Valve has issued a challenge to the entire entertainment industry, and that challenge has a name: “presence.” Presence is the magic that vr has always promised, and it is what will transform entertainment.
Presence is the new term for a concept most have never experienced, not even those with oculus kits. It is the result of all their research, it is what vr is and what vr does.
Presence is a state in which, due to a variety of factors, virtual reality becomes imperceptible from reality. A number of technological hurdles must be passed before this occurs – 95hz refresh rate seems to be neccessary (but maybe not!). High resolution is necessary. Latency from motion to last photon needs to cross below 20 ms. Pixel persistence of less than 3ms is a must, and is reasonably the upper limit. A wide fov is necessary, at least 85 degrees (the rift is 90). Positional tracking accurate within 5 mm. Much more advanced optics than currently exist. And all this is just for visual stuff, you also need user input, content, etc.
Once all these meld, however, you are in for a wild ride. Once presence kicks in, you cannot stop your subconscious from feeling like it is real. You’ll feel vertigo. You’ll start sweating under the sun. You’ll get goosebumps in the cold. Once these low level functions of the brain are convinced, for all intent and purpose, you are in the game. The holodeck realized.
The demo valve put together here, they believe, is one of the first vr experiences on the planet to approach presence. You’ve read the impressions, people are blown away even if they can’t quantify why. Presence is why. Immersion is nothing compared to presence.
Valve doesn’t intend to produce a vr headset, theirs is an r&d proto. They might, but it’s not in the works. Instead, they’re freely sharing their research with a number of companies who will bring vr to the masses, she they believe oculus will lead the revolution.
“The doom of vr is coming” said abrash, indicating that soon a transformative experience that will define vr is inevitable. Valve sees vr as the most important venture going forward. Out will iterate on pc, and it will change the world. They believe a consumer vr experience that invokes presence will be available by 2015. Today is day one, the rules of vr are being written right now.
Palmer luckey came in doing clean up, preaching what he’s learned about vr development, what works and what doesn’t. That stuff is widely available online, so I wont cover it… yet. But valve issued the gauntlet – bringing vr to the masses will take the joined effort of the entire entertainment industry. This is larger than one single company. When we arrive, and we will arrive, it will change not just entertainment, but computing entirely.
Ready, player one?
