
How big an issue is the nausea problem for VR products? - BrandiATMuhkuh
https://www.quora.com/How-big-an-issue-is-the-nausea-problem-for-Virtual-Reality-products/answer/Steve-Baker-9?share=1
======
AndrewKemendo
The problem with this response is that it's mostly right, but misses enough
that it ends up being misguided but for a reason that is unstated.

Similar to the author I worked with HMD systems while in the air force,
specifically the integrated HUD avionics F35 helmet system. He is correct
about the current lack of accommodation (depth perception) and the vestibular
mismatch for movement. Other posters discuss vestibular stimulation, without
realizing that such stimulation actually induces physical motion. The
biological systems are too tightly connected to just simulate physical
movement in the brain without a physical reaction.

What he misses, which is critical is that certain virtual retinal displays can
solve the accommodation and multiple depth object focal lengths. This is the
major thing that magic leap has going for it, but while it's hard it's not
impossible to do in multiple ways. We have our own multi-depth accommodation
vrd patent filing.

There is no real solution to the movement problem though... Except to actually
work with virtual objects in the real world, AKA augmented reality.

So the actual solution to his problem doesn't lie in VR solutions, it's in AR.

Until we have sufficient BCI that works around vestibular and ocular pathways
we aren't going to see the matrix levels of presence in non AR displays.

~~~
jimrandomh
No, actually I think he's just wrong about focal lengths. I have a Rift, and
while moving viewpoints can be an issue, accommodation isn't a problem at all.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
You're not understanding accommodation well enough.

The short version is, an OLED/LCD has an "infinite" focal length and cannot do
otherwise. So by default everything in the display is rendered at the same
focal point. You can do some tricks like blurring elements, but these are not
responding to the convexity of your eyeball or how your eye muscles are
working, so if you look at something that is software blurred it will still
look blurry. Even with eye tracking it's still really a hack, and isn't
naturally responsive - it's the software reacting to your gaze.

Display based accommodation however renders objects at different focal points.
So when your eye changes gaze point and your ocular muscles respond to put
your eye at that focus level, the object/s come into focus. It's the reverse
of the hack.

Sounds like a trivial difference but is completely different, significantly
more convincing and logistically more complex.

~~~
goldenkey
Thank you for providing technical information to a thread that is thriving
with far too much anecdotal data. Im careful to say noise because in an early
technology like VR it is good to have all this discussion and sharing of data
but I really appreciate the underlying science more than the anecdotal
checkmarks. Anyhow thanks.

------
Sephr
They're comparing apples to oranges. The $80,000 military VR headsets of 1989
absolutely did not use OLED or OLED light field displays. They've only
recently been available from manufacturers at any price with their current
pixel density and refresh rate (OLED has always had amazing response time, but
refresh rate has been lacking until recently) specifications.

Even the most expensive _research_ OLED panels with high enough pixel
densities for VR have only existed since the early-mid '00s. The studies he
linked to are from 1989.

> Depth perception

The author neglects to mention that OLED light field displays have already
solved this problem completely. See
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwCwtBxZM7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwCwtBxZM7g)

The technology already exists (you need a pair of expensive MicroOLED displays
and some special lenses), it's just not available at a consumer price point.

> Momentum

For someone involved with military devices, it's surprising that this guy has
never heard of galvanic vestibular stimulation. GVS will never be easy and
will always require very, very extensive calibration per-user, but it's still
possible to use for simulating perceived movement.

This isn't that important for me personally, as I've never experienced VR
sickness even when playing fast-paced high-momentum VR games for multiple
hours at a time. I could see people who get VR sickness wanting this, as GVS
would help prevent it from happening.

~~~
venachescu
I think you're missing the bigger point that he's trying to make - our sensory
systems work in concert to provide a full picture of reality and they're very
sensitive and extremely well tuned together through a lifetime of experiences.

Just providing an accurate projection of the visual field to the eye's doesn't
solve the problem completely. Visual perception is not a passive mechanism,
our eyes 'explore' the visual field through quick movements and readjustments
and this process inherently locks together the proprioceptive signals from the
ciliary and ocular muscles to the stream of information from the retina. By
only providing screens, we can't simulate this process in a natural way and
our body will detect it.

Similarly - our vestibular sense is strongly tied to our experiences of our
body moving through the world. Just using a blanket stimulation of electrodes
on the skin will not recreate these signals in anywhere near a convincing
enough manner to fool the brain's perceptual processing.

All of our sensory perceptions are strongly linked together - if just one is
perturbed in an unconvincing way (try wearing glasses that aren't prescribed
to you for a while), our brain will do our "caveman brain" thing and make us
sick.

~~~
Houshalter
On the other hand the brain is insanely adaptable. People made to wear glasses
that flipped their vision upside down adjusted fine, and when they took them
off, everything looked upside down.

Even your example is wrong. You can in fact adjust to glasses of the wrong
prescription. People who need glasses have deformed eyes which is basically
like having the wrong prescription. The brain adjusts, and people can go
without glasses without vomiting everywhere.

The nausea reaction is an issue, but it doesn't affect the entire population.
I have friends who can't play video games because of motion sickness, but no
one argues that video games can't be commercially successful. And various
tricks like removing head bob, adjusting the field of view, and adding a
virtual "nose", have been shown to significantly alleviate that.

------
putzdown
The proof is in the pudding. I'm kind of amazed that the first response to
this article is not either: "Correct. We tried Vive/Oculus on 1,000 subjects
and 90% were sick within ten minutes," or "Incorrect. We tried it on 1,000
subjects and 10% were sick after 2 hours." Or some other clear test from real
players. How can the viability of VR be this speculative this deep into
launching to real customers?

~~~
pmoriarty
I've personally demoed the Gear VR (via the Iceland flyby demo) to about 80
people.

Only two experienced significant nausea. Two or three more reported feeling a
little queasy. The rest didn't have any nausea-related problems.

A few people reported vertigo, one desperately gripping the chair they were
sitting on when they looked down. One literally threw the headset off when
some VR dolphins in another demo got too close. These are unusual reactions.

I'd say about 90% of the people don't have any problems at all. The consumer
Rift should be even more acceptable.

Still, these devices are all in their infancy. Expect devices a few
generations in to be far, far better than the ones that mostly target early-
adopters today.

I expect the main challenge to overcome for most users will be comfort. Few
people will want to wear these things for long, once the novelty wears off. A
lot of people don't even like wearing regular glasses. Wearing these bulky,
hot, uncomfortable headsets for extended periods of time will not be worth the
trouble for most people, once they get over the gee-whiz factor.

~~~
jhayward
I suspect this is a biased sample. Those of us who have motion sickness
susceptibility just won't volunteer for the experience.

------
45h34jh53k4j
One game that seems to work for me in VR is EVE: Valkyrie; An arcade style
multiplayer dogfighting in 0G space. As you are in space, the lack of an 'up'
feels like you are never at the 'wrong' direction.

It took some getting use to doing barrel rolls or adjusting yaw and pitch too
quickly. As I improved, the sickness from more complicated manoeuvres
subsided.

I think that attitudes that VR is somehow dangerous and impossible to be done
without sickness are foolish and ignore historical precedent; Many things
throughout human development have felt 'unnatural' and required adjustment and
training - driving, flying, skydiving, moving pictures; yet humanity has
adjusted to these in short course.

~~~
serg_chernata
I think this is a very valid point. Myself coming from elite dangerous and
star citizen. The very first thing I noticed was how I can make a choice that
there is no up and down, thus I shouldn't keep trying to right myself and it
completely changed my dizziness and perception. Whereas certain people can't
even watch space flight on a monitor.

------
dark12222000
I've got a vive and at this point I've probably spent around 40 hours in it,
including a few multi-hour sessions. Before that I played with an early Rift
dev kit for several days.

The biggest issue is when the world moves without you - Windlands is a big
culprit here. In general standing and using controller locomotion so far has
been a recipe for nausea.

But outside of that, so far everyone who has used my unit (and that's about 20
some people currently) has had a blast. No cases of simulator sickness (and
I've only seen two reports of that in the community as a whole so far) and no
nausea other than an initial misattempt with Windlands.

Sorry, VR is probably here to stay, though whether it goes mainstream will be
about whether or not the price can drop quickly.

~~~
super-serial
Yeah this military guy can't see past flight simulators and seated experiences
in vehicles. No one gets sick as long as your movement in VR is one-to-one
with the real world.

Just like when mobile apps came out, existing games didn't work on the new
platform. No one wanted to play an FPS on mobile. VR is a new platform and
developers have to adjust for what works on it. Games like SPT, holopoint and
zenblade get it right. They're all simple games inside a room but they are all
create amazing experiences. I've been using my Vive almost every night for
weeks and this is definitely here to stay.

------
noonat
I've experienced quite a bit of nausea from goggle only VR products like
GearVR. Even the menu was enough to get me sick -- moving my head forward
without the menu changing distance with me seemed to make my body think I
should feel movement but didn't, or something like that. The nausea in these
situations was quite bad and lasted for 30-60 minutes or more after taking off
the goggles.

But I have to say that the experience was quite a bit different with the room
scale VR like the HTC Vive. The only time I experienced any nausea in there
was in Hover Junkers. The game has you riding a vehicle with frequent changes
in direction at high speeds. This again seemed to be related to the perception
of motion without corresponding sensations.

But the teleportation used in games like Budget Cuts didn't affect me at all.
(There were some disturbing bouts of claustrophobia when I teleported too
close to a wall, but that didn't induce any nausea.)

At the time that I tried the Vive, I spent about 20 hours total playing with
it, spread across probably 4 sessions. I think my longest duration without a
break was 6 hours. It was exhausting but not nauseating. The others with me
had similar experiences. In fact, one of them normally gets so nauseated by
things like this that they have prescription medication for nausea for use
while riding in the car -- and they didn't experience any nausea at all.

------
jimrandomh
This is all just empirically incorrect. VR headsets are already in the hands
of consumers, and not causing simulator sickness in the circumstances
described. Developers have now had lots of time to experiment and find out
what does and doesn't cause it. Accelerating the viewpoint? Yes, that'll
affect some people. Placing objects close to the viewpoint? That's completely
fine, and the author's idea that this will somehow mess up people's depth
perception is flat-out wrong.

~~~
putzdown
And yet a few comments above yours are people saying that Oculus has publicly
admitted that there are sickness problems, and anecdotes of a fairly high
proportion of people who do get sick. How can there be such wildly different
opinions about something that should be factual: real evidence of how current
VR rigs affect people playing them for substantial periods with currently
available games?

~~~
agildehaus
The idea is that you can fairly easily, with current hardware, make
experiences that don't induce sickness. It's mostly about ensuring the
framerate stays high and never moving the viewport for the user.

Unfortunately Oculus and HTC/Valve can't stop developers from doing the
obvious things that make everyone sick. Dumb developers can and will.

Some people get sick simply looking at motion on a 2D monitor. So there will
always be people getting sick in these experiences.

------
lhl
I can't really this guy too seriously when the bolded "kicker" to his story
are citations to studies from 1989. Equipment and research from that time
period had latency in the hundreds of milliseconds. (For context, modern
studies (2009) show that 5ms latencies are imperceptible in HMDs [1])

I'd be interested to hear what vintage and what specs those $80K headsets
really were. Knowing the specs of older $50-100K research HMDs, I have extreme
doubts that resolution, latency, or tracking accuracy match today's consumer
headsets even (most of the tech stemming from the billions and billions of
dollars of investment spent on smartphone development from the past decade).

When talking about depth perception, hyperbole like "THAT problem can’t be
fixed by any known technological means" (in reference to focal/depth plane
projection) is completely inaccurate, and contributes to the feeling of
crochety old man ranting. There are multiple VRD and light field solutions
being worked on to address the multi/vari-focus issue (my current favorite
approach is the micro-lensed near-eye light field displays, although I suspect
that barrier-based LFDs will be what gets adopted first).

Vection _is_ a big issue, but there's a huge amount of 1:1 motion experiences
available, and based on personal/anecdotal experience, most people have no
problem spending 15-30m in them w/o having strong adverse effects. Thousands
of people have done the 10m+ the Oculus Connect and Vive Experience demos w/
very few issues. Based on that, I believe that for experiences w/o artificial
vection, comfort is primarily a software problem at this point, not hardware.

Personally, I'm pretty bullish on all the locomotion experiments going on
(teleportation, re-orientation, redirection). I'm a bit less convinced on
vehicle/cockpit vection w/o linked motion control, but the price is certainly
not an issue for high-end military simulators and lots of enthusiasts are
making DIY 6DOF simulators.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095496/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3095496/)

------
IshKebab
Well, he's obviously wrong because we have it now and it _does_ work. I've
tried the Vive an Rift and while some things made me feel a bit sick, it was
mostly when the camera moves without your direct control (e.g. in Lucky's
Tale).

His section about momentum is stupid - the Vive especially allows 1:1 mapping
from VR to real life so that isn't an issue.

Also, this comment is probably the most stupid thing in there:

> Sadly, the $80,000 googles we made for the US military had less latency,
> higher resolution displays, and more accurate head tracking than any of the
> current round of civilian VR goggles…and they definitely made people sick -
> so this seems unlikely.

Call me a skeptic but _as if_ they had lower latency and higher resolution.
$80k is a tiny budget for the military, and consumer displays and graphics
hardware are the state-of-the-art, not military ones.

~~~
jpatokal
He's wrong because he's worked with the tech for decades, but _you_ tried it
and didn't get sick? The friendly article notes that only about half of users
get sick within a few minutes, although most of the rest do as well within an
hour.

1:1 mapping from VR to real life is fine if you're walking around a small room
(and not puking all over the place). However, it's not fine if you want to
anything that involves a more interesting range of motion: driving, flying,
even walking in a straight line for more than a few meters.

> consumer displays and graphics hardware are the state-of-the-art, not
> military ones

Remember Google Glass, which was all revolutionary and state of the art in
2013? DARPA had these in _1997_ : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_head-
mounted_display#M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_head-
mounted_display#MicroOptical_and_MyVu)

~~~
hodwik
Film made everyone sick when it first came out as well.

People will get used to the sensation, and get over it, especially as they
grow up with it from childhood.

~~~
dominotw
>Film made everyone sick when it first came out as well.

i am really surprised by this. Do you have source for this claim perhaps?

~~~
hodwik
"moving images on the screen aroused a physiological feeling of horror in the
audience (shots of an onrushing train) or physical nausea (shots taken from a
great height or with a swaying camera)" -Jurij Lotman

You could research the Lumiere Brother's films, and probably find some
material on the matter pretty easily.

See also, the history of IMAX (70mm film). Originally invented in 1929, named
Fox Gradeur,they cancelled the product for decades because it was too
realistic, and was making audiences profoundly uncomfortable.

I even recall reading recently that color film and television caused lots of
nausea when they first hit the market.

More recently, you may recall that the Blair Witch project was making
audiences around the country vomit, because they were not yet accustomed to
jerky handheld-style cinema:
[http://amarillo.com/stories/1999/08/13/usn_LA0713.001.shtml#...](http://amarillo.com/stories/1999/08/13/usn_LA0713.001.shtml#.V0sfuXUrLeQ)

------
hurbledr
I think the real issue here isn't if or how often VR headsets cause simulator
sickness. The real issue is that VR can fuck up your proprioception. If
pilots, who are using it relatively infrequently, are having issues lasting
for several hours to several days, what sort of issues are gamers going to
have when they're using these things daily over the course of years?

If I recall correctly, this was one of the biggest issues that Sega ran into
with Sega VR. They knew that short term exposure to 3d/VR would shut off some
of the cues your body uses for depth perception, and they were concerned that
prolonged use might have a more permanent effect. Because of this, their
lawyers advised them not to release the product for fear of lawsuits if people
suffered permanent damage.

~~~
RowanH
Yes - when you get motion sickness badly it's amazing how bad it is and how
long the effects last.

I experienced incredibly bad motion sickness at a racetrack once; the ole
"vestibular disconnect". I had been gradually improving lap times and went to
one circuit which was continual left-right-left-right sequence of corners with
very little let up (cornering G's around 1.5). After 3-4 laps I had the cold
sweats and had to get out of the car... I tried 3 different sessions to shake
it and couldn't. Was dizzy for the remainder of the day wanted to throw up
constantly. A good sleep and I came right. The dizziness was horrible - you
definitely wouldn't want to have that experience then go on to operate heavy
machinery :)

In my understanding talking to a scientist friend in that field - everyone has
different tolerance levels, but when it happens and your body goes into
"caveman mode" the results are horrible. The underlying message in the authors
answer (my read) is it's "be careful... you can really mess someone up".

After that incident at the track my empathy for motion sickness went up a few
notches..

------
egeozcan
I get simulation sickness even from games I play on a 1080p screen from an
arm's length away. I couldn't stand a 3D-glass for more than 15 minutes and
therefore I'm too afraid to even try the VR headsets more than ten seconds (It
gets really bad when it starts with a splitting headache and nausea combined).

However, I feel like I'm in the minority on this. No one around me seems to
have any trouble watching movies in 3D, for a start.

I guess, just as some people aren't fit to operate a vehicle (problem in
eyesight or other reasons) there are some who aren't fit to use VR and I
really doubt they (we) amount to the mentioned 50%.

~~~
jon-wood
I've yet to try a VR headset but because I have very different vision in one
way to the other 3D films simply don't work for me. I can watch them but I
only see them in 2D, my experience with Google Cardboard was the same, so
sadly I don't think I'm ever going to get to experience what others do.

~~~
Jaruzel
Have you got any more information on this effect? I know someone who says the
same happens to them, and I'd love to find out more about it. Thanks!

~~~
jon-wood
I'm told by my optician that my brain never worked out how to use both eyes at
once due to a squint when I was young - at any given time I'm only actually
processing the input from a single eye. They attempted to correct it but my
peculiar vision was picked up much too late in life so it just made me motion
sick as the brain rapidly alternated from one eye to the other. It also means
my depth perception is pretty appalling, at a distance I've learnt to
compensate, but watching me try to put together two small objects close up can
be pretty hilarious as I wildly miss.

It makes sense to me that if I'm only seeing the image for the left or right
eye individually the 3D effect wouldn't work.

~~~
T-A
That reminds me of [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120719-awoken-
from-a-2d-wo...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120719-awoken-
from-a-2d-world)

Maybe it's never too late? This guy was 67 when his brain switched to 3D mode.

------
aniijbod
Using the sweeping assumptions embraced in this article, any 3D games which
happen to cause motion sickness (due to the player having 'six degrees of
freedom' in zero g) to a non-trivial proportion of players when played on a
monitor or TV, such as Descent
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_\(video_game\))
prove unequivocally that 3D games 'will not work' on TVs or monitors.

~~~
mercer
I vaguely recall many alarming articles written about Wolfenstein 3D causing
motion sickness (even some talking about how it was permanent somehow), and
how big of a problem this would be for 3D shooters.

I'm sure we'll be fine eventually.

------
TheCoreh
He mentioned seasickness as an example, yet people still go on cruises.

I think the problem will be "solved" with a combination of improvements in the
tech (light field, etc), conditioning (the brain has surprising plasticity,
especially if you condition it from a very young age), custom designed
applications (to avoid the motion problem), and maybe lots of nausea
medication. :-)

~~~
hurbledr
It's worth noting that the folks in the article reporting simulator sickness
and long term disorientation are pilots, meaning they have been screened and
selected for their endurance and resistance to motion sickness. On top of
that, the symptoms they are reporting go well beyond seasickness. Have a look
at rowanH's comment in this thread for a better idea of the effects we are
talking about.

I'd certainly agree that the brain can adjust to using VR, but at what cost?
If using VR means losing your depth perception and sense of balance, so that
you are walking around bumping into things (or worse driving), then it's
probably not going to be worth it for many people, despite how fun it might
be.

------
serg_chernata
I'm still confused about the price comparison he keeps using. Is that really
apples to apples? The Navy may have wanted to sell a dozen of these units at a
time whereas oculus and HTC go into true mass production. I was always under
the impression that rally limited runs of anything are far more costly per
unit.

------
namuol
> [the goggles] we made for the US military had less latency, higher
> resolution displays, and more accurate head tracking than any of the current
> round of civilian VR goggles

Dubious.

> I believe that the most major problem is with depth perception.

We're well on our way to solving this problem.
([https://youtu.be/8hLzESOf8SE?t=254](https://youtu.be/8hLzESOf8SE?t=254))

> [The momentum problem] simply cannot be fixed by any means. The laws of
> physics don’t allow it.

The solution is simple. VR experiences would need to be more or less fixed to
a small room. AR experiences just don't have this problem.

~~~
jheriko
> Dubious.

I would expect, even a fairly incompetent engineer, to not make such
elementary mistakes... its pretty easy stuff to measure, and even more trivial
to know if you made the thing to start with :P

~~~
namuol
And since it's so easy, you'd expect to be provided with some figures -- not
to mention actual evidence -- no?

------
geon
If the focus distance and convergence distance being mismatched would cause
nausea, how comes 3D movies have no such issues (at least for the vas majority
of viewers - I haven't head anyone complaining)?

And if the distance disparity would indicate hallucination and trigger
vomiting as a defence mechanism agains shrooms, how comes existing FPS games
have no such issues?

Some people claimed to have problems playing Mirrors Edge back in 2009, but it
seemed like it was mostly the hype and the attention-craving. I myself never
felt any issues, and neither did anyone I've talked to.

~~~
mistersquid
Anecdotally: I get very nauseous watching or playing FPS's.

Watching a friend play _DOOM_ in 1996, playing _Halo_ in the 2010s, playing
_Fallout 4_ (on a 65" screen about 2 m distant) today: all these scenarios
have induced nausea in me.

On more than one occasion, an hour of play has put me in and out sleep for 12
hours.

~~~
e12e
Me too. I get (relatively) easily motion sick - in fact, I can't play Halo
full-screen (but have rounded Halo 1 some dozen times on legendary in co-op
split screen). And I have no problems playing "Elite: Dangerous" on the Oculus
DK2.

On the same headset, the "Villa on a hill" demo scene is problematic, though,
because of some issues with geometry inside the house (warping angles), and
more generally, "walking" around while sitting down.

I think it'll be interesting to see how motion sickness from VR compares to
seasickness -- I've talked to many people that have been sailors -- and
started out with lots of problems, but eventually "got over it". And I've also
heard stories of people that _never_ got over it.

I don't think everyone will enjoy the same VR games and experiences, but I
don't see how that's any different from other games and software. There are
some FPS games I simply can't enjoy -- but those games still sell well. So I
don't see why VR can't be a great success for a market that doesn't include
everyone.

As a counter-point, I know people that can't focus on text on screens that
have a resolution below the "retina"-screens, and there are of course a number
of people with various sight-related issues (See eg: Moore's "Color Forth"
system, and why he made it the way he did).

Perhaps VR will create a new, substantial section of the populace that will
need to be classified as "limited function" due to not being able to use VR.
No-one is claiming we should retire 2d screens because they are of no use to
blind people. That's not to say there won't be controversy, but seeing that
many people already enjoy VR, should be enough to point out that it's likely
some form of VR will remain useful in the future, especially now that it is
arguably rather affordable?

------
valine
> so driving a car while “under the influence” of post-VR disorientation is
> probably as dangerous as drunk-driving.

That seems like a bit of a stretch to me. The only evidence cited is that the
military issued a warning about driving after exiting a military flight
simulator. I'm not questioning that the effects of VR can persist after
exiting the simulation, I just don't think they can be compared to the effects
of alcohol without significantly more investigation.

------
intrasight
The authors points about both ocular and vestibular sources of VR nausea are
valid, and both will probably be resolved. There are two solution paths:
technical and biological. The author spent a bit of time on the technical
solutions but none on the biological solutions. The simplest biological
solution is one that we all already possess to varying degrees - neural
plasticity. The brain is a plastic organ. In young children it is even more
plastic. I doubt that the studies have yet been done, but I'd bet that kids
trained with high-quality VR goggles from the age of three would not suffer
from either form of nausea. Also I doubt that they would suffer from the
after-effects of VR. Old-timers like myself will experience nausea. For my
wife, it will be so bad that she just won't do it. I expect that the majority
of today's adults will reject VR. But as with all things, the children are the
future.

AR is a different thing entirely. The Hololens holoportation demo was one of
the most amazing tech demos I've ever seen. Watching that, you know where the
future lies. The gear manufacturers may not like to admit it, but there will
likely be a long "arcade" phase to AR entertainment were we pay a visit to a
"holodeck" facility that has the half a million dollars in gear which would be
required to make this a great experience. I have no problem with that - I
already pay to go see a movie or go bowling or to an amusement park.

------
Wintamute
Why then is the HTC Vive Reddit filled with post after post of people having a
great time playing games for hours, and very few reports of nausea or
sickness? I'm not suggesting we ignore health concerns related to VR, but the
huge gulf between the anecdotal evidence post-launch and this guys VR sickness
apocalypse make me think something is off.

~~~
SolarNet
Hype, people don't want to up-vote nay-saying (if they even bother to report
it), would be my guess (assuming the nausea is actually a serious problem,
this would be my explanation).

~~~
Wintamute
I agree, hype _could_ be an explanation, but it seems unlikely.

Multiple multinational companies sink many billions of R&D dollars into
fundamentally flawed and dangerous consumer technology. Said consumers, not
wanting to accept the truth conspire to almost completely suppress any
meaningful spread of reports of the flaw.

Feels sorta unlikely to me! That's not really how the world works. Surely the
simplest explanation is most likely ... that first gen consumer VR is in most
cases "good enough", and a significant minority consumers experience some
amount of sickness, but not enough to invalidate the industry?

------
fsloth
VR for flight sims is a bit different than the designer scenarios that to me
seem the most interesting use scenarios of the current fad in VR.

An architects experience on hololens:

[https://youtu.be/70xDCokzAck](https://youtu.be/70xDCokzAck)

Microsoft promo - but I doubt the architect would like to make a total ass of
himself. I work in CAD for construction and while not directly involved in
Hololens projects people mostly see this as transformational for their
clients. So, there might be actual value here but the market has not yet
spoken.

In previous VR surges designers were not so educated in digital and the
workflows were not there. VR was a thing itself - now it's more like a one
more view into an established process and dataset - and is actually only an
incremental change and not a profound one (and is thus likelier to succeed)

------
stcredzero
_So we’re continually estimating range using the tensions in two sets of
muscles - one for focus, the other for convergence. When the brain gets the
right signals, these two mechanisms agree perfectly._

Just got my HTC Vive. Nausea isn't a problem for me, but age has definitely
made me farsighted. Muscles in my eye might strain to let me focus close, but
that's just not happening nowadays. Since this has happened gradually over the
years, my brain has gotten used to it.

Oddly enough, when I tried the Oculus Rift, I found I could focus more clearly
on nearby virtual objects than far away ones. Not only is VR an alternate
reality where I can play with force fields and laser beams, it's a reality
where my eyes aren't old anymore and work correctly.

------
bhouston
My wife tried Google cardboard and immediately felt really bad and it lasted
for a while.

~~~
agildehaus
Cardboard isn't real VR. Honestly. Today's smartphones DO NOT have the proper
screens or sensors. You will get sick. Don't force it on others who might not
be willing to tolerate that.

Google's Daydream is all about creating standards to improve this situation.

------
elliotec
Part of me wonders if children are exposed to this technology from a young
age, will they experience this type of sickness at all? Like how our parents
couldn't figure out a nintendo or can barely open an email, maybe our children
will be like "duh dad, you puke after 10 min in VR while I can live here all
day!"

I think children that grow up on the sea adapt to sea sickness, maybe similar
here.

~~~
spyder
_" The peak incidence occurs in children under 12 years, but it is uncommon in
infants. ... Children under two years old are highly resistant to motion
sickness, as they are often supine and do not use visual cues for spatial
orientation. Susceptibility peaks around 10–12 years of age."_

[http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/32/3/61/3/](http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/32/3/61/3/)

------
DoctorBit
I don't have a VR headset so I can't speak from direct experience about VR,
but I don't buy the author's argument that the disparity between the
divergence system and the focusing system makes elimination of nausea
impossible. I have two pairs of single-vision prescription glasses: one for
walking and driving, and one for looking at computer screens. They have
different focusing characteristics, and yet I can switch from one pair to the
other without any disabling effects. Hell, I even wear a set of bifocals
sometimes and switch back and forth from one second to the next. Some people
even like wearing "progressive" lenses that have continuously varying focal
lengths from the top of the lens to the bottom of the lens. Lots of people
like using reading glasses too; I've never heard of anyone getting sick from
that. I think the author is underestimating people's ability to get used to
different focal lengths.

------
satysin
I quite enjoy using the current VR systems, Vive in particular is very
impressive although not at all practical for most people.

PSVR is impressive and what I think will be the most successful system as it
the best value and already has a ~40m user install base where it will "just
work".

For me the biggest issue is using any of these systems for more than 20-30
minutes is uncomfortable as you have this big unit sat on your face. Whereas
when I sit down to game I like to do so for a couple of hours but that just
isn't possible (for me) with VR.

------
tacos
In addition to the distance cues the brain derives from eye musculature he
mentions, there are also distance cues based on audio perception. This perhaps
explains why dramamine has an odd impact on VR motion sickness.

The audio tech in this area is pretty weak. Dolby Surround is about "gee whiz"
not detailed modeling of environments with customizations for the impulse
response of each moviegoer's ear canal. Lots of work to be done.

~~~
jobigoud
We do have positional audio in modern consumer VR headsets. (And I'd bet the
military units mentioned in OP don't have it). This goes way beyond binaural
audio.

~~~
tacos
The headphones are pretty bad -- and not isolated. So part of my brain is
hearing "living room" while the rest is hearing "wide open space." I posit
this contributes to the problem. Also two imperfect immersive sources (video +
audio) that each lag is far worse than one.

I was glad to see Oculus was tackling the problem... then I got a look at what
they were actually doing. Can't say more other than to point out there's a
_lot_ more work to be done.

------
JayHost
A lot of people are selling their Gear VR on Ebay.

The Gear VR was a really cool device despite The Oculus software being crap.
(Forcing online connectivity for offline app)

The device made me sick for hours after I used it personally.

Worth it!

It seems like people commenting don't want to take in the point of view that
VR is just too early at this point.

VR is very cool but you don't want to develop for the hype train unless you
have the dedication to get over

the hurdles and can take a a financial upset.

~~~
Lewton
The Gear VR doesn't have positional tracking. It makes lightyears worth of a
difference

------
stevefeinstein
I used to play Doom, and Quake and would have to lie down and curse the
developers. It was almost identical to having been on a sailboat in rough seas
below deck. It's terrible. I wonder if the same seasickness remedies used on
water would work with VR. Frankly, after what I got from games 20 years ago,
I'm really afraid more modern realistic VR will be even worse.

~~~
Frenchgeek
For some reason, Wolfenstein 3D did that to me. Except when I tried it on a
286... No idea why.

------
Kim_Bruning
Wouldn't a collimator solve the problem of having the image too close to the
eyes? In fact, that's how a hud solves it too.

------
4rt
i had my only ever car crash the morning after getting my dk2. no excuses, but
i'm interested if it might have been related.

------
n-gauge
I've yet to blow chunks on a vr headset, however in 2015 I came close via a
homemade headset for a nexus 7 with the cardboard app 'Drive City
Rollercoster' Dispite nearly falling down the stairs with a nexus 7 strapped
to my head, (I broke my fall with my left arm) I'm sure this tech will take
off this year.

------
riprowan
As an older consumer I have found that as I age I am more and more sensitive
to these sorts of effects.

I used to love to play games, now I can only play "unrealistic" games.
Anything 1st person makes me sick. This effect gets worse as I age.

------
omarforgotpwd
I have a hard time believing that driving after using VR is the same as
driving drunk. The problems described are real, but we need to work towards
solving them sooner or later so why not now? It will get better and better
over time.

------
cm2187
I find the problem of the pain in the neck of heavy VR headsets a lot worse
than nausea. I get nausea after maybe a couple of hours. But for the neck, I
have to remove the headset regularly for it to be bearable.

------
ausjke
I also felt VR will be ended up like what 3D-TV did, that something sounds
great initially but can't be adopted for many people, you got dizzy and sick
after a while and that is enough to stop using it.

------
tempodox
I'm wondering why the Oculus developers didn't take those things into account,
especially since they are so well known to experts. The most interesting
challenges of VR seem, as of yet, unsolved.

~~~
drewrv
The whole momentum section has been solved. If you take an existing video game
where you use a controller to move an avatar that will make you sick, however
if you map the games controls 1:1 to the users motion then the problem
disappears.

------
reddytowns
What he neglects to mention is both studies raise concerns about simulations
of _helicopters_. From the abstract of the first study:

"The simulators which exhibited the highest incidences of sickness were
helicopter simulators with cathode ray tube (CRT) infinity optics and six-
degrees-of-freedom moving base systems. Of those studied, fixed-wing, fixed-
base, dome displays had relatively low incidence of simulator sickness."

If you read the second study, the VR environments tested we're exclusively
those of piloting helicopters.

Since helicopters have a lot of lateral and rotational acceleration, its
plausible that this is why the simulation sickness is so great.

------
personjerry
Don't we use regular monitor at short ranges too? Why don't we get motion
sickness from them to the same degree?

~~~
styrophone
According to the OP, it's because the distance cues from focal length and
disparity are consistent with each other.

------
bitL
Perspective projection is the problem. Make the following experiment yourself:

Stand in front of a tall building/chimney. Now look at the base of the
building. Slowly raise your eyes to go from the bottom to the top. You
perceive dimensions of the building as the same all the time.

Now do the same on camera. You notice the building changes its dimensions as
you raise the view.

This effect will make you feel sick when you have it right next to your eyes.
Brain simply does much more for our perception to work.

~~~
WalterSear
That's just because the camera and your eye's focal range differ. It's trivial
to fix.

~~~
bitL
Not really. Even if you take FOV 60 degress, the artifacts are still there.
It's simply a matter of projection based on similar triangles on a plane.
Retina is curved, eyes are also micro-moving all the time amongst other things
to estimate depth. Perspective projection is the elephant in the room of
CG/VR, there were multiple PhDs on how to perceptually correct this but
everybody stays with simple affine matrix because it is convenient and 1/z is
linear for quick depth comparison. Remember Wolfenstein 3D? Raycasting there
didn't deform dimensions of objects. Doom however deforms them. Just start W3D
in front of a wall and look left-right. Wall's dimensions don't change. Now do
the same in Doom. Vertigo!

~~~
WalterSear
I stand corrected :)

------
empath75
I've had an oculus for weeks and have none of these problems. I even played
Ethan carter without comfort controls and as long as I'm not standing up its
fine. Standing up while moving in vr just makes me lose my balance.

The only time I've gotten sick at all on vr is playing project cars, and that
was only from reversing and going forwards a few times after a wreck.

It really sounds like he's basing this on no experience with the current
generation of headsets.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
He states in the article that he worked on an Oculus project, and in general
has worked with both military and civilian simulators for years. He's basing
his conclusions on extensive data.

~~~
jobigoud
I want to know if he worked on a DK1 or a later headset. If the former then
his entire essay is completely moot (no positional tracking).

------
wcummings
The problem with VR is that it's useless. It's a narcotic distraction.

------
JackPoach
Time will tell.

------
zxcvcxz
It will work, it just won't catch on because people don't want to wear shit on
their face all day and look like a moron talking to beings 90% of the
population can't see. It's just a toy for gamers and developers right now. No
telling when the general population will start using VR regularly but probably
not until the devices start to look like a regular pair of glasses.

~~~
Razengan
> people don't want to _______ all day and look like a moron talking to beings
> 90% of the population can't see.

You mean, like radio and telephone and television and computers and
smartphones?

~~~
putzdown
Oh no. Oh no no no. I think it's pretty clear that VR headsets make you look
like a moron at a whole new level. Take away a person's eyes—hide their eyes
so that they seem to have none—and you take away a lot. Put them in touch with
a private world and you make them even more alien. Radio, telephone, even
television can't compete with that level of moron-looking.

~~~
Razengan
I assure you people said those exact same things when radio, telephone,
television and smartphones came on the scene. Since that last one is pretty
recent, I'm sure you would remember all the comics and satire around people
being absorbed in their iPhones and whatnot.

