Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

[cheapchips]

Things like chairs and treadmills are interesting for specific problems. They're not how VR will reach millions of more users. They're a niche that'll happen after more widespread adoption. The spousal approval barrier on those is huge.

Oculus were pushing it with their launch price point and minimum spec as it was.

 

[MfA]

You could make it look like a normal office chair. Lock the wheels in VR mode, plug in and hit VR chat to roleplay Ugandan Knuckles.

Spending a bit of money to make VR more successful in the niches where it can actually be successful on the short term prevents backlash and bad PR. It's not the normies growing revenue in VR at the moment.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You could make it look like a normal office chair. Lock the wheels in VR mode, plug in and hit VR chat to roleplay Ugandan Knuckles.

Spending a bit of money to make VR more successful in the niches where it can actually be successful on the short term prevents backlash and bad PR. It's not the normies growing revenue in VR at the moment.

Sure but try to convince most spouses to allow a wired hookup that hangs from the ceiling. My fiancé already thinks gaming is equivalent to using drugs.

I could probably convince her to have an Oculus Rift in the house as it is unobtrusive and the whole thing can relatively easily be hidden away when not in use.. I definitely would have no chance to convince her to allow me to install a Vive in the house with the light houses.

Among my group of RL friends, only one married person has a Vive, the rest of them that have VR could only get approval for an Oculus Rift.

Myself, I want a Pimax 8Kx. My only route to getting approval for it is as a development display that will allow me to potentially reduce the amount of displays I have on my work desk. IE - less visible "clutter". Since it uses light houses as well, I'm going to have to hope you can use those relatively close to the headset like the Oculus Rift sensor.

Techie couples would have no problems. But mass market? Going to run into some issues.

I wonder if that's also part of the reason the Oculus Rift has been outselling the Vive for the past few months. That and the lower price point.

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

The ceiling thing was just something which could be made ultracheap for use with a normal swivel chair.

I still don't see a mass market for VR period, not in the sense of living room use. Why would you lock yourself off completely from your environment in a living room? TV and couch gaming can be shared, and still allow some human contact ... someone with a VR headset on is an accessory in the room, an ugly accessory.

It can be as mass market as gaming and Second Life, something you best do behind a desktop PC. An environment in which you can have a far superior experience. Lack of physical rotation seeming to be the biggest problem for motion sickness, so please someone solve it ... cheaper than RotoVR.

 

[manux]

Roundup of news

Eye tracking from tobii. Not just for rendering but also as a game mechanics. Looks solid and is getting rave reviews. This seems to be good improvement over non eye tracking solution

Tobii's CEO, Henrik Eskilsson, told us that eye tracking will eventually be viewed as a requirement for VR. And I'm inclined to believe him. Accurate eye tracking delivers a better sense of presence, which is really the ultimate goal for virtual reality. Trying Tobii's technology for just 30 minutes has already ruined me for every VR headset without it. I'd call that a success.

some sensor rings around the Vive's lenses, it didn't look as if the company added much to the headset. Instead, its hardware is able to seamlessly fit inside the Vive.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/13/tobii-vr-eye-tracking/

Official vive wireless headset adapter

The flip side of the impressive image quality is noticeable latency. It wasn’t horrendous by any means, but I’m confident that in a blind test between a tethered Vive and one using the Vive Wireless Adapter, I’d be able to pick which is which with 100% accuracy. It may be subtle enough that some users wouldn’t notice it outright, but they may end up feeling it, since higher latency can cause accumulating discomfort.

https://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2018-vive-wireless-adapter-hands-on-robust-connection-latency-too/

Yet another hands on for vive pro

First and foremost is the headset’s improved display, which offers 78% more pixels with a 2,880 × 1,600 resolution (1,440 × 1,600 per display). This makes a big difference in clarity of the VR world. With the original Vive’s 2,160 × 1,200 resolution it’s relatively easy to see sub-pixels (the little red, green, and blue dots that mix together to make white, and every other color you see). Looking through the lenses of the Vive Pro, not only have the sub-pixels disappeared, it’s challenging to even make out whole pixels.

https://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2018-vive-pro-hands-on-much-more-than-an-improved-screen/


Weirdest gaming "chair" ever?

Yaw VR is a portable motion simulator seat that could be ideal for cockpit-based VR experiences like Dirt Rally or Ace Combat 7. The initially dome-shaped device is set up to instead resemble a dish that rests in a stand with three supports that are able to spin and tilt the dish with three degrees of freedom

https://uploadvr.com/yaw-vr-portable-motion-simulator-seat-headset/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

https://uploadvr.com/yaw-vr-portable-motion-simulator-seat-headset/

Awesome! This is something (mechanized device with 3DoF) that I speculated on in a prior post in the thread as potentially being able to overcome most forms of motion sickness. Similar to industrial and military flight training devices or high end display oriented amusement park "rides".

If the latency in response for the device is low enough it may provide enough physical feedback to the ear canal and your body that your brain will be fooled into thinking you are actually feeling physical forces that match what your eyes see visually.

It likely won't help much with walking motions, but should with driving or piloting.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

It's because they all use 60 GHz to get high enough bandwidth (TPCAST 2.0 can also work over 5 GHz, but with significant amounts of compression). There's a lot of expensive engineering with non recouped costs behind that.

But something which you can hang on your ceiling with a rotating slip ring could be made far cheaper.

my cousin got the tp cast for the vive and it sucks , its alot of work to get going and just adds weight to the headset.

I think Oculus is right in waiting until 2019 for their next headset. They should be able to get a higher res perhaps even 4k panels with some type of eye tracking to reduce the rendering load and hopefully they can introduce it in a package as light as the current rift

 

[eloic]

my cousin got the tp cast for the vive and it sucks , its alot of work to get going and just adds weight to the headset.

I think Oculus is right in waiting until 2019 for their next headset. They should be able to get a higher res perhaps even 4k panels with some type of eye tracking to reduce the rendering load and hopefully they can introduce it in a package as light as the current rift

Maybe TPCast sucks, but is this better?

 

[eastmen]

Maybe TPCast sucks, but is this better?

dunno , its not out yet so i can't really tell you. I do hope they are able to get the wireless portion down in cost , reduced in weight and lag free without needing point of sight. I believe we are going to have to wait for the headset companies to include it in the headsets so its not a bulky add on

 

[MfA]

my cousin got the tp cast for the vive and it sucks , its alot of work to get going and just adds weight to the headset.

Neither the weight or finnickyness will change much. 60 GHz is line of sight and the weight is mostly because of the battery. I did say it was a suboptimal solution.

At 5 GHz you need a ton of compression, especially with warping motion I doubt that will be visually lossless.

 

[eastmen]

Neither the weight or finnickyness will change much. 60 GHz is line of sight and the weight is mostly because of the battery. I did say it was a suboptimal solution.

the battery isn't the problem , that sits on your belt or in your back pocket. The real problem is the piece on the head set.

Line of site isn't horrible but i don't want to have to use their router . What I would like is a small usb adapter thatn i can run up the wall , maybe 2 of them for better coverage and thats it. Ithe curernt stuff requires their own router

 

[MfA]

It's 24 Gb/s, USB doesn't cut it.

PS. oops that's the displaylink solution, still that's where you want to go.

 

[manux]

During the Display Week tradeshow in late May, Google and LG are reportedly set to reveal a highly-detailed 18-megapixel 4.3-inch OLED VR headset display

https://uploadvr.com/18-megapixel-display-unveiled-may-google-lg/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

https://uploadvr.com/18-megapixel-display-unveiled-may-google-lg/

Hoping it'll be wide FOV, but I'm doubtful it will be unfortunately. While I much prefer OLED over LCD for VR, I'll still take wide FOV over narrow (current VR devices) FOV 100% of the time.

Regards,
SB

 

[manux]

Google released a free app on Steam called Welcome to Light Fields that shows a quick tease of what this technology is capable of producing. Using a special camera (shown below) Google is able to capture 3D images that can be freely explored as if they were rendered in a game engine like Unity or Unreal. It’s sort of like a 360 photo, but it’s not flat and has actual depth. It really feels like you’re there.

https://uploadvr.com/googles-new-light-field-app-tantalizing-look-vrs-future/

 

[Arwin]

https://uploadvr.com/googles-new-light-field-app-tantalizing-look-vrs-future/

Reminds me a bit of that demo with the violin and piano player on PSVR.

 

[xexuxjy]

Thought some of these looked interesting, particular the David Attenborough fossils one, and the 'Wonderful You' one (have downloaded it from OR store, but not watched it yet...)

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...ouse-the-best-of-sxsws-fantastic-vr-festival/

 

[manux]

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Watching that I kept hoping the girl would turn towards the player and scream out, "STOP THAT YOU PERVERT!" Of course, it wasn't going to happen as that's the type of person they want to draw in.

Sex sells. I think more things like this that are less obviously pervy than Illusion games may end up being the killer app. for VR. I've seen quite a few people on reddit who have bought a VR headset just to play Illusion games.

Regards,
SB

 

[manux]

Oculus go reviews are starting to hit the web. Looks like hw is solid but there is a lot of open questions for how facebook handles your data.

But you can't talk about a $199 VR device without appreciating what got its mix of quality and affordability across the finish line. Oculus Go wouldn't be where it is—incredible LCD performance, impressive skull-bouncing speakers, optimized 3D imagery, and a cleverly engineered cloth headstrap, all at a low price—without Facebook and Xiaomi's combined R&D muscle. When Mark Zuckerberg set a goal of getting "a billion people in VR" last year, he must have believed Oculus Go would launch in such an impressive fashion.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...wireless-vr-future-begins-today-for-only-199/