
Microsoft’s ‘mixed reality’ headsets are a bit of a mixed bag - rbanffy
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/28/microsofts-mixed-reality-headsets-are-a-bit-of-a-mixed-bag/
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Pigo
I've built a few HoloLens prototypes for my present company, and a few Occulus
ones for my former. I haven't stayed up to date with all of the internal
hardware specs, but from my experience building for the HoloLens was easier
and a lot more fun. I haven't seen these new headsets yet, but I believe they
use the same tools and frameworks. There's some really cool stuff that some
Xbox developers have put out that you can build on top of. And the Skype app
works amazingly well.

I'm just curious if these headsets are aimed at gaming as opposed to the
HoloLens which is geared towards productivity.

~~~
touchofevil
I'm interested in getting into Hololens development. What languages,
frameworks and tools would you recommend? From what I've read it seems like
I'd be using Unity and C#.

~~~
nartam11
Unity for 3D applications. You can use UWP to make traditional 2D apps which
you can also use in hololens

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mileycyrusXOXO
You can also use C++ and DirectX for 3D applications.

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andybak
Why did they decide they could sacrifice frame-rate when the first generation
of PC VR - after extensive study - decided it was the one thing you should
never sacrifice?

Did somebody in sales overrule the engineers?

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cr0sh
> first generation of PC VR

What do you mean by this?

I'm only asking for clarification, because when I hear "first generation of PC
VR" \- I think "REND386".

I doubt, though, that many other people do, because for some reason, all of
that old history and the lessons from it have seemingly had to be "re-
discovered" with VR technology after the Rift came out.

~~~
andybak
Yeah - I did wonder about clarifying that as I typed it - there's obviously a
long history to VR (I'm a child of the 80s so I'm not completely ignorant of
the twists and turns of computing history)

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Stratoscope
VR was a big deal in 1995:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=79i1lfAqumUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA...](https://books.google.com/books?id=79i1lfAqumUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q&f=true)

~~~
andybak
I remember it well on BBC Tomorrow's World.

I'm always tempted to watch "The Lawnmower Man" although I suspect it hasn't
aged terribly well.

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dwighttk
I wasn't able to tell from the video or the article... what does mixed reality
mean?

I was assuming it was something like augmented reality lite. This just looks
like VR-lite.

~~~
KineticLensman
It's a cross between AR and VR in which a different virtual world is inserted
into the real world [1]. It predates the term, but the HoloChess scene in Star
Wars is to me a good example. The contrast is with AR, in which the real world
is annotated with virtual info, and VR, in which the real world is hidden. But
the terms are a bit blurred.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality)

~~~
andybak
This isn't how Microsoft is using the term. For them it's essentially a hollow
marketing differentiator and a way to lump Hololens and inside-out tracking
under the same banner.

To all intents and purposes just substitute "VR" whenever Microsoft says
"Mixed reality".

I really hope their usage doesn't catch on.

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Ajedi32
I wish the article would have gone into more detail about the tracking on the
controllers. My biggest concern with those is that they might not work well in
games where you have to reach and grab something not currently in your field
of view, like guns holstered on your back or at your hips.

~~~
jzl
This article takes a deep dive on the controllers:

[https://www.roadtovr.com/microsoft-mixed-reality-vr-
motion-c...](https://www.roadtovr.com/microsoft-mixed-reality-vr-motion-
controllers-hands-on/)

~~~
Ajedi32
Thanks, that _is_ a bit more detailed. Unfortunately, it seems like my
concerns were well founded:

> And for times when your hands will go out of the camera’s field of view,
> Microsoft is doing its best to compensate. When that happens, the system
> relies purely on the controller’s on-board IMU to estimate positional
> movement until it reappears in the camera’s view. This works well enough for
> quick jumps in and out of the camera’s view, but after a second or two, the
> IMU-only tracking estimation is too unreliable, and it appears that the
> system will eventually freeze the location of the controllers in the air and
> only feed them the rotation data from the IMU

Not a lot of detail there on how well the IMU-only tracking works, but it
doesn't sound like it's all that accurate. And I guess there's only one front-
facing camera, so it'll be pretty easy to lose tracking if you ever need to
interact with something outside your FOV.

~~~
moron4hire
This same thing happens with the Vive controllers. The shape of the controller
and how you use it make it much more susceptible to occlusion issues than the
headset. It also has an internal IMU to attempt to compensate, but it's only
good for about 3 seconds before you start to notice the drift. There are a lot
of sub-3 second occlusion events that you just never notice, otherwise. So who
knows, I'd have to see the MS controller in action to get a better idea. I
wouldn't be surprised if MS could come up with a decent mitigation.

~~~
Ajedi32
The Vive has two base stations which are supposed to be positioned in opposite
corners of the room. In order for the controller to lose tracking, it has to
be hidden from the view of _both_ of those base stations at the same time.
Still possible, but I suspect that will happen much less frequently than with
this system, which as far as I can tell will lose tracking whenever your
controller goes outside the view of a single, front-facing camera on the
headset itself.

For example, if you reach behind your back it loses tracking. If you look in
one direction and aim a gun in the other, it loses tracking, if you look up
and reach for pistols holstered at your hips, it loses tracking, etc. Someone
please correct me if I'm wrong, because as-is it sounds to me like this system
isn't going to work very well for a lot of the more action-based games in VR.

~~~
moron4hire
There are definitely "shadow spaces" in even an ideal Vive setup where you're
body could be occluding one base station and your hand holding the controller
could be occluding the other.

It's really going to depend on the application. You don't focus your attention
uniformly through the 3D space. if the application design has important
interaction points that just so happen to intersect with those shadow spaces,
you'll find yourself in a very frustrating situation of never being able to
get good tracking. There are times when I find I can't finish a drawing in
Tilt Brush or a machine in Fantastic Contraption very easily because the
detail I want to work on is in a shadow space. And for many reasons, I think
gun-games are quite far from the best uses of VR. I am sure a certain class of
gamers will like it, but I don't think that class intersects well with
current, 2D-display FPS gamers, and I don't think it will be anything close to
the majority use of VR.

So yes, some UI designs will be ideal for one design and particularly buggy in
another. The Vive is optimized for broad-stroke gesture control radiating out
from the user in (roughly, minus the shadow spaces) equal precision 360
degrees around the user. The Windows MR is optimized for fine-detail control
centered in front of the user. If you like playing wave shooters and only wave
shooters, I suppose you'll want a Vive. Otherwise, I don't think it's a
completely cut-and-dried situation.

~~~
Ajedi32
> There are definitely "shadow spaces" in even an ideal Vive setup where
> you're body could be occluding one base station and your hand holding the
> controller could be occluding the other.

Huh, I've never really experienced that. Or if I have, it doesn't happen
frequently enough for me to notice. It does happen in some spaces outside my
play area, beyond the guardian system, but inside it tracking is near perfect.
I have a Rift, not a Vive though, so maybe this is an issue specific to the
Vive? My Rift uses 3 sensors, not 2, so perhaps the occlusion issue is
lessened by that. Or perhaps your Lighthouses are just positioned a bit
strangely?

> I think gun-games are quite far from the best uses of VR. I am sure a
> certain class of gamers will like it, but I don't think that class
> intersects well with current, 2D-display FPS gamers

Agreed. There are other games which would suffer from this type of occlusion
issue though. Echo Arena, for example, often requires you to grab onto a
surface with one hand while turning your head in a completely different
direction to look at your surroundings. Any game that requires you to interact
with something not in your field of view would have this problem.

For non-game applications like Tilt Brush, Google Blocks, or Google Earth
though I can see this headset working just fine. Casual games which involve
primarily working with your hands might also work well. (Job Simulator, Rick
and Morty VR, etc. Not Fantastic Contraption though; that one requires you to
reach behind your head to grab new parts, if I recall correctly.)

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nerd7473
Isn't Microsoft jumbled anyways? In my opinion they're just wanting to get
third hands in everything...

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dkonofalski
I really feel like going through my post history on here and on reddit to
point out all the people that said this was going to be a "game changer" that
would effectively kill Oculus and Valve's VR hopes. I was skeptical back then
and this only confirms that my skepticism was warranted. Everyone was saying
that MS would be able to take a hit on the price and would effectively neuter
the higher-price-point VR headsets. I kept making the point that _some_
compromise would have to be made to keep the price point down and several
people fell back to Microsoft's financial status as proof of their ability to
deliver a competitive product at a lower cost. Glad to see that I wasn't crazy
then and that this is exactly what's happening here.

