
experiences, which leads to hardware companies pursuing more power instead of
less weight, which leads to products that only sell to VR enthusiasts, who
demand higher-resolution experiences, etc. Something similar to this happened
to the market for flight simulations in the '90s, which resulted in one of the
main categories of entertainment software evolving into a tiny niche market of
interest only to obsessives.

None of which is to say that VR is doomed, or that these things are in reality
as serious as they appear to be to an outsider. But I would say there are
plenty of reasons to be skeptical that VR will become a big, mass-market hit,
at least this go-around.

~~~
omg_ketchup
What's possible on a high-end rig today will be possible on on a phone within
2 years.

~~~
mncharity
I was at a Boston VR[0] meetup last week, that was lifestreamed via youtube[1]
to AltspaceVR[2]. An organizer used a recent Samsung phone in a Daydream
headset (which has a closed back), to host the VR space. The biggest problem
seemed the low duty cycle - use it for a few minutes, then take the phone out
to cool down. Some demo setups at the recent VRLA Expo, had a small fan
attached to the phone. So will we see a GTX 1060 equivalent on a flagship
phone in 2 years... maybe? But I was struck by how far we've come already.

[0] [https://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-
Reality/](https://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-Reality/) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iGszROz58U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iGszROz58U)
[2] [https://altvr.com/](https://altvr.com/)

------
devmunchies
I would love to see a "Paths" post about getting into 3D printing. Or if
anyone has any good resources for a total beginner I'd be grateful.

------
it_learnses
do I need a PC to be able to get into it?

~~~
moron4hire
Not necessarily. As always, the answer is "it depends".

If you're looking to get into high-end, room-scale VR with hand-tracked
controllers and high-fidelity graphics, then yes. You need a Windows 10 PC
with as much RAM, CPU, and GPU as you can muster. Plan on spending at least
USD 2000 on a custom-built PC.

If you're looking to get into smartphone-based AR, you can use practically
anything to write the code, and there are plenty of tools to be able to build
completely cross-platform apps. But you will want a flagship phone, whether
that's the latest iPhone or one of the Androids with a powerful CPU and GPU.
AR is very _CPU_ intensive. While there have been demonstrations of SLAM on
GPUs, all of the implementations I'm aware of are doing it on the CPU.

Where should you start? Well, without hand-tracking of some kind, I don't
really consider it VR. Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, and
Oculus Rift without the Touch controllers are all glorified 2D interfaces.
They don't provide anything actually new in terms of being able to interact
with the application.

Smartphone-based AR apps will probably reach a wider audience sooner than VR.
But if Microsoft's approach to headsets and Windows Holographic pays off, I
think that is not a perpetual state of affairs. Ideally, this gets down to the
size of a pair of sunglasses (which is very nearly the case already). At that
point, smartphone-based AR is going to be a quaint novelty.

~~~
kettlecorn
2000 USD is too high for the cost of a VR PC. I built a PC in fall 2016 that
was more powerful than what was required for VR and it cost me around $1200.
Additionally there are companies advertising "VR Ready PCs" that come with an
Oculus headset for around USD 1,000. See this article:
[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/dont-look-now-but-
ocu...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/dont-look-now-but-oculus-ready-
pcs-are-getting-relatively-cheap/)

------
greggman
I still haven't drunk the VR kool-aid.

I want to believe. I've used all the software. Played many games. The problems
for me are 2 fold

1\. I don't have the space. I don't personally know anyone that does. Maybe if
you live in the mid-west or the suburbs but there are plenty of cities where
people are unlikely to have a space for room scale VR and arguably the non-
room scale VR is just not that compelling. Visiting a "VR space" is not ever
going to be mainstream so that seems like an issue for mass VR adoption.

2\. When I play a good non-VR game I play for hours and days at a time. As an
example last month I played Zelda:Breath of the Wild for 70+ hours, 10-14
hours a day. I've yet to play anything in VR that I could stay in for 10-14
hours. In fact many VR games get extremely tiring very quickly. I've played a
few where after 10 minutes I'm exhausted. That's doesn't seem likely to become
a main form of entertainment.

I've also played at a few VR arcades. Again the games have been fun and
immersive but the also felt like thrill rides. In other words, 5-10 minutes
and I'm done. Neat experience but just like I could not ride a rollercoaster
for 10hrs I can't do VR for 10hrs. It's not about the form, it's about the
activity. Searching a room, opening draws, pressing various floating buttons,
holding virtual weapons. It's tiring not relaxing like non VR games.

Those issues don't seem solvable. They aren't tech issues they're inherent to
the whole concept. Fixes for the space would require direct brain implants so
you don't actually move around, you just think you are. I don't know if there
is a solution to the 2nd. It's one thing to push buttons to see Nathan Drake
climb mountains. It's another to actually do the climbing.

As for the article itself I was a little sad to see VR defined as only

> VR… only tracking, rendering, and display. Tracking is the process of
> recording the user’s location and orientation in 3D space. Rendering is the
> process of constructing the appropriate image for a user. Display refers to
> the fidelity with which the hardware can produce the rendered image."

Even with the problems mentioned above there seems to still be low-hanging
fruit.

If you want to be able to talk to people in VR you need to be able to emote.
That means you need low-res cameras looking at your eyes and mouth so your
avatar can show your expressions.

Similarly, 2 hands is not enough. I need censors on my feet and maybe knees,
waist, elbows. In many VR experiences I've played things where bumping up
against something with my waist or, kicking something away with my feet, using
my knee to close a draw etc seem like natural actions that were thwarted by
lack of input.

~~~
fitzroy
"I don't have the space. I don't personally know anyone that does."

Same (NYC). Urban centers have been trending for the last 30 years and have
become prohibitively expensive as a result. I can't help but wonder if a
future (next?) generation of kids will move back out to the burbs in search of
McMansions with two-car garages to use as immersive VR environments.

~~~
vincentschen
Super interesting... I definitely wonder how VR/AR might change the way we
think about architecting spaces in general.

------
mfrager
Using VR makes me sick...

~~~
haydenlee
What have you tried?

~~~
jamesrcole
I think this is a reasonable question, as different headsets are more likely
to make people feel ill than others, from what I've heard.

~~~
haydenlee
Not just different headsets but even different content on the best headsets
(as will always be the case until we figure out how to zap your vestibular
system in an accurate and safe way).

