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Re: The VR Fad

#16
My thoughts on VR are very similar to Damocles' and Flatfingers'. Some of you may remember my year and a half long journey on VR that started from simple Google Cardboard, led me through building my own VR headset, to culminating in commercial headsets only to have me return what I had and hang up my VR goggles for a bit.

Until we have the technology, VR will always be a fad. Most people think of the previous implementations of VR from the 90s, but we've had it ebb and flow a bit since then. Since then we've had the Virtual Boy, 3D shutter glasses, polarized light 3D, the Nintendo 3DS, nVidia 3DVision, and now this. There's going to always be someone chasing that white whale.

There are also fundamental issues with certain aspects of 3D. If we build 3D games like we're looking into a diorama, then we have nothing to worry about; the brain is easily able to accept is as a mini environment that just extends what our monitors are doing. If we try to insert ourselves into that diorama, we'll have issues with the way our inner ear balance tries to perceive the world. The nausea isn't just from motion sickness, it's the disconnect between what our eyes see and our body is telling us; however if we were to somehow get our brain to re-learn that, I fear we won't be able to walk due to needing to relearn that disconnect.

Then there is the whole depth-of-focus which needs to be implemented correctly. With anything shot with a camera, we're seeing things out of focus as 'blurry', whereas the human eye doesn't see them as blurry. We just get a sense of double-vision on anything that's truly out-of-focus (see: Magic Eye posters from yesteryear for exploiting this).

Despite having eye tracking software and hardware now readily available (and fairly cheap), we still haven't implemented it correctly. We can use eye tracking to simulate true depth-of-focus, and coupling it with VR would at least allow us to see what it would be like to truly replicate what exists (If the eye looks at something distant, do the double vision thing for other items and adjust as the eye focuses on other parts).
Flatfingers wrote:Personally, I suspect that if virtualization does go consumer-grade, it won't be VR -- putting the self into a virtual world -- but rather AR: putting virtual things into the real world.
I feel VR will have its place, but I also feel that AR will dominate the market far more than VR. I'd love to play war games on a tabletop, personally.

Hyperion wrote:I think that if/when you see good quality headsets in the $200-300 range, it won't be a product looking for a market. But I also don't see that happening until about 2020 or later.
You mean something like this or Facebook's $200 device that's supposed to be out 'soon'?


Either way, I think each technology or combinations of technologies always leads to other technology that gets created/discovered. For example, even if VR doesn't take off from here, we've been pouring lots of money into finding a way for extremely low-latency. We've also been pouring a lot of money into wireless HDMI as well. So no matter what, we'll walk away with technology that can be used elsewhere.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: The VR Fad

#18
N810 wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:56 pm
https://blog.tobii.com/eye-tracking-vr- ... 1cbca952df

Vive just announced an eye tracking dev kit.
This is definitely what we've been needing. Hopefully some crafty developers start playing with it so we can also start solving other issues at the same time like depth-of-focus.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: The VR Fad

#21
N810 wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:54 pm
I don't think Depth of field FX are all that difficult,
I mean I had a Skyrim mod that did it fairly well.
So coupling it mature eye tracking software shouldn't be all that hard.

ps. Seems like unreal engine already has it as a feature.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/IN ... thOfField/
Unfortunately this still isn't what I'm referring to.

The old 80's and 90's magic eye posters worked by having you focus behind the poster. This causes your eyes to see double-vision on anything in front, which is why those posters work. You get the opposite effect when you cross your eyes. Eyes don't blur out things at different focal planes all the time. Those with glasses have this effect exacerbated since everything is still in focal clarity, just duplicate. This is because anything not in focus doesn't have the same point of optical convergence.
Damocles wrote:
Tue Aug 08, 2017 1:27 pm
Eyes move extremely fast. I wonder If there is any tech that can scan the eyes focal point, and adjust the depth of field rendering within a few milliseconds.
iirc, the Tobii eye tracker already does.
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: The VR Fad

#23
DWMagus wrote:
Wed Aug 09, 2017 11:04 am
Damocles wrote:
Tue Aug 08, 2017 1:27 pm
Eyes move extremely fast. I wonder If there is any tech that can scan the eyes focal point, and adjust the depth of field rendering within a few milliseconds.
iirc, the Tobii eye tracker already does.
From their page descriptions they create depth of field effects based on what object the user is looking at
No actual focus detection there from the looks
(And i'd have wondered as well. Because eye tracking on its own is semi-hard to do and then very precisely determining the curvature of the eye in possibly oblique directions is a lot harder)
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Re: The VR Fad

#24
Ok, the yes focus itself can be determined by the eyes relative angle when looking at a near or far object. (without a fancy way to see how the lens is "bend")
The problem I see is additionally the optics of the VR, that would have to dynamically change the focal length (as the eyes lens is changing its focus).

But that why I pointed out, that just using a VR to project a huge but static (non 3D fixed distance) screen would be my approach to use the technology.
Its like a portable IMax then.
Since the user does not need to turn the head more then when watching in a cinema, and not having 3D, Its much less likely to nausiate him.
The world in a virtual scene is turning classically by having an external controller, and not the heads own movement.
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Re: The VR Fad

#25
Damocles wrote:
Wed Aug 09, 2017 11:41 am
But that why I pointed out, that just using a VR to project a huge but static (non 3D fixed distance) screen would be my approach to use the technology.
Its like a portable IMax then.
Since the user does not need to turn the head more then when watching in a cinema, and not having 3D, Its much less likely to nausiate him.
The world in a virtual scene is turning classically by having an external controller, and not the heads own movement.

you mean like those portable screens that have been available for basically forever?
like this one
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Re: The VR Fad

#27
I would think that you don't even need to check whether the eye is focusing on something 'near' or 'far'. You already know the position of where the eye is looking on the screen (as showcased in Tobii's videos), and from there, you can just treat it as a raycast to see where at in z-space the object is and assume focus is on that point. Yeah, it's a bit cumbersome, but it would definitely be enough to do a proof-of-concept on viability.

You don't need to do any fancy optics just for a test. The eye won't actually change it's focal distance, you use software to simulate that. The problem I have is that when this route is taken, the 'out of focus' bit is blurred, when in reality, that's not always the case.

I wear glasses. When I focus on something, other stuff is just as sharp, I just get the double-vision effect on anything not what I'm focusing on at different depths instead of blurring.
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: The VR Fad

#29
The setup I have described will limit the users headmovement to a very small amount compared to trying to project a complete scene (that requires headmovement to move the camera). And I further believe that nausia comes to a large part from beeing a 3D scene, plus fast head movements.
So it will behave just like using video glasses when just sitting still, but simulte moving the head to look at different parts of the "cinema" screen. So the projection moves relative to the head.

At any rate. The main problem I still see is that VR automatically tries to mean "3D". If this entertainment option would be such a blockbuster, there would be much more demand for it already. (and thus faster advances in device tech)
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Re: The VR Fad

#30
Damocles wrote:
Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:33 pm
The setup I have described will limit the users headmovement to a very small amount compared to trying to project a complete scene (that requires headmovement to move the camera). And I further believe that nausia comes to a large part from beeing a 3D scene, plus fast head movements.
you want to project a screen at some position into a scene. thats a 3d environment. a simple one, but still.
(eg the screen projected onto a sphere thats then rendered)
and if that virtual screen you describe doesnt move perfectly/fluidly enough when you move your head that causes a discrepancy between your bodies sense of movement and the movement you see happening.
such discrepancies cause nausea.
not the fact that its 3d per se (beyond the focus cue stuff but you dont address that anyway so thats there regardless)
Damocles wrote:
Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:33 pm
So the projection moves relative to the head.
like in any other VR scene? :P
Damocles wrote:
Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:33 pm
At any rate. The main problem I still see is that VR automatically tries to mean "3D". If this entertainment option would be such a blockbuster, there would be much more demand for it already. (and thus faster advances in device tech)
oh, people want VR glasses, they just arent willing to shell out 800+ bucks for a device they arent sure if its causing them to vomit all over their living room or computer and which has few games because of that.
literally everyone who has anything to do with gaming or computers i asked told me the basically same "i'd like to have one, but its too expensive and the games that use it are meh at the moment"

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