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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:12PM
from the did-you-see-what-they-did-there? dept.
from the did-you-see-what-they-did-there? dept.
You can't escape virtual reality.
VR headsets from Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung are getting ready to hit the market. Their goal: to give you an easy-to-use virtual reality experience with your PC at a lower price than competing headsets from the likes of Sony, Facebook and HTC.
That's the promise of VR powered by Microsoft Windows, the software that runs hundreds of millions of PCs and tablets around the world. When Microsoft begins sending out a free update to Windows 10 on Tuesday, it'll power VR headsets as well. It's called "Windows Mixed Reality."
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Microsoft Wants to Reimagine Virtual Reality
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Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday October 18 2017, @07:42PM (3 children)
You're more than a little full of shit though. Have you tried one? I said most of the same things with all my cynical incredulity, but that melted away...
I tried a HTC Vive with Steam a few months back. Tons of software, and as for porn, I see Occulus porn all over the private porn trackers. It's everywhere if you want POV fucking to actually look like POV fucking. Your porn world has arrived while you were sneering. Back to the Vive, you have a virtual reality living room. Screens on the walls (big ones) with all the different games and environments you can play in. I've only tried the Vive, but I imagine it's the difference between a tricycle and a shuttlecraft compared to the smartphone poor-mans-VR being sold for $20. All I can say is, that it was very good quality. Surprised the hell of out of me. We're not talking 640x480 screens here, or the wearable TV headsets you could take on the plane. When you put on a Vive, it's a complete lockout of the real world. There's no gaps or anything in the headset, and you aren't exactly looking at a screen. It looks like two coke-bottle glasses that are angled for your eyes with adjustments for the width between them. After calibrating them, the display is amazing. You can use it with glasses from what I'm told, and get aftermarket addons for the Vive to meet your prescription.
Once inside, it completely takes you away. I cannot even tell where the screens are no matter how hard I try to look at them. Complete immersion. In particular, they've redone Galaga in 3D. You literally hold the ship in your hand, move it around in space, aim it, and then fire at the enemy. Why is that important? I could easily tell by the lasers and the way it worked, that you could use it for SketchUp like applications to create stuff in 3D with your hands. The Vive also has a mod that puts trackers on all your fingertips. So not two big balled up fists trying to work with VR, but the dexterity of your fingertips. <sarcasm>Yeah, that's not going to have ANY effect on the CAD/Maker world whatsoever.</sarcasm>
Then you have the beginnings of a virtual reality desktop. By that, I mean however many monitors you want. Remember Cerebro from X-Men? Now imagine sitting it with your terminals, browsers, apps, whatever on the walls and floating around in front of you. Granted, it's Microsoft Fucking 10, but that desktop is working in VR. I was using a computer on a virtual TV in virtual reality in my virtual living room. That room was Cerebro with galaxies and nebulae swirling around me while I surfed SoylentNews on some tabs drifting in space.
Then to top it off, the Vive has a camera on front. It's possible to use that camera to see the real world in the virtual one. Not only that, but create wireframes of the physical objects in your room and project them into the virtual world. That way you can see the outline of your couch in the virtual living room and not trip over it.
In all seriousness, if I had a hundred million dollars of venture capital available I would be developing software on the Vive right the fuck now. Not games either, but new windowing managers for Linux/BSD, and integrating SketchUp with the "finger puppets". I've seen the future, and believe me, it will be VR.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Thursday October 19 2017, @02:07AM (1 child)
Now, THAT would be cool: multi-monitors, multiple ways of controlling manipulation (mouse, hand, finger, head, body).
Sit in my small computer room but have as large an environment as I want. Browsing web, look at this monitor.
Guake? Swipe down to activate, swipe up to send away.
Game, look at this screen and drive your race car by grabbing virtual steering wheel, shifter and stepping on pedals that aren't there.
Learn to assemble and disassemble an AK-47 without having to own one (assemble an atom bomb from virtual parts!). Learn Japanese from a patient, sexy lady sitting with me: learn to order dinner at a virtual restaurant. Learn conversation by using in a virtual group of 'friends'. Learn items in your house by walking around picking them up.
Learn to converse with a girl by practicing over and over, with her guiding you with prompts.
Yeah: I could disappear there.
My wife would leave me, though, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 19 2017, @02:28AM
That would practically be a prerequisite to putting those newly acquired skills to good use.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Thursday October 19 2017, @07:51AM
For the initial experience with the Vive I agree with you, total immersion. But after a couple of days and having completed most of the games/demos you start to see the low resolution state of the screens.
Some experiences mask this better than others. One of the free ones("Wake up") had an extremely limited colour palette and huge play areas, this showed up the resolution in a very negative way. On the other hand the included "Star Seed episode one" was lots of small play areas with lots of complex/varied textures that "hid" the low resolution nature of the screens.
But for me the best HTC Vive experience was Googles Tilt Brush, drawing in 3D with lines, paper, electricity, fire, smoke, led bulbs and it had a "guess what I am drawing" game that had the family falling about with laughter.
The "Galaga" game the poster mentioned (I presume) is in the "The Lab" collection of demos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2cqitgi1ko [youtube.com]
The experience is quite something and some people find it very hard to comprehend. Your physical body and hand has to "dance" and turn to avoid being hit and aim the ship to fire at enemies. Not very varied and I completed it after a few plays.
Bottom line the stuff that comes with the Vive and small number of titles are very good. Unfortunately the Steam store is pack full of games/experiences that have been knocked together in a few hours using tool kits and are charging $10.
I created this for instance, http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/flog/Dec2016.html [jumpstation.co.uk] (not for sale)
Need better quality from trusted names and double the resolution screens.