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What happened to Virtual Reality?

Started by Neil, June 14, 2011, 03:53:30 PM

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Neil

Remember when this was a huge fad?  I even had a go at it in a bowling alley, but found the lag off-putting.  I just did a quick Googl, and it seems that VR might now also encompass things such as Kinect/EyeToy/Move, where your image is embedded in the videogame, but what happened to the idea of immersing you in them by flooding your ears and eyes with data? 

momatt

I was wondering about this recently.  I think most of the technology gave the recipients headaches, like Nintendo's Virtual-Boy.  There were people worrying that it was going to destroy life as we know it of course.  Technology has meant we are all glued to screens all day with minimal actual human interaction, but just without the silly helmets.  So they were right.
I for one was looking forward to the steamy cyber-sex suggested in The Lawnmower Man. 

Inspired a decent Jamiroquai tune though.

Sivead

This is first thing I think of if someone brings up Virtual Reality.
Cyber Zone Game Show



Slaaaaabs

Is it feasible that John Fashanu nicking AWOOGA! as a catchphrase from Craig Charles is to blame for the lack of virtual reality nowadays?

mycroft

Quote from: momatt on June 14, 2011, 05:17:33 PM
I think most of the technology gave the recipients headaches, like Nintendo's Virtual-Boy. 

That device often pops into my mind at idle moments, and I remember the massive hype it received in the old official Nintendo magazine around '93 or whenever it was. I also distinctly recall a kid winning one ("the first one in Europe!" or something) on a BBC1 summer holidays videogame show hosted by Rick Adams. With none of its friends having ever come to join it, this lone Virtual-Boy sits in an attic somewhere, beneath inches of dust and regret.

Still Not George

I loved Cyber Zone passionately. Along with Scavengers, which featured John Leslie and a cyborg with big tits.

mycroft

I rediscovered that on YouTube recently. "Way to go, Android." Yeah, John. Sure.

Treguard of Dunshelm

"Ever heard my dog impression? Woof woof."

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Still Not George on June 14, 2011, 07:18:06 PM
I loved Cyber Zone passionately. Along with Scavengers, which featured John Leslie and a cyborg with big tits.
That would be the lovely Anna Galvin, who I remember "most fondly"[nb]beat off to the most times[/nb] from the new Robin Hood TV series from the late 90s.

Big Jack McBastard

I remember trying a VR machine out an eon ago and it was utter dogrot, ugly blocky badly out of synch shoddy gameplay, cumbersome to wear and frankly fucking dangerous, letting a newly blinded in this world person loose in a dodgy fantasy land, even if they are in a ring, is asking for trouble.

Like going into a dungeon in Knightmare without a team.


Big Jack McBastard

..and then someone goes over face first, cracks the helmet off the inside of the ball and buggers their neck.

It's not the medium for me, if I had to physically walk everywhere I've covered in say.... just Dragon Age 2 on it's own I'd have let the ogre in the prologue eat me. End of game.

jutl

They replaced it with AR which has developed innovative new ways of making the user look like a clueless cunt.

Johnny Yesno

There's quite a nice demo from a couple of years ago of an Augmented Reality device here.

John Bayliss

There was a documentary on TV years and years ago about these people who were developing VR and I remember this guy talking about it at the start and it all sounded very cool. But then they showed the Virtual Reality rig that these people had apparently built and it was literally something along the lines of two Casio pocket televisions bolted onto a safety helmet with a Nintendo Powerglove for the controller and we never once got to see it in action. Also, they kept showing footage of the bad guy from Robocop 2 (as in the computer screen version of him) for reasons unknown. Obviously something came of VR but I wonder if these people were any real part of it. I may have even wondered at the time if they were actually just pranking the documentary makers.

It is interesting that it hasn't really taken off yet. It's less-communal but lots of people play games by themselves or against online people. In fact I suppose if each person in the room had a head thing it wouldn't negate local multiplayer stuff. Is there a health and safety issue since people wouldn't be able to see their actual surroundings? Considering some people managed to smash their homes and eyes to bits with a wiimote, we'd likely have people wearing VR headsets falling out of windows and setting themselves on fire. It's sort of difficult to sell as well, like Blu-Ray and the 3DS in the sense that you'd need to see it in action to really see how good it is. TV sales would take a battering but I don't know why that would hold the thing back necessarily, unless there's some sort of back-scratching deal in place. Presumably the thing would do everything mainstream entertainments wise, so you'd watch films on it and it would simulate an IMAX screen with built-in stereoscopic blah blah. Definitely VR was aggressively touted as the next big thing by absolutely everyone so the fact that it wasn't all that back then can't have helped the cause. But, yeah, I'd buy one. I thought I'd have one by now to be honest. It's quite good fun to think about how you'd actually control the thing.

Didn't some prankster prank the world into briefly believing that one of the recent Nintendo machines (maybe the Wii) would have a built-in VR thing? Also that Jay Kay tag is great.

papalaz4444244

It will take off once the porn industry and Fleshlight get it to work properly.

Actually, thinking on it, probably the Japanese equivalent.

Big Jack McBastard

QuoteIt will take off once the porn industry and Fleshlight get it to work properly.

Might as well just robotize a RealDoll.

Quote from: papalaz4444244 on June 16, 2011, 07:40:23 PM
It will take off once the porn industry and Fleshlight get it to work properly.

Actually, thinking on it, probably the Japanese equivalent.

I was listening to Joe Rogan's podcast last week and the show's sponsor is the Fleshlight.

Small Man Big Horse

I was only just reading this thread last night before going on to watch Pegg / Frost's slightly disappointing Paul, and there's a brief moment where they're at comic con and Frost is playing a VR game which looks fantastically cool, whilst leaping around all over the place. I was surprised to see it as I presumed VR was dead, but is it possibly going to make a come back?

Consignia

I'm sure it'll be back in some guise. There's still some research into the stuff, back in Uni when I doing stuff with cameras akin to what the Kinect does, there were a few people doing interesting research into VR. I think it'll have to wait until the technology is more lightweight, because the equipment was heavy. You cold probably do stuff like body tracking with a camera outside, and just use lightweight headset nowadays, I guess that could be possible solution.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

The actual human desire to remove yourself from here to somewhere else hasn't gone away, so unless some big breakthrough happens, you can rest assured that one day the accumulated technology will eventually be assimilated into something that doesn't make you throw up in the first 40 seconds, or if you'd rather, does do that.

small_world

I think there are steps toward VR that need to be taken first. I don't think there'll just suddenly be a full on Holo-Deck type console you can pick up from ASDA.
I think we're there with the technology to make something close to VR. That guy who reversed the Wii remote to give apparent 3D. Then a full on helmet display thing. And 3D. FPS's would surely fit straight in to that kind of set up. So you could look around and see stuff.
The helmet display would be linked like a Wii remote to the console. Acting as a joystick. So it would control your direction. You'd still need to push 'forward' to move though. But you could just turn your head to see behind you. Everything would be in £D and you'd have real depth perception from that Wii remote backwards thing.

Zetetic

Most of that's already available (certainly head-controlled PoV; you can do it with a normal monitor and just amplify the movements), if niche. It's not entirely clear that people want to wear helmets and so forth.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

If you can make yourself move in your sleep quite naturally, that seems a better alternative to research than the current technology which seems to require very concentrated, tiring bursts of instruction akin to Kryten teaching Lister how to lift his fake arm.

At a loss of that I think I'd prefer to still be holding a controller but be immersed in the game- I'm not totally arsed with the sensation of moving forward/backward/looking around until they can get it to a sophisticated level, or in the meantime make a fun game where you can still enjoy yourself without the same feeling of reality.

SavageHedgehog

The Virtual Reality craze of the 90s is a bit of a fascination for me; it really touched on a lot of popular culture. I supect the string of cash-in movies (The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, Disclosure, Strange Days etc.) are probably the most famous examples, but you can also see the influence in a lot of rave/rave-ish pop music videos of the time. There was even an episode of Mad About You about it! I suspect this stuff ultimately hindered rather than helped the cause of VR, as they all showed something far in advance of anything the technology really had to offer (Timothy Leary calling it "the LSD of the 90s" probably didn't help either) but the VR craze is an interesting reflection of the positivity of its era

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I can imagine it being good for driving games, as the ability to look around while seated in your armchair would make for a decent approximation of the real thing. FPSs seem like they'd be more problematic - If you're going to physically turn around to make your character do the same, then you'd have to make sure there's no furniture, pets etc. around for you to trip over. On the other hand, if you were playing while seated, it seems like it would be really unnatural to be able to look around with your head, but still have to use the controller to turn your character.

Zetetic

#26
Nevertheless:
TrackIR Explained

Having been messing around with ArmA II for a bit, I'd quite like one of these right now. (Well, not enough not to think that it's a waste of money.)

This approach, amplifying existing gestures, seems considerably more sensible than forcing the user to strap themselves into a helmet and harness (given we're quite an age away from jacking people into computers, rather than going via the intermediaries of screens and input hardware etc.). My only concern is that over time it might completely fuck certain gain-adjusted movements. I wonder if prolonged usage might give you some very odd issues when attempting to look at particular locations.

Zero Gravitas


Cold Meat Platter


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth