Virtual reality - a step into the future or a toy?
VR devices. helmets, games and apps are still not part of everyday life. However, it is foolish to deny that virtual reality is becoming more widespread and accessible from year to year. It's not so far to go - instead of Half Life 3, we got a VR adventure Alyx!
It is a big misconception that VR is still inaccessible to ordinary people, which is a big misconception - there are a lot of headset options on the market, and even today without a powerful computer, you can already immerse yourself in virtual worlds. The problem is that not all companies can competently convey information to the masses. What to do? That's right - to organize a direct connection. Together with HTC (a cool VR headset that you can win from now), we decided to conduct a small survey, for lack of a better word.
Write - What is your ideal VR experience for you? And how would you use (or may already be using) a VR headset, or even a couple of them? Maybe arrange an unforgettable date for the girls? Or, instead of dull online meetings, would you come to a virtual copy of it?
Authors of the most interesting options will definitely be rewarded!
VR could be used as an extension of reality for an exercise bike or treadmill, this is the progressive future.
VR I would use in games from the first and third person only for controlling the head and torso to the maximum and the movable node of the additional camera, not me the experience of playing from with or without a virtual reality helmet. since it was safe and would need as much space as a regular player's sofa. The main point of VR is a limitless physiological binocular screen. it is the perfect virtual reality experience. other interactive VR with hand or full body simulations has no future due to a number of potential problems. therefore, this direction will most likely remain a toy for specialized games adapted for it.
VR is used more for weight loss, because you play and perform a lot of actions, for example, like a SUPERHOT game, so that you don't get hit, you have to somehow dodge and move.
Purely in terms of VR games, it seems to me that this entertainment is purely for shopping malls of gaming clubs. Since it is difficult for me to imagine a person who will play all games every night with a helmet on his head and the need to be mobile. As a rule, they play for relaxation. But to go to a club or a shopping and entertainment center to run for another hour in a helmet - a treadmill.
But in other areas, the future is clear.
Ideal VR, in my opinion, should be like in the TV series "Black Mirror": connecting a small device to the head, and the person is disconnected from the real world, the mind is inside the game. Glasses, suits, huge balls for movement, manipulators - all this already looks as cumbersome as giant information keepers of several megabytes
Ideal VR today should be something like the Oculus Quest 2 + controllers from the Vive Index, no wires at all! Keep a charge for 8-9 hours. Quest 2 is approaching this by the way.
ideal VR is a complete immersion when the external influence completely disappears and you plunge into a completely different world that becomes reality for you!
volchara1973
Spoiler
Yes, and the real world may not be so real. The brain is deceiving me for sure
In this case, the VR segment is developing quite well. I would single out three main factors that should only be improved:
1. The size of the device. The further, the more compact and easier to use. Thus, the weight becomes less.
2. Absolute autonomy. Lack of obstacles during use, minimum of wires (+ complete absence).
3. Control of hands and other parts is more flexible than it is now. Minimization of latency and precise control of every part of the body. In this case, more flexible controllers are needed.
Recently I rented a new generation VR-helmet, which is "standalone", and I have HTC Vive at home. I must say that I am glad how the industry is developing - and after all, it was once predicted to fade, as it once was with the Kinect.
Now there are practically no complaints about the quality of the picture, they have learned to make very good screens, and games have become overgrown with "grafon". Plus, the systems have learned to track the hands (via hand-tracking or knuckles), and the legs are used by various devices that are not yet very widespread in the mass (sneakers or treadmills).
That was the preface, and now my vision for the perfect VR. I'll start with the technical aspects first, and then, at the end, a few "dreamers":
1. Modify the optics - today's lenses are still not perfect and can blur at the edges, the viewing angle is not wide enough. I would like to see real progress in this direction.
2. There is no ideal tracking solution yet: base stations have their own dead zones, if it is not possible to place them in a spacious room, and tracking from the camera does not take into account what is behind the back at all. Perhaps the future lies with a wider viewing angle for base stations.
3. Wires - standalone glasses do not pull productive games, and everything that is more complicated than Beat Saber requires wires, at least one, as in the Oculus Link solution, but I am even less comfortable with it than with Vive because of the side connection to the helmet. always on the left "something is in the way."
Further "dreamers". I would like future VR systems to:
1. Allow the user to feel smells and temperatures.
2. Have full body tracking without a bunch of expensive track bindings on the limbs.
3. They offered tactile feedback (sounds fantastic, but it seems to me that something similar can be figured out using analogue base stations, but on magnets that would synchronize with what is happening on the screen and "pull" the player's controller down when lifting weights, or repel would be him away from himself when the player ran into obstacles.
Ideal VR is one that is not controlled by controllers, but by thought. Now, of course, it sounds on the verge of fantasy, but, taking into account the progress, it can become a reality
VR should be something like in the movie "ready for the first player", when there is a full immersion in VR, when it is possible to move your avatar at will, and not by pressing buttons ... but these are only fantasies that are not available without implanting something into a person. then foreign.
As I understand it, there are two main problems with viar - setting up binoculars and wires. Either from ignorance of how to properly set up a viar helmet or from anatomical features for some people, immersion in the virtual world can be painful (feeling uncomfortable and motion sickness when using a helmet). The absence of a wire for the helmet would also bring just a ton of convenience in my opinion. everyone wants to turn their heads freely and not experience difficulties or move a little in space (not virtual) without the risk of at least breaking the wires.
Personally, I would like to add that normal glove controllers would be just necessary for excellent diving, one could even add bracelets with rechargeable batteries and other electronics - this weight would not be felt so much on the hands, and it could also be added small arresters with low current to simulate tactile sensations in these gloves (and this is not at all in the porn industry of viar no-no: D). I would like to take a pistol or a sword or a door handle in a horror game, for example, and feel it in my hand. Previously, they tried to add similar sensations in games using vibration in the joystick, so why not add tingling current to the hands (with a warning to users who have heart problems or have a pacemaker)? Perhaps in the future, complete costumes for individual use to order and probably for reasonable money will be invented.
VR is not the future of gaming, but only its complement as a subgenre. Just for which you need additional equipment.
The problem with VR is that not everyone can afford it and not everyone has enough powerful hardware for it. In addition, do not forget the fact that at this stage it is still a developing technology with a future. You just need to use it correctly
a useless toy for several years, the same as in its time 3D TVs and nvidia3DEVision.
then the advertisement was also filled with a six million dough, leading popular marketing engineers were popping out of each iron, they say: "KOKOKKKK HERE YOU SILENT BUBUDSCHIVO !!!" which eventually happened. the same will befall the consumer VR segment this decade.
In my opinion, VR can be used for both entertainment (games) and scientific / educational purposes.
The first option is obvious. There are so many games coming out today that it is very difficult to choose something really interesting. One of the reasons is boring. The same type of races, shooters, slashers - they are now trying to cram realistic graphics into everything in order to cause the player to "fully immerse". But such games are churned out in batches, the realistic picture has become boring and people are leaving for pixel games, for games with "cartoon" graphics or a special visual style (hello bioshock and disonored). VR gaming is a new leap forward, a return to realistic imaging, blurring the line between reality and imaging with a 360-degree view and helmet features. The same sight in VR shooters is not tied to the center of the screen, as on ordinary monitors, the player himself experiences tension and is tired of holding the controllers in the air,
The second option is education and science. Previously, for training pilots, special structures were used to simulate flight. Now, with the development of VR technology, this system can be improved. A person using a virtual reality helmet is more immersed in what is happening. This helps the future pilot to cope with his fears so as not to lose heart in a critical situation.
In connection with the pandemic, many went to work remotely. VR technology would help surgeons perform operations remotely, saving patients whose lives go to hours.
This also includes work with hazardous radioactive materials, so as not to catch the radiation dose.
I hope that VR technologies will become more accessible, and we will use them with pleasure.
Well, what about ... I immediately apologize for the enormous size of this essay, if I may call it that. I really love VR and I can't miss the opportunity to speculate about it.
To begin with, it's worth deciding on one thing. VR is the only possible outcome of the development of the entire entertainment industry. Let's do a thought experiment - let's say it's been 30 years since now. We are sitting in 2050 in front of a computer equipped with a standing Core I30, PTX 6090 with 512 gigabytes of video memory, several TB of DDR12 RAM, the storages themselves (only SSD or something newer) are already measured in hundreds, or even thousands, TB, 120K monitors etc. In games, complete photorealism (what is called "look out the window, look at the monitor and try to find the difference"), unprecedented destructibility at the atomic level, which bill engines never dreamed of. AI in games has also reached a radically new level - you can naturally communicate with any character (game design is also changing - now to "take" the task is exactly what to say with the right people and on the right topics) and each of the NPCs has not just a written background, but an artificial personality, on the basis of which he will relate to each player (different players, of course, will behave differently) his own. Well, in general, full of chic and brilliance, there is nothing more to dream about. And here a man sits in front of all this business and still looks at a flat monitor and presses all the same keys on the keyboard / mouse / gamepad (maybe with new features like DualSense like the PS5 controller, but not the point). And now, in fact, we come to the question - and then what? on the basis of which it will relate to each player (different players, of course, will behave differently) in their own way. Well, in general, full of chic and brilliance, there is nothing more to dream about. And now a person sits in front of all this business and still looks at a flat monitor and presses all the same keys on the keyboard / mouse / gamepad (maybe with new features like DualSense like the PS5 controller, but not the point). And now, in fact, we come to the question - and then what? on the basis of which it will relate to each player (different players, of course, will behave differently) in their own way. Well, in general, full of chic and brilliance, there is nothing more to dream about. And here a man sits in front of all this business and still looks at a flat monitor and presses all the same keys on the keyboard / mouse / gamepad (maybe with new features like DualSense like the PS5 controller, but not the point). And now, in fact, we come to the question - and then what?
You don't need to be a genius to understand that the next stage is overcoming that very barrier of "plane", which is expressed not only in the fact that a person is looking at the screen, but also in the fact that he is an "observer" of the process and only very indirectly its participant. All characters in the game refer to the character controlled by the player, all commands (to move, perform actions) are also sent through the keyboard and only then the avatar executes them - etc. That is why, no matter what the obscurantists shout, the entire entertainment industry in the end, in any case, it will come to VR, one way or another.
Further, the second most important concept, on the basis of which all further reasoning will be built. is an immersive concept that is critical to VR. And the immersion is influenced by both technical factors ("hardware") and software (in fact, the applications / games themselves, etc.). Artistic factors (what expressive means (and how successfully) do content creators use) are also related to software.
And now we can move on to discussing the main topic. I will divide it into two sections - ideal VR in the current-gen segment (you mean what is available to us now or will be available in the near future) and ideal VR in principle.
So, perfect VR in the present. Thesis, with clarifications:
From the point of view of "hardware":
1. Increasing the resolution of displays to the "resolution (IPD) of the eye" (if simple - when the "grid" of pixels will not be completely visible through the lens).
2. Expansion of viewing angles, preferably to such an extent that the entire natural view of a person is blocked. A perfect example is Pimax headsets with a 200 degree diagonal viewing angle. This is one of the most important problems at this stage, since the peripheral vision is now, in fact, inactive and the expansion of the viewing angles really greatly affects that very immersion. At the same time, there is a problem with size and weight (Pimax headsets are more bulky), but all this is solved by using flexible (curved at the edges) screens and special lenses, as was the case in one patent from Sony.
3. Implementation of Foverated Rendering and eye tracking. Without this, improving the graphics in games, when you need to render two images at once, is very, very expensive in terms of resources. And this is not only a problem of the headsets themselves (lack of cameras to track eye movements), but also of manufacturers of video cards and, in particular, drivers for them, since this is where it should be implemented for maximum performance while maintaining the picture quality "in the center".
4. Varifocal or light-field displays. The second major problem with the image is the lack of eye accommodation. The picture - even in VR, which is ironic - is flat, so you can't focus on something far or near, so that everything else "blurred" like in real life. It is to solve these problems that the aforementioned displays are needed. They work quite difficult (accordingly, they are expensive to manufacture), but still, if they become the VR standard, the industry will not be recognized.
5. Improving the tracking of everything and everything through the combined use of external (base stations) and internal (inside-out tracking using cameras installed on the headset) + face tracking (like the aforementioned eye tracking) for social VR and full body tracking ( like the Kinect, but better and without the use of expensive tools like suits or even Vive trackers and others like them) + finger tracking like on Knuckles controllers on the Vive Index, again for more immersion. Avatar movements, especially in multiplayer projects, are one of the most important things, so they must be conveyed as fully and accurately as possible.
6. Influence on the vestibular apparatus according to the principle of galvanic vestibular stimulation in order to simulate movement in space when it is not really there, and, as a result, to avoid "motion sickness" in VR, as well as to simply improve the feeling of immersion. This is the main problem already from the point of view of the "vestibular" - due to the fact that there is a desynchronization between the image received by the brain, on which movement occurs, and the physical absence of body movement in space, which is determined by the vestibular apparatus, the very "motion sickness" occurs. If any project, like Samsung Entrim 4D, still manages to be implemented at a decent level and is released, it will be almost the biggest breakthrough for VR,
6. Wireless. Yes, this is corny, but the wires really interfere and make you constantly think about them, even if the wire is fixed to the ceiling and, in principle, in most cases does not really interfere.
7. This item is optional, since not everyone will be able to afford it for quite objective reasons (apartment size, high cost, etc.), but still we cannot fail to mention the platforms for moving in place like KAT VR, Virtuix Omni, etc. Of course, there is no limit to perfection and they need to be improved in a certain way, but in general, without them it is very difficult to imagine more or less natural movement (namely, physical movement like running, jumping, etc.) in space. In my personal opinion, in the beginning, when VR becomes much more popular, such platforms will be great for VR clubs that can afford them, and this is where you can get a deeper immersion in relation to home VR, which will lead to their popularity.
7. Adding a more natural response (again DualSense) at least at the level of controllers, not to mention something like gloves that restrict finger movements and thereby simulate the elasticity of objects, and even full-fledged suits with vibration motors, which vibrate to the body understand that there was contact with objects in a virtual environment.
And the last point, which is not completely "iron" - is the price. She should be friendly to a wide range of people, not just enthusiasts who are willing to shell out thousands of dollars.
In terms of applications:
1. Graphics quality - again, the implementation of foverated rendering, which will allow you to move closer to photorealism at a faster pace. Optional - the use of cloud technologies for rendering everything and everything, not (or not only) on the user's device, but on more powerful servers.
2. Natural interaction with the environment / NPC (ala improvement of artificial intelligence). At the moment, games still feel like games and they have their "limits". If you start acting in a way that was not intended, the illusion quickly collapses. And if artificial intelligence can react (even in the simplest way) to such things, it will really be "breathtaking" (c).
3. Full support for all of the above mentioned in the first part. At the moment, there is no single standard of what is (or even "what should be") in each headset, so manufacturers are pushing whoever is good at what. And that's why most developers simply ignore the often cool features of individual headsets (be it the Pimax viewing angles, eye tracking in the old Fove VR or the new Vive Cosmos Pro Eye, or finger tracking in the Index controllers) and only implement what is more- less everywhere. Therefore, you need to derive a standard - and realize its full potential.
4. Well, he will not forget about those very artistic means. So far, most developers do not know at all what to do with VR (the case with Respawn Entertainment and their Medal of Honor - Above and Beyond is indicative: they turned to Facebook with a request to give them guidance on how to develop games in VR, to which they threw up their hands and said "We ourselves have no idea"). And, to be honest, almost all large and experienced developers simply ignore the VR sphere and are not even going to develop anything for it in the near future (although, again, even if they did, it is far from a fact, that they would have done it the same way as with "flat" games) and in this field indie developers are trying to play. Unfortunately,
5. Separately, I would like to say about the creation of VR projects based on known universes. This is what can (and should) play a significant role in popularizing the technology. Be it fans of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the same Matrix, etc. - any person who knows and loves these works will find it much easier to decide to buy a device for the sake of something beloved and famous, rather than for the sake of something, perhaps attractive looking, but not familiar.
Let's move on to perfect VR. Technically speaking ...
1. The transmission of all information should be done directly to the brain, ignoring the analyzers. This solves all the problems of modern VR and pushes the boundaries just beyond the impossible. Here the principle is exactly the same as at the very beginning of my essay - when the full potential of modern VR is revealed, it only remains to go even further. But, there is a very important feature of how such VR should be for "full immersion" ...
1.1. Non-invasive, i.e. without interfering with the structure of the body, in this case - without damaging the skin / bones (skull) and without the introduction of electrodes directly into the neurons. Agree, almost no one will agree to drill a hole in the back of their head like in the "Matrix" for the sake of some toys or even just carry out an operation to install the same Neuralink (even if, hypothetically, this will bring other useful features to life except, in fact, the ability to play in full immersion games).
With software:
1. The main thing is, again, AI, as close as possible to human (for example, which can easily pass the Turing test). After all, it is social interaction that is important in the life of every person, so when it appears in VR in relation to artificial intelligence, it will be a breakthrough in game design.
2. About all sorts of "destructibility", automatically generated content, nonlinearity, etc. I won't even go into detail. Anything that allows the player to feel like the hero of a unique story created as if (or in reality) for him plays a huge role in immersion.
Well, from an artistic point of view ... there is no limit to perfection, as well as to the creativity of Homo sapiens in general. Only when the perfect tool is in place can truly close-to-perfection works of art appear in VR.