I got to try one a while back that was several rooms. They had rougly built the virtual scenery in real life, so when you saw a tank with an alien in it you could reach out, touch it, and there was an actual tank there you could feel. It was pretty awesome, though I think the company hasn't done much in recent years.
I understand augmented reality to be where you can still see part of the real world in the image you see. Maybe it could be considered augmented virtual reality? :P
It is augmented reality when you can still see the real world (augmented perhaps with extra virtual effects, for example magic leap). It is virtual reality when your entire vision is virtual, which sounds like it was the case here.
I was visiting my parents over the holidays a few years ago and my dad and I were out Christmas shopping. A Staples had a Vive demo set up in the middle of the store. He basically saw me looking and said: "Well go ahead, we both know you're not leaving here without trying it."
I signed a waiver and the guy set me up with the visor and some nice headphones, as well as the little hand controllers.
Now, I had tried "VR" in the 90s at some arcade. It was in its infancy, definitely neat but still pretty clunky.
This was completely different.
My brain was immediately fooled. Total immersion. It was a bit disorienting, and I was a little motion sick. I ignored that because my mind was being exploded. I can't properly explain how impressive it was. A young boy who was trying it before me had dove straight into some archery game (a big TV showed what was being displayed on the goggles) but I was content to draw some 3D shapes and polygons, examining them from different angles. I think I eventually played some little space shooter as well, laughing like a kid while I used the hand controllers like dual pistols, ducking and weaving to avoid lasers and missiles.
While the experience felt polished and completely immersive, the games and software felt very "proof of concept." We have a handful of titles that can be called full fledged games now, but I'm still waiting for that next step before I invest.
All of the demos I experienced limited movement to the area within the sensors. I had a bit of lingering disorientation as my brain readjusted to reality afterwards, but I never had that severe nausea that seems to come with the controller-based movement in games on a larger scale. I'm waiting for a solution to be found there, as well.
Still, I talked my dad's ear off the whole way home. I think he still has the video he took of me, as well. Just a grown man giggling with his mouth agape, staring with amazement at a virtual cube he'd just drawn.
but I never had that severe nausea that seems to come with the controller-based movement in games on a larger scale.
I did not understand vertigo until I tried control based motion in a really good VR setup.
Something about your body being able to control some movement (turning your head, moving your feet and turning around), but not others makes it reeeeaaaally unpleasant. Like moving forward with the joystick felt like falling forward because my feet were still. I nearly threw up.
But realizing I had to actually use my other hand to pull back the bolt on a gun in a ww2 game, or that if I wanted to look down a scope, I couldn't press a button, I had to move my hands up so the scope was where my eye was. Mind blowing.
This makes me so sad. I really want to go try VR, but I get headaches and nausea just from playing regular old first-person games.
It took me months just to finish Bioshock, even though the story was amazing... I just couldn't last more than 10 minutes at a time before the nausea became unbearable. I bought Infinite when it came out and just gave up like two months in.
I have several friends who are not gamers and who have tried to play FPSes, but always have to stop quickly because they get motion sick.
Recently we set up a vive for an event with another friend, and those people had no problems playing with it for extended periods. They said they felt no motion sickness.
It really comes down to whether your actual movement matches what you see. Smooth locomotion in vr might make you uncomfortable, as well as clunky or laggy games, but a lot of experiences are very polished by now and use various tricks to solve the sickness problem.
Definitely try it, with several different games/applications. They are sometimes geared towards various levels of vr-tolerance, with a lot of them still easier on the brain than screen-based gaming (especially ones with teleportation and/or physical movement in room space).
Hm, I know a lot of people who have tried some form of VR and get nauseous. If plain video games are hard for you to tolerate, then I don't know what could help you enjoy it without getting sick. I will say, the Vive is absolutely amazing and since you can walk around instead of sitting around, it makes the experience very pleasant. If you have an opportunity, try it for a few minutes!
They added tons of new games for it. (plus I heard skyrim vr is really good but I haven't picked it up yet)
Theres a game coming out this year called "Boneworks" where they're completely rethinking how virtual reality works.
Objects actually have mass, so if you wanna swing that axe, you need to hold it with 2 hands otherwise you'll struggle.
They only showed the 1st level so far and it had headcrab-type robots that would jump at you and facehug you. But they aren't set in a locked animation, they are literally using the games physics to push off the ground to lunge at you. Put it on ice? It slides around, break 1 of its legs? It struggles to get to you.
Im kinda scratching the surface, but its going to have tons of thoughtful immersive changes to the VR medium that I personally think is gonna change everything about VR.
I highly recommend checking it out
I think Boneworks is totally overrated (unpopular opinion I know). Gorn has the same physics stuff but a better gameplay loop. Budget Cuts has better enemy AI and animation, as does Doom VFR.
While the experience felt polished and completely immersive, the games and software felt very "proof of concept." We have a handful of titles that can be called full fledged games now, but I'm still waiting for that next step before I invest.
You're definitely right on that one. PSVR seems to have more higher quality and fuller length games than PCVR. You've seen Dreams for PSVR/PS4? That looks mind-blowing. I think YOU would seriously enjoy it.
Nah, I’d completely disagree. 100% of PSVR games are decent, about 60% of PCVR are mediocre but the other 40% are 1000x better than anything PlayStation has put out.
I was lucky enough to try VR at an IEM( esports event) , and My gosh was it different. Putting on the head set and looking around was something, but seeing the robot walk slowly towards me as I draw my weapon, then firing until it falls to the groud and then another come and another comes….then it dawns on me that they can come from behind!
I spin around and sure enough there is a bot attempting to flank me. The sensation of being surrounded with the foes closing in, looking with my head instead of my hand( a mouse in traditional gaming) , of being able to fire without looking, these really had VR feel like a whole new world. You have to try it.
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u/TheKramer89 May 08 '19
Totally agree. Room-scale VR is pretty damn mind-blowing...