
Facebook Is Shutting Down VR Content Division Oculus Story Studio - Impossible
https://uploadvr.com/facebook-shutting-down-oculus-story-studios/
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wavefunction
If facebook had real vision they'd focus on the Story Studio and forget the
'news/live video' briar-patch they're confidently striding into.

Build up the first early VR IP properties by making them widely available so
they're established as a cultural bedrock like Disney has been with perpetual
Mickey Mouse protection and the acquisition of a significant portion of your
childhood (Marvel,Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) and you've built something that
will last for at least a few generations and give your succeeding executives
breathing room to maneuver.

Or hire a bunch of labor to watch unrestricted widecast videos (I'm hoping
they're just reinforcing ml analysis of videos in the short term, please?)

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sandworm101
Film makers don't want to use VR. It is very limiting. Films in 3d were never
very good, mostly because of the limitations it placed on camera movements. VR
will be the same. When you cannot control what the audience is looking at you
must resort to tricks, repetitions and slow pacing to ensure that they see
what they need to before you move on. The beauty of film, over theatre or
other "3d" experiences, is that the director can grab the audience by the
eyeballs, force them to see what he wants/needs them to see. That's why films
can be so much faster and more direct than live entertainment.

Take your favourite movie, or even one you just hated. Think of how it would
be to "sit in" the action, tilting your head to look at anything and
everything. You will miss all the details. You will miss the facial cues, the
many non-verbal interactions between characters, because you were instead
looking at the shiny thing in the corner. VR is for interactive experiences
and theme park rides, not the carefully controlled storytelling of film.

Think of GOTG, of sitting in the spare seat of a spaceship during a battle.
Every time a character says something you will hear it, but miss seeing them
actually say it because you didnt know to look at them in time. Think of all
the wasted effort to animate Rocket's face if the audiance is never looking at
him while he speaks.

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phantom_package
By definition, the people that make interesting cinematic experiences in VR
won't be "film makers". I don't know if we've created a job title for them
yet.

It's a completely different medium, with completely different advantages,
drawbacks, and considerations. Applying film techniques in a virtual
environment is not the right approach, as your examples demonstrate. The
really compelling experiences in VR will embrace the constraints you
mentioned, not try to emulate a medium in which they didn't exist.

I went to New York a few months ago and saw a play called Sleep No More. It
takes place across 5 floors of a warehouse, converted into an incredibly
immersive series of sets. It's loosely-based on Hamlet, with multiple
storylines playing out simultaneously in different parts of the
hotel/hospital/graveyard/theatre. The audience wears fawkes-esque masks and is
not allowed to speak, nor are they acknowledged by the actors in any way. You
can wander anywhere you like, follow any actors you find interesting, rummage
through drawers, read books you find lying around, etc. You really do feel
like a ghost, and being able to move around the actors (or even leave the
room, if you feel like it), is incredibly fun and interesting. It certainly
didn't feel like a limitation.

So maybe VR has more to learn from theatre (and specifically interactive
theatre) than film? Food for thought.

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thenomad
Sleep No More is one of my usual touchstones when talking about narrative in
VR. (Speaking as a VR dev here.)

In general, narrative in VR has to be approached VERY differently to film.
It's not just that the viewpoint's moving or that it's 360 degrees, it's also
that the viewpoint has its own agency within the environment.

Of all the comparisons I've come up with, actually, pen-and-paper roleplaying
games seem to be the most useful ones when discussing how to fit narrative
into a VR context. There's a commonality of simulated world and tension
between experience and narrative there that doesn't really exist anywhere
else.

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rubatuga
Seeing as this is an appropriate thread to shit on VR, why does nobody seem to
care about the extreme lack of Field of View on these devices? Most Oculus
Rift models are around 90 degrees, while humans have more than 180, probably
closer to 200. Last time I tried VR, the huge black bars stopped me from
thinking it was immersive. If the optics are a hurdle to cross, why not at
least light up the edges with something reminiscent of Ambilight?

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jp555
Remember PocketPC smartphones? That's about where we are in the VR tech
S-curve. They were horrible devices when compared to today's smartphones, just
as the VR/AR 5 years from now will make today's tech seem. But we probably
still needed the PocketPC to pave the way for the iPhone.

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falcolas
It's worth remembering that we have had VR for well over 20 years now, in one
form or another. 5 years seems optimistic given that.

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moron4hire
I don't think it actually is worth remembering. That hardware was so
completely different from the hardware we have now, in terms of performance
and price. Those displays were somewhere around 240x320 pixels at 30hz. The
year-old tech we have today is 1080x1200 at 90hz. That's roughly 50x better, a
magnitude and a half better. That's not even beginning to consider the several
orders of magnitude improvement in the visuals we can push over that display.

It also comes at a fraction of the cost. Four headsets plus a cluster of SGI
workstations to run them would probably set you back a million dollars. Today,
you're looking at about $10,000. 100x improvement in cost. Hell, quantity has
a quality all its own.

So, without even considering graphics (or ubiquitous and wireless internet
access), we're looking at modern VR being at east 500x better than the tech
from 20 years ago. I don't know any comparisons to make that are 500x
improvements outside of tech. I don't think we can really learn anything
meaningful from the VR wave of the 90s. What we have today is just a
completely different situation.

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falcolas
50x in 20 years. I think it's fair to say that another 10 or 20x is required
(displays 5x as wide with 4x more pixels per inch), that would be another 10
or so years, not a mere 5. Especially when display tech is not showing a lot
of effort in getting beyond the current 200dpi.

VR display tech has piggybacked off phone tech, and phones are not actively
looking for even higher pixel density. This means specialized research &
design into display tech; something I don't see or even hear about being done.

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Impossible
You may not see it or hear it but it's actively being worked on... That's not
including companies like Magic Leap and Avegant whose entire business is
founded on custom light field displays for AR.

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falcolas
Magic Leap, the company who has been repeatedly panned on HN for providing a
cool demo idea, with no actual product or research?

The "2 million mirrors" in the Avegant Glyph is roughly equivalent to 1080p;
about the same resolution as the Occulus and Vive. The tech is also an
adaptation of the same DLP technology that's been in use in TVs and projectors
for decades.

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jp555
light fields are nothing at all like the 2D image emitted by DLP projectors.

This is a printed light field -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVAzGQMxEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVAzGQMxEg)

This is a light field plenoptic projector -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blb0TUBoZwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blb0TUBoZwA)

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tostitos1979
One factor that greatly limits my use of VR is that it is so uncomfortable
with glasses on. I've seen people propose hacks and kickstarter projects. I
don't understand why the people leading VR are turning a blind eye to the
problem (no pun intended).

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lstodd
Um, since the thing is already sitting on one's face, why can't they do
adaptible optics so that the there's no need for glasses/contacts? (or any
need to peel out the contacts)?

It's a problem solved long ago for binoculars after all.

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munchbunny
I'm guessing it's a cost and complexity thing. More moving parts = more
potential problems.

Separately, the HTC Vive sits over your glasses pretty easily, so it hasn't
been a big issue. The Rift though... I have to bring out the contacts for it.

~~~
lstodd
Moving parts are too expensive, I agree. But nowadays one can just 3D-print a
set of lenses that will match one's vision perfectly, and making it possible
to just snap them in and out might be easier to implement than any
alternative.

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simooooo
You can't get anywhere close to 3D printing lenses

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arijun
But there is a good point there--Zeni optical probably pays under $4 per pair
of lenses it sells. If you had a slot to insert a lens it wouldn't be very
expensive.

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jamesjyu
This makes a ton of sense. Oculus's biggest leverage is in improving the
platform, not creating content. If anything, that money would be better spent
on directly funding other studios.

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CharlesW
This is smart, and great news for creators. As good as Facebook's own studio
may have been, having to compete with Facebook for attention in a nascent
medium is a huge problem.

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unclebucknasty
But, then, developers have to trust Facebook as the owner of the platform.
That's not always been a good bet.

Albeit, this is a different model that I'm not 100% sure about, but hope the
investment/development agreements provide good coverage for developers.

~~~
CharlesW
> _But, then, developers have to trust Facebook as the owner of the platform.
> That 's not always been a good bet._

For sure, but that would've also been an issue in the scenario where Facebook
was also competing with you as a content developer. At least this way, small
developers have a chance to establish themselves before Big Media starts
taking VR seriously.

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unclebucknasty
Yeah, just feels a little more transparent when you know you're competing with
them. This deal where Facebook is like "hey, we're out of this game" seems
like a setup.

But, that's coming from someone who built on F8 years ago and witnessed their
treatment of developers first-hand.

And, we've all seen what they've done to some popular apps on their platform.
As well, their shameless capacity to copy successful apps (e.g. SnapChat) is
just unnerving when you're considering partnering on their platform.

I also fell for their "Hey, come build a free business page on FB and drive
your users to us; in return we'll make it easier for our users to find you".
Sounded great, until they started charging you to reach your own audience
after undertaking so much effort to corral them on Facebook.

All together, the sweeter they make the deal sound, the more wary I become.

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oculusthrift
as someone who actually owns an oculus, i think this is bad news. the biggest
problem right now is the lack of quality content. the best content ive seen
has come from Facebook so this is sad.

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ggggtez
Wasnt that the reason 3d TV failed as well? Perhaps humans just don't have
enough interesting things to say in 3d that they can't already do in 2.

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tmaly
It's still too early, I had that scene from Silicon Valley pop in my head
about octopus, the animal in the ocean.

Maybe building out education and training for the platform would be a better
use of resources. I am still not comfortable with something that close to my
eyes. I want something like a holodeck from Star Trek Next Generation.

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jamesrom
Measured business decision. Content producers are probably scared that
Facebook is in the content business while also building the headsets.

Content producers have every right to be wary.

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lightyrs
_It’s a VR play. 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._

— Erlich Bachman

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aub3bhat
I think there should be a version for AI too.

It’s an AI play. 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 ‘A’ and ‘I’, and VC’s would hurl bricks of cash at
them.

By the time they find out it’s just off the shelf models passed around as
secret tech for next Deep Mind, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into this.

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simooooo
I agree, for me, anything that mentions AI is instantly treated as horse poo
until it does something really impressive

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godzillabrennus
AI seems to be the replacement for "algorithm" in pitches these days.

