Do you have VR?

Nalates · **Posted:** Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:17 pm

For those of us that migrated to Second Life, Obduction and Sansar were tempting reasons to go with VR.

What I have found is most VR is low quality and has weak user interfaces. The image quality available in desktop Obduction isn't there in VR. The 2960x1440 screen split to 1480x1440 for each eye and then magnified to fill the field of view makes the pixel pattern visible. To see something similar on a desktop screen (1920x1080) one needs to turn it down to 800x600 and it still is marginally better than my magnified phone screen.

VR headsets get hot. Both from trapped body heat and with phones the heat a phone generates when rendering images.

Between makeup running and hair getting messed up from one's scalp sweating under the headset straps, the content has to provide a huge entertainment value to make a cost-to-benefit ratio that works for people. I think these are reasons the VR world is not taking off as expected.

Also, the tech side of VR is a mess right now. I've never gotten Obduction to run 'correctly' on my Gear VR. To get most stuff to run on Cardboard or Gear VR and other VR headsets is a painful days-long process of trial and error. Everything is designed for Oculus. The field lacks standardization. So, it is: check the demo before buying... if you can find a demo.

However, I have seen some fun and impressive stuff. Walking the Great Wall of China and visiting numerous places captured in 360-VR still images has been WAY fun.

I equate my VR headset to the stereo viewer I had as a kid, the one where you put a disk with little half-inch square pictures in and clicked through them. And I use my VR about as often as I used that viewer... which after a short time is almost never.

IMO, VR is still premature. The tech does more than ever before, but not enough. Screen resolution of VR headsets even at 4k UHD is barely going to be good enough... and not equal to the experience of a 4K TV or desktop monitor. The 2K HD screens are like the 800x600 screens used decades ago.

VR requires enormous computing power and incredible screen resolution. Mobile devices aren't there yet. I've pretty much relegated my VR to still images processed to VR on my phone or VR rendered on my PC and streamed to the phone for display.

FreddyD · **Joined:** Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:16 am **Posts:** 22

I wish it were otherwise, but after less than a minute of moving my head around with VR goggles I get ginormously motion-sick. It takes hours to go away.

I'm excited about Firmament, but hope it's not VR-only. Given the current slow improvement in VR sales, I can't see Cyan making that decision... unless they're trying for a groundbreaking killer app that would do the same for VR as Myst did for CD...?

Gondar · **Posted:** Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:56 pm

VR is a great idea, but I have the slight issue where after a bit I get an eye-ache as my eyes try to focus on their own way instead of what's being pushed at then, Computer monitors I can look away and take a bit to get rid of eyestrain. VR doesn't do that. So no VR, and no plans ever.

Hopefully if this connected project does get the attention of a publisher (I'd love to say 'when' but Obduction had to be crowdsourced after all) or something similar they'll have a non-VR for those of us who either can't use VR or are on compotatos (with all the processing power of spuds, the sort that struggle at obduction at medium settings) or both.

Tomala · **Posted:** Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:37 am

I guess in the meantime if you have Windows 10 you'll have this to look forward to.

Gondar · **Posted:** Sun Mar 18, 2018 5:03 am

Just saw that yeah. Hooray, I guess? I have win7 still and never had issues with them (well, ok, once you get quicktime of some variety to go it works). Is it really that bad on win10? Good to see they're doing it all though, particularly if it's an issue... and the idea of a set of nice physical box releases is also nice... but if the games won't run on win10 and you can't/won't fight with a virtual machine that's a nice grab.

Hopefully Cyan makes enough off of it to firm(ament) up their cashbase for the new game!

Sirius · **Joined:** Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:41 am **Posts:** 69

Nah, VR is fine, especially for first generation hardware. Just don't expect cheap hacks like Cardboard or non-native VR games to do it justice - Nalates highlighted the issues you'll run into. And don't listen to naysayers like Adam (peace man

)
Obduction is a good game, but there is a whole world between VR Obduction and a true room scale game designed from the ground up as a VR experience.

Though it's true that Cyan might not be targeting Uru players when they do VR. Can't appeal to everyone, Uru is only a fraction of their audience after all...

On a side note, Cyan revolutionized the gaming industry with Myst. And now they even get the chance to participate in the VR revolution, almost one generation later. They aren't VRChat, but still, this is pretty darn exciting :shock:

Tomala · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2018 12:21 am

Sirius wrote:

Though it's true that Cyan might not be targeting Uru players when they do VR. Can't appeal to everyone, Uru is only a fraction of their audience after all...

The same can be said about VR compared to modern gaming. You're not going to see a lot of gamers shelling out hundreds of dollars on a fad that might make them motion sick.

FreddyD · **Joined:** Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:16 am **Posts:** 22

FreddyD wrote:

I'm excited about Firmament, but hope it's not VR-only. Given the current slow improvement in VR sales, I can't see Cyan making that decision... unless they're trying for a groundbreaking killer app that would do the same for VR as Myst did for CD...?

From belford's blog post on his experience playing the Firmament demo at GDC:

belford wrote:

This demo is VR-only; they've got an Oculus Touch hooked up for people to play with. The game itself is marked "platform TBD", which is the only thing they can possibly say at this early stage. It's probably fair to say that they're designing it with VR in mind, but that doesn't mean it would be VR-only or even VR-first at launch time.

belford · **Joined:** Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:01 pm **Posts:** 1890

I can add to that a little, actually, since I heard a few more comments on Thursday.

They want to design Firmament for VR *compatibility*. That means making sure that all the graphics can render on a VR headset at the necessary resolution and frame rate. (I gather that Obduction was a bit too graphics-heavy to be completely smooth on all VR headsets.)

The game *requirements* are, as I said in the blog post, "TBD". (Literally that. They had an info sheet out on the table, and it said "Platform: TBD. Release date: TBD.")

Karkadann · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:37 pm

Iv had a chance to try the real fancy expensive ones, the graphics are great, but they kinda remind me of a cross between the Matrix, and The Terminator with subliminal messages. It seems like a great system, but in the wrong hands you can realy mess up someones mind with that stuff.

Still thinking about getting one thought, but if I do its gonna be long after they get all the bugs out, one of the issues that was pointed out to me was a loose connection to the speakers that developed after a long time of normal use.

and lets face it the graphics are great but with out the sound its just an eh

FreddyD · **Joined:** Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:16 am **Posts:** 22

Meanwhile, the next wave of future VR customers aren't exactly beating down the doors:

Common Sense Media checks the temperature on VR for kids

Quote:

As virtual reality struggles to reach mass adoption, new US research from non-profit org Common Sense Media takes a closer look at parents’ attitudes about VR for kids, and answers questions parents and teachers have about the emerging technology and its potential impact on children.

...Among the key findings around ownership and interest levels, only one in five US families (21%) with children under 18 report owning a VR device, and the majority (65%) aren’t planning to buy VR hardware.

...According to the survey, 50% of kids in the sample of parents of eight- to 17-year-olds who use VR hadn’t used their VR device in the past week, and only 6% of parents said that one or more of their children had used VR every day in the past week.

Amongst families with children under 18 who don’t own and are not planning to buy a VR device, lack of interest in using the technology was the top reason why (56%); 31% don’t know enough about VR, 28% say it’s too expensive, 20% are concerned about health effects, 10% think it’s gimmicky, and 6% say it’s too hard to discover content.

As for VR’s impact on health, 60% of parents say they are at least “somewhat concerned” that their kids will experience negative health effects while using VR, and half of them are “very concerned.” Amongst parents of eight- to 17-year-olds who use VR, 13% of kids have experienced bumping into something, 11% reported dizziness, 10% have suffered headaches, and 8% reported eye strain....

The report comes on the heels of a new US study from Deloitte, which found that consumers’ value of VR headsets has fallen by 14% since 2015, although there is growing demand for digital reality experiences....

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2018 6:13 pm

I'm not a believer in VR or 3D in general. Head warts are not the way to go. They are worse than cell phones that remove people from their awareness of live surroundings. But augmented reality has great applications in such things as medicine and exploration, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial. 3D is attempted with some new twist every decade, and it's always been a gimmick; a hyped fad that fails - mostly recently 3D TV.

BUT...

Reading the article above, I have to wonder if the same article could have been written about TVs when they first started to appear in households last century, and then color TVs, and then computers, and then the internet, and then cell phones... Ad nauseum. How much different would those articles really have been?

In other words, is there anything in this article that is specifically new and not just a rehashed template for for all new technologies, or technology itself, that are introduced and have eventually and inevitably changed our way of life?

FreddyD · **Joined:** Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:16 am **Posts:** 22

JWPlatt wrote:

...Reading the article above, I have to wonder if the same article could have been written about TVs when they first started to appear in households last century, and then color TVs, and then computers, and then the internet, and then cell phones... Ad nauseum. How much different would those articles really have been?

In other words, is there anything in this article that is specifically new and not just a rehashed template for for all new technologies, or technology itself, that are introduced and have eventually and inevitably changed our way of life?

Exactly. Edison thought the main use for motion pictures would be education. The first entrepreneurs to use it as an entertainment medium mimicked the style of stage plays. Radio was first seen as an extension of telegraphy. Television programming was first little more than radio-shows-with-pictures. New tech, old content.

Which is why I wondered in my upstream post if, with Firmament, Cyan might be envisioning some new form of content that would do for consumer VR what Myst did for CD-ROM: Content so compelling that the pricey new tech became a necessity, not an option.

From Belford's experience at GDC, though, it would appear not. At least, not now.

And then if not Cyan... who? And when?

Sirius · **Joined:** Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:41 am **Posts:** 69

JWPlatt wrote:

In other words, is there anything in this article that is specifically new and not just a rehashed template for for all new technologies, or technology itself, that are introduced and have eventually and inevitably changed our way of life?

Very well said.
We're living the exact same social schizm that precedes any form of progress. Internet, consoles, cinema, personal TVs, heck even public libraries and book printing must have gone through the same deal.

Progress is defined by people tearing each other arguing about whether this progress is worth it or not, whether it might be dangerous. Progress isn't progress without annoying naysayers and annoying enthusiasts.

Besides, progress happens because of young generations, not because of old timers. We're an old community from an old game, so I guess most of us are obsolete to gaming anyway. The fact that VR is even discussed here means it already has a big impact on society.

Compared to the early years of video games, VR technology is incredibly ahead of it's time - and it's got Valve, Microsoft and Facebook pushing it, and smaller companies buying it because of marketing. Yeah, it's expensive, headsets aren't comfortable, resolution isn't top-notch. Just give it a few years and it won't be VR headsets, but VR glasses you can buy for the price of today's monitor.

On a side-note, XKCD has some comics about new technologies that are pretty relevant IMHO.

belford · **Joined:** Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:01 pm **Posts:** 1890

Quote:

We're living the exact same social schizm that precedes any form of progress. Internet, consoles, cinema, personal TVs, heck even public libraries and book printing must have gone through the same deal.

So has VR. The first time, in the late 90s.

Do you have VR?

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