Weekly Topic VR: Have you taken the dive?

This week VRLA is happening on Friday, April 15th, with Unity CEO John Riccitiello speaking in the Friday keynote. We would love to hear your thoughts on the VR industry that’s been growing rapidly over the past few years.

Have you adopted, or even attempted to work with VR in any of your projects? Feel free to share what you’ve been working on with us! As someone who has already been tinkering with this technology, what drew you to it? Where do you think the technology is heading in the next few years?

On the other side, we know a lot of you might not be working with VR yet. If you’re not, what is holding you back from taking the dive? Are you just not interested? If you’re like me, it’s still a little expensive to invest in. If price points started to drop down do you think you would pick up a headset and try it?

PS. Sorry this is a day late <3

(To see past discussions, go to this index thread)

 

Indeed, and the fact there is no vr for osx, i've been forced to only do some testing with google cardboard. I really hope daydream ready phones become more common this year.

 

I'm just not sold on VR.

It's come and gone so many times in my life that I just simply don't care anymore.

This time it will most likely have more staying power and will most likely never completely go away, but it has too many problems that I simply don't see going away any time soon.

To start, for all the hype VR is constantly getting, I'm not seeing one single AAA game taking it seriously. Every title sounds like something for the Kinect or PS Move. The vast majority of the games sound like 30 minute gimmicks, rather than games. And since everyone and their brother is making shovelware for VR it seems the tech is on the fast track to securing a reputation of having a lousy market.

Then of course there's the nausea factor. So long as the human body gets dizzy and nauseous from seeing a motion that doesn't match up what the inner ear is telling them they should feel, games are going to be limited to sitting and gliding. This is not something that can be brushed off and is a serious problem getting it into the main stream.

But hands down, the biggest problem is that VR is the absolute worst social-kryptonite in all of nerdom.

It's like a wifu pillow in a polyester anime shirt with a fedora on top and sandals with socks. VR literally asks people to block out the entire world around them. At that point you're pretty much admitting defeat when it comes to functioning socially.

My wife is a wonderful woman who has no problem letting me geek out on the couch and play a game for 10 hours straight every now and then. Or I'll sit and work on my laptop while she geeks out for the day. But if I were to pull a literal TV screen over my face and sound canceling headphones on over my ears, by the time I took them off I'd be in an empty house with nothing but a couch.

No thank you.

 

Yea... I finally did. Just a couple of weeks ago. It's been fun so far. My only real challenge is that I do all my development on Macs, so I keep transfer packages over to the win box and integrate to my projects there. Overall though, the input aspect was way simpler than I anticipated.

Though, I am a little disappointed in selection of quality games.

 

VR. It's a quite extensive topic. I'd personally LOVE to play a VR game, but I don't fancy shutting down my eyes, as like NotSure said, my parents just might throw away my rig. Although, there is VR emulation on PC, so that should not be a problem.
Many people say that developing VR games are costly. Of course, if you're aiming for those high end VR systems, it'll DEFINITELY be costly. But, I've recently joined a team of developers who are developing the game TimeRider, found at https://timeridergame.tumblr.com , and I'm quite fascinated. It's low-cost input, targeted at Google Cardboard systems. I feel when one gets into VR development, this is the thing he first has to aim for. Like a small sandbox testing, in real world that costs little to Nothing.

 

Before I read the specific question you were replying to, I assumed that was the stack of money that companies were throwing your way to develop VR/AR applications for them. Even Unity is getting in on the hiring spree: Unity Technologies to triple employee headcount & create more AR/VR applications in India.

I'm working with a team that regrettably just went the other way. We're working on a game that plays in VR or traditional screens, using Oculus DK2s for development in Unity 5.2.3.

To support Oculus Home, we'd have to upgrade to Unity 5.3+. Unfortunately, the lighting changes in 5.3 make our scenes look unacceptable to the artists. Since they don't have time to redo the lights in all of the scenes, we decided to drop VR support for now and ship on Unity 5.2.3.

Lesson: When developing for technology that itself is in development, plan for a lot more extra time, or at least wait for all the tools to be ready first.

 

I do VR stuffs at work. It's mostly R&D and how it applies to simulation/training. Potentially large scale stuff but right now just exploring options and looking for value. Only using the Vive at the moment.

Once you get the basic kinks worked out and make the input work like you need it to, then it becomes really easy to continue developing for. The Display side of things is probably about as easy as it was with the OVR DK1, but with more stability and a better API. The Input side is more complicated, but again, once you adapt your project around it then it is a pretty straightforward to use.

In terms of growth, I think vr and ar will both start to branch off into social vs professional applications with gaming fitting somewhere in the middle. Cost will be a driving factor, and for bulk adoption the average person will probably get it if it's cheap enough but for professional application industry is basically ready to throw all kinds of money at higher resolution, wireless tracking and stuff like that so we can make really fancy simulations driven by monster computer hardware. Lots of value in that branch. Safety is a big buzzword right now in 'professional' vr.

 

I agree. In the near future, the money's going to be in non-game applications such as architectural visualization.

 

I'd play some games, and I've tried one out once, was more impressed than I expected to be. I still can't get myself to take the leap though. As a very character centric designer, most games seem to go 1st person, and that ruins the game feel and Iconicness of a players design to me. It can always be made like say Lucky's Tale, but I don't see the use of it in that case, to feel natural. Maybe I'll experiment after I've come out with something that's had success, and I can afford to mess around and experiment. For now, I'll stick to experiences I know I'd love to play myself.

An aside. I'm deathly afraid of heights. Lifting off the ground felt too real. Scared the crap out of me. Had to take it off immediately. Not sure how I can even experience anything like this.

 

Interestingly, this is kind a why I started working with it. Though I am not deathly afraid of heights, they make me physically uncomfortable. A while back I played with a Vive over at a friends house, and way blown away by the experiential quality of it. I had tried the occulus and some mobile ones before, but nothing like the vive. Then we tried a game called Windlands (http://store.steampowered.com/app/428370/) and wow. There were 4 of playing, and I believe all of us physically stumbled or tripped playing this game. That is what drew me into developing for the platform.

---

Professionally, I am not working on any (non mobile) VR, but personally, I have always found it beneficial to be ahead of the curve as something starts to stabilize. (it worked with Unity). I think VR is finding its ground, I agree it won't wide spread, (probably that will be AR), but the tech is stabilized enough that I can develop with it and be proficient with it long before its mass market implementation (in whatever form that is) lands.

Also, there is a bit of a collateral benefit for me playing with VR. I primarily develop mobile games, and as such, do low resource artwork/assets. Since I had to get a beefy, high-end windows box, I have also had fun playing with high-poly, large/many assets, fancy lighting a post processing, something I normally don't do.

 

Reading through the comments I need to say I agree that it may have some great uses for design and for therapy.

I know people are using it to face their fears such as heights and spiders.

I'm not sure if it could ever help me with my fear being impaled though.

 

Im am not sure that this is a gaming tech across the board. Only certain games mechanics can be used to good effect with VR. The rest is just a game from a birds eye view or similar. Where it will come into it's own and is doing so now is in the 3D workspace and collaboration fields for engineering, architecture in particular and automotive. Secondarily it will be an excellent training workspace where machines that cost tens of millions to build one offs of can be simulated and used to train an operator in it's controls. I am also seeing big money being spent on data visualization under new 3D paradigms where it is treated as a universe of data that you can select galaxies and planetary systems, planets, moons, ecosystems, animals from that universe of data.

 

I'm developing medical applications with VR. It really is a game changer for me.

 

Same here. I've bought an Oculus Rift + Touch two weeks ago, it was an easier decision after Oculus did their price adjustments. I have watched enough VR videos to know how it works before I got one, but never experienced the 'VR feeling' on my own, so the only choice was to get the full package including controllers and 3 sensors. Just sitting around with a screen on my face is nothing more than watching a low-res movie - no thanks.

I rarely have time to play VR games (or any other games really, it just doesn't interest me), but developing for it is where the fun begins. When trying out other games on Oculus Home, the whole platform feels like a console market. There are very few apps, even less free apps and most of them turn me off when looking at their screenshots. If I were an active gamer in that market, the initial price for the device would only be the start.

 

Someone contacted me about a job like that in London. I didn't get it though. Perhaps they thought my giraffe racing games were not a good fit.


I got Google Cardboard for £6. And then I downloaded Trinus VR. So that lets me stream Steam VR games onto my tablet.

So, yeah, I got basic VR for £6. Bargain. Only thing it doesn't have is the Vive controllers. Haven't tried the setup with Unity yet.

Actually, is there an option in Unity to stream to a tablet with Google cardboard?

Also, VRLA, that's no good to me. I don't live in LA. If only there was some device that could sort of transport me half way round the world so that I could be present in another country....

 

I used to play a lot with VR in the 90s and fell in love with it back then - although the technology was far from ready. When I got back into video game making a few years ago, I just took the dive. I knew that, as an indie developer, it would be more challenging - the equipment isn't cheap and you constantly have to upgrade your gears. Making a full-on game takes time and it is very easy to start development on one platform that becomes obsolete... that part has been very challenging, especially financially.

VR is also tricky because there is no "language" for it yet. I found that users often don't know what to expect and it is easy for them to get confused, especially if you are not careful with your UI and control system. Players are used to interact with PC games, give them a menu and icons, and they will intuitively click on them. This is definitively not the case in VR and this has also been very challenging.

This is why I had to release my first game for free. The game I created only uses head control and I really wanted to gather constructive feedback from my players, and see if they would easily embrace the control system. After a couple of mild hiccups, I believe they now do and I've been working hard on the full-on game I'm planning to release by the end of the year. Here is some information:

http://www.squidbeamgames.com/twobit
http://www.squidbeamgames.com/twobitodyssey

Finally, is VR here to stay? I think yes! However, I believe the real question is 'will VR live up to its potential this time around?'. I feel that issues have arisen like motion sickness, and this alone may prevent the technology to reach mainstream. Maybe this will force the technology to go dormant again until we figure out techniques to alleviate the effect.

I have to say, when I demo my VR games at conventions and meetups, I found that players who try my game also usually experience VR for the first time. The feedback is usually really good, and people are surprised by how immersive the technology is. I realized that they often have a very deformed view of VR before they try it, often people think of it as watching a 3D movie - the feedback I usually receive is 'wow, and when I turned my head I could see what was behind me!'. This always makes me realize how ill informed mainstream players still are. This, more than the technology, will take a lot of work and time to change, but I believe it will happen

 

1. What is holding you back?

I still want to see VR actually reaching the mainstream before I would even think about investing into it, both as a consumer as well as a developer.
All we have until now are overpriced early adopter hardware with teething problems (less and less as software problems gets fixed and design solutions to usability problems are found, still), and tech demos thinly veiled as games.

Aside from Simulators for seated vehicles, and arcade games going into that direction, I have to yet see a game in VR that can really compete with modern non-VR AAA games without having to work around the many limiations of todays VR equipment like nausea. Which most probably is why the AAA studios have mostly resorted to releasing small tech demos themselves besides some brave games that brought VR as an option (like resident evil 7 which arguably must be fantstic in VR I hear...).

While I have heard many devs stating that the transition of more traditional game expieriences into VR is less of a problem than many think, I would guess these devs are either not affected by nausea thus underestimate the problem VR can cause for a part of the playerbase, or are talking about specialized solutions liked fixed views without realizing that this is no longer the standard for non-VR games in modern times.

Thus as a developer mostly interested in developing modern PC expieriences, I am struggling to see how VR would enhance my expieriences. The advantage of 3D vision, and two additional, intuitive analog input axes thanks to the head tracking is simply not worth the danger of nausea and the performance impact for a non-Firstperson view game. Additional immersiveness is offset by the whole thing starting to feel "tabletop-ish" for an isometric viewpoint game, and lets not talk about the price which makes VR a concern for a small subset of your potential customers, while adding a considerable chunk to your expenses for development equipement.

Also, traditional game expieriences will most probably never translate that well into VR. VR is a new expierience, a more involved, more strainfull but more immersive expierience.
It will never replace couch gaming, relaxing on the sofa while completing some quests. Best VR could do is replace the TV while doing that. But then, you still get problems with nausea as you most probably want to ditch the motion controls and go for a traditional joypad input.
It will never be more than a new way to look at your RTS gameplay still controlled best with M+KB... motion controls will lack the speed and precision. And for getting that shiny 3D VR look over your units, you will have to keep playing with fixed cams or again face the danger of nausea.
The 120Hz Screen addicted twitch game skillorz will most probably never migrate to VR games. Not until there has been a cure found for the nausea induced by physically impossible turn speeds and strafe moves that these games rely so heavely on.

All in all, VR in its current state sounds like something destined to be a niche to me. Its not the cost of ownership, or just teething problems like nausea that is holding it back. It's a new way to play games at its best. Its like comparing playing soccer in the field to playing a soccer game on your TV. Is it fun to go out and kick a ball from time to time? Hell yes! Is it just the time needed to travel to the soccer field holding you back doing that every evening? No, not really. I don't want to work out every time I play a game. Which is what real VR is. A workout.
At its most mundane, its just a new fancy screen replacing your TV, and giving you a new head tracking tool. Cool? Sure. Worth all the hassle and money? When hardware is cheap, GPUs bring enough performance to make the performance cost irrelevant, and nausea problems are fixed for non-fixed camera angles, yeah, then it might be worth the hassle even for more traditional games.


2. Am I interested?

Well, as a consumer I am interested in true VR. I am not sooo interested in just a fancy 3D screen and head tracking tool. Not as long as its so expensive and still lacking content.
As a dev, I just don't have a project going at the moment that where true VR would be a good fit, and I don't think trying to develop for the VR devices as 3D Screens and additional input devices really is worth the hassle at the moment.

1. Will I pick up VR equipment when prices go down?

Only if GPU power also increases enough, and the VR equipment gets much better specs. More resolution at least, just full HD per eye sound painful now that I am used to my 4k screen. And I would need a project where VR is a good fit. I don't intend to try to retrofit VR into a more traditional expierience just because I can.

But yeah, at some point I would give a try for certain. I am not as hyped for it as some are as I think we are still very early into the VR days, but I would certainly spend 200 bucks for VR goggles to give it a spin.

 

This is what VR is to me still.... expensive, bulky, heavy etc


Who knows maybe in another 10years it will be like wearing some cool shades.. and the hardware required to push 240hz refresh rates at 4k will be like reasonable.. maybe the real world be so fking bad people will want as much VR escapism possible.

I'm just hoping the creative tools and workflows aren't still mediocre.

 

Nausea is defeated by having a stable horizon to refer to in the human brain. Put a HUD object that follows the head just above the virtual nose between the virtual eyebrows.