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The Big VR Thread

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1. Is there a store-front in VR?

At any time at all you can press the home button on the controller and bring up the Steam Overlay, which is on like a big TV in front of you in VR. It's a slightly-different-for-VR version of Steam Big Picture. So you can go to the Steam Store and it'll default to filtering by VR compatible (and you can further specify HTC Vive only or Oculus only, or turn off everything and just see all games on Steam). 

 

2. Is there some sort of media browser through which you can browse 360 photos or 3d models?

Nope, though it would be trivial to make one so presumably there will be one soon. You can always load up Youtube in the overlay though and watch 'em on that big screen

 

3. Can you do the thing where you can edit an Unreal project in VR yet?

Not in the current version of UE4 but I'm sure I could if I compiled the latest code from Github.

 

4. What's an example of a piece of software that has impressed you?

 

Most of it has blown me the heck away but let's see.... TheBlu, the under-the-sea demo you might have heard of, is nuts, and you see a whale in it and the whale feels legitimately intimidatingly huge. The Aperture Robot Repair demo is really amazing but I don't wanna say too much because spoilers. Space Pirate Trainer VR is an awesome dual-pistols room scale shooter where you can pull a shield from behind your back and you have to shoot robots and dodge/block their bullets, and it's a real workout because you end up ducking and lunging and feeling like a total badass. And the music is good so you end up dancing the whole time. Tilt Brush is crazy good too. Ninja Trainer which is just VR Fruit Ninja is extremely tiring in a good way. And Fantastic Contraption had me doing lunges and big reaches and all kinds of crazy cool stuff in order to build my little car thing, it was actually incredible and a legit workout.

 

5. Are Google Tilt Brush results exportable? If so, what formats?

Not that I've seen but I wouldn't be surprised if they did it... there's more you can make than just geo though so maybe not? I'm pretty sure you can send other tilt-brush users your designs at least.

 

 

6. Have you played any driving games? Are you experiencing any motion sickness? 

I haven't played any driving games yet - only done room scale stand-up-walk-around stuff, no sitting stuff - but neither me nor my girlfriend has had any motion sickness at all whatsoever. It's amazing. I also had the DK2 and DK1, and had some ill effects with both of those - I know how to manage them and had my "vr legs" but it was still a consideration. Here you can just be confident you won't have any ill effects at all. Made me realise how little I used the Rift out of fear of that, even though I'm better with it than most people.

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That overlay. Does it look like that by default, or did you put some cool filter on it?

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Right now you have to switch the camera overlay on in an .ini, otherwise you just get a blue grid showing the edges of your play space. But once it's on (probably will be default by the time the vive ships) it doesn't show up as brightly as that when you're actually playing - that's it with 100% opacity, it would usually be more like 30 or something, just showing the outline of your room/cat when you get near the edges. You can change the color and stuff too, red makes you feel like a terminator.

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I think Sony's Playstation VR GDC press conference is today. Really interested to see how much it will cost. From what I hear it's not as nice as the Oculus or Vive, so it may be cheaper. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to check out any VR stuff aside from Google Cardboard.

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I've used it, it is pretty good but yeah, kind of on par with the Rift DK2 only not very good graphics because it's a PS4 trying to push VR. Motion control already being a thing with the PS4 will help though.

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Samsung is developing a pair of headphones that simulates motion in your inner-ear.

http://vrscout.com/news/samsung-entrim-4d-vr-motion-headphones/

Today in technology you have to get ABSOLUTELY RIGHT for it to not be COMPLETELY HORRIBLE

 

Really though, sounds promising. You're still missing some senses - feeling and seeing motion without knowing that your legs or arms are causing it can probably be pretty horrible still. That said it's another step towards spending the rest of my life in a corner near the AC outlet. 

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Bundled with a console and an ABSOLUTELY KILLER game (I'm thinking cockpit X-Wing vs TIE fighter/Rogue Squadron) for 600ish dollars, I could go for that. I wonder if those bundles will appear and how much they'd shave down the margins on the PS4. Maybe with the PSfour?

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This could easily become the most sought after Christmas toy this year if Elmo doesn't show up (if if he doesn't talk).

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Bundled with a console and an ABSOLUTELY KILLER game (I'm thinking cockpit X-Wing vs TIE fighter/Rogue Squadron) for 600ish dollars, I could go for that. I wonder if those bundles will appear and how much they'd shave down the margins on the PS4. Maybe with the PSfour?

 

Don't count on that pricepoint. The console retails for $350, and the $400 price for the VR doesn't include the PS eye (which is required), so the retail cost is just north of $800. I would expect that we might see bundles for $800 with a few games, maybe $750, and $700 as an outside likelihood. I would actually expect $800 or $850 for the whole bundle, a few games and the move controllers as well, though, which is a lot, but is the same price as the Vive (and probably similar to the Rift + hand controllers).

 

Still, that's including an entire system in that package, so it seems like a pretty sweet deal.

 

This has me very, very excited for VR. Now all I really need is for MS to freaking partner with someone (oculus or valve) to get VR on their headset and really get people on the VR bandwagon.

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The PS VR price point has me very excited for a few years from now when I can upgrade my graphics card and can grab a vive 3 for not one thousand dollars total.

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Don't count on that pricepoint. The console retails for $350, and the $400 price for the VR doesn't include the PS eye (which is required), so the retail cost is just north of $800. I would expect that we might see bundles for $800 with a few games, maybe $750, and $700 as an outside likelihood. I would actually expect $800 or $850 for the whole bundle, a few games and the move controllers as well, though, which is a lot, but is the same price as the Vive (and probably similar to the Rift.

Totally agree that a $600 bundle is a very remote possibility in the near future but 600-650 is the price that would make me jump into VR and PS4 this Christmas. And if they SERIOUSLY wanted to get VR into homes, the console's success means they could probably afford to take a hit in order to achieve that. The need for the camera complicates things and perhaps they're already making a loss on the headset at $400. But a $599(!) price point for a bundle would fly off the shelves, perhaps even for people with launch consoles. It would make more sense coming with a new SKU which can't be too far off, right?

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I have an HTC Vive Pre! Ask me questions if ya want

 

Here's what the camera passthrough thing looks like (at 100% opacity, which isn't how you'd see it if using it as the chaperone)

25151340913_c295c76615_o.gif

 

That overlay is incredible! I've seen a few videos with it now at various settings, including the direct video feed, and am currently more wowed by the Vive than Oculus Rift. 

 

Speaking of Oculus, they have released a list of the complete line up, as well as a "Comfort" level for people worried about motion sickness

post-33997-0-36725800-1458137690_thumb.jpg

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Totally agree that a $600 bundle is a very remote possibility in the near future but 600-650 is the price that would make me jump into VR and PS4 this Christmas. And if they SERIOUSLY wanted to get VR into homes, the console's success means they could probably afford to take a hit in order to achieve that. The need for the camera complicates things and perhaps they're already making a loss on the headset at $400. But a $599(!) price point for a bundle would fly off the shelves, perhaps even for people with launch consoles. It would make more sense coming with a new SKU which can't be too far off, right?

 

They would need to be doing pretty badly to have to eat half the cost of the headset in a bundle. I wouldn't bet on anything that low this entire year. You're right that it would fly off shelves, but I think that the current price is already pretty freaking sweet and Sony hasn't had trouble selling PS4s, thus far, so really steep discounting seems unlikely. I mean, the PS4 launched in 2013 and it only dropped to $50 off the price point last fall. 

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If you have a GearVr, I recommend trying out the AltSpaceVR app. There are a few environments that have activities to do while you chat. So you can play disc-golf, air-hockey, and some other stuff while you chat. Interestingly there are people in there who are using the Vive pre and possibly Oculus devices. Disc-Golf is actually pretty good.

 

I also had a good time playing a few rounds of trivia in Oculus Social. When I first went into the room, everyone was silent, but I started talking about why I was picking the answer I was picking. I think two of the people were annoyed that I was announcing my answers during a trivia game that they wanted to play in silence, but the room quickly replaced them with a group who enjoyed that style of play and we were laughing and having a good time. It's pretty intense chatting in VR, it's like being at a party and you don't know anyone.

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Gah! I'm now pretty torn between the Rift and the Vive!

The Rift has some really cool looking games that might not come to Vive: I particularly like the look of Radial-G, a VR F-Zero like; Adr1ft and Lucky's Tale are also intriguing, and I bought the first episode of Albino Lullaby after last year's PAX East.

The Vive seems to have a better, more complete experience. However, I suspect that I won't have room for much more than seated VR, and the Rift is geared towards that. Furthermore, the Vive has no exclusive titles (which is admirable).

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Gah! I'm now pretty torn between the Rift and the Vive!

The Rift has some really cool looking games that might not come to Vive: I particularly like the look of Radial-G, a VR F-Zero like; Adr1ft and Lucky's Tale are also intriguing, and I bought the first episode of Albino Lullaby after last year's PAX East.

The Vive seems to have a better, more complete experience. However, I suspect that I won't have room for much more than seated VR, and the Rift is geared towards that. Furthermore, the Vive has no exclusive titles (which is admirable).

From some things I have read Vive is going to be a more open platform than the Rift, but its unclear at this point. I will always try and favor more open platforms especially for VR where balkanization could be extremely damaging to the medium in its infancy.

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GiantBomb is livestreaming Oculus games.

 

I liked that Oculus sent out a bunch of near min spec pcs to test it with, and GB are using them here. I am encouraged that the experience seems smooth even there, for the most part. 

 

I think that the "tabletop" experience of e.g. Lucky's Tale and Fly to Kuma seems is cool, and am definitely interested in games like that. Also, I really liked Darknet, a 3D  puzzle game hacking game that seems very 90's cyberpunk.

The guys didn't like Radial-G too much, especially since it was the game that made them most nauseous: this might be alleviated by higher spec rigs. Radial-G looks like a spiritual successor to F-Zero, and I am very interested, especially since other people have reported a very smooth experience.

 

Being an Elite Dangerous nut, I will definitely get one of the two pc HMDs. However, I am worried about the restricted field of view on display. I hope this is due to some bug that can be fixed.

 

One of the many VR articles I read over the last couple of days involved one of the Adr1ft devs saying that it was too late to add Touch support for that game, but they were looking at it for their next game; this could be why it isn't being ported to Vive any more.

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I liked that Oculus sent out a bunch of near min spec pcs to test it with, and GB are using them here. I am encouraged that the experience seems smooth even there, for the most part. 

 

I think that the "tabletop" experience of e.g. Lucky's Tale and Fly to Kuma seems is cool, and am definitely interested in games like that. Also, I really liked Darknet, a 3D  puzzle game hacking game that seems very 90's cyberpunk.

The guys didn't like Radial-G too much, especially since it was the game that made them most nauseous: this might be alleviated by higher spec rigs. Radial-G looks like a spiritual successor to F-Zero, and I am very interested, especially since other people have reported a very smooth experience.

 

Being an Elite Dangerous nut, I will definitely get one of the two pc HMDs. However, I am worried about the restricted field of view on display. I hope this is due to some bug that can be fixed.

 

One of the many VR articles I read over the last couple of days involved one of the Adr1ft devs saying that it was too late to add Touch support for that game, but they were looking at it for their next game; this could be why it isn't being ported to Vive any more.

You can use the vive sitting down with a controller, so not sure why touch would be an issue. I think it has more to do with Rift trying to lock down exclusives than anything.

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