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Whatever happended to Virtual Reality

Started by MonkeyDrummer, February 16, 2004, 03:06:31 PM

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MonkeyDrummer

We all remember the headsets. The features on Tomorrow's World that told us the future of gamin would be with VR headsets. But what's happened to it? I can remember that even back then the graphics were shite, but by now you'd expect the graphics to have caught up with the technology and the result to be a fantastic gaming experience. The concept itself was pretty solid, it was just the poor blocky 3d graphics that let it down.  Or was it? Why are we still playing with joysticks?

I think the squiddies and agents felt we were getting too close to the truth so they deliberately made our VR machines shit to throw us off the scent.

Anyone who's ever seen the film Lawnmower Man knows why.  This film is solely responsible for VR's downfall.

Frinky

Quote from: "Concerned But Powerless"Anyone who's ever seen the film Lawnmower Man knows why.  This film is solely responsible for VR's downfall.

But... the monkey!

MonkeyDrummer

I haven't seen it, can anyone explain?

@ssmaster

Well someone still thinks there is a market for them - http://www.cwonline.com/index.asp

I used to sell the headsets back in 97 (I use the word sell very lightly). I used to play Descent with them on it was ok but you used to end up with a splitting headache later. Also if you were to watch someone use them they would look like a futuristic Stevie Wonder.

Phil

Of of the main problems (apart from the cost of a VR unit) was that it was found to give a lot of users headaches. This is mainly due to the fact that your eyes are focused on a screen a couple of inches away and takes up your entire field of vision. Since you are wearing the headset constantly, you cannot refocus your eyes which causes the headaches (and doesn't do your eyes much good either).

The quality of the screens was also not very good. When moving your head quickly it became quite difficult to distinguish objects.

Also its limitations never really lived up to the promise of being like the real-life experience it was touted to be. For example in real life you can glance in a direction without moving your head. The VR headsets I've used only allow you to look effectively straight ahead, so to glance 50 degrees or so to your right you do need to turn your head, wait to focus, then turn back again.

Vermschneid Mehearties

Phil basically explained it well. Mos tof the big businesses lacked the ambition to continue funding. If they did, then I'm positive VR would be a really big thing now.
The important thing is, some companies have found a way to exploit VR using todays technology, so we may just be heading for a big leap in entertainment.

Though, I'm sure as Iannucci rightly points out, we'll just use it to pump out porn.

MonkeyDrummer

yep, porn's driven quite a few technologies we see and take for granted today.
jpeg, mpeg, divx to name but a few

I once played a VR game, it was based on the long running television show, Neighbours.



It does hurt your eyes after a couple of hours.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: "Phil"Of of the main problems (apart from the cost of a VR unit) was that it was found to give a lot of users headaches. This is mainly due to the fact that your eyes are focused on a screen a couple of inches away and takes up your entire field of vision. Since you are wearing the headset constantly, you cannot refocus your eyes which causes the headaches (and doesn't do your eyes much good either).
Also another common problem was nausea caused by the lag between you moving your head and the image changing in front of your eyes, due to the processing time taken to generate the new image.  The confusion this caused in the users' brains made many of them want to puke.

The Plaque Goblin

So, what is needed is something that attaches to the surface of the eyeball or plugs directly into the brain like in that Cronenberg movie eXisTeNZ, or whatever.

Speaking of whatever, whatever happened to:
-Acid Rain
-Devil Dogs
-Flesh Eating Bugs

??

Vermschneid Mehearties

Quote-Acid Rain

That never went away. The southwesterly winds are still carrying our poison over to Scandinavia, killing fish and trees and dogs.

DonkeyRods

Quote from: "Concerned But Powerless"Anyone who's ever seen the film Lawnmower Man knows why.  This film is solely responsible for VR's downfall.

I dont think it was quite so much as that Virtual Reality program in it with Craig Charles going AWOOGA AWOOGA AWOOGA all the time. What was that called? Yet another 6 o'clock program that sounded like it would be ace but turned out to be utter shite.

hymen spaz

although i don't know what happened to it, when i was 15 i used to do games testing on them for £10 a day with my mates.

the fact that they pissed off into obscurity after this is not lost on me...... but at least i got a tenner. 3 bottles of 20/20 for that.

El Unicornio, mang

I was wondering about this myself. Still, I'm sure in a few years there'll be a new VR system that can replicate any landscape/scenario you wish in hyper real format, with smell, taste,sound, vision and touch all accounted for. Then nobody will bother to leave their houses again.

nixon

I am bemused by the fact it's dissapeared.  

In 1991 I had shamen blasting out of my stereo, Lawnmower man on my video, bbc doccos about it on the TV, books about it making my eyes bleed, a Shop with 2 VR machines in Cardiff  called "virtual Reality...  It was going to change the world..

and then...

**poof.**

gone.

Gutted am I.

so I write a stroy about a guy plaugged into a network who arrives in the virtual world... fighting and shit..

6 years later the bloody martix appears!!

cool!!

VR is saved.  

or is it?

Mecha Jesus - Mk II

Quote from: "The Plaque Goblin"Speaking of whatever, whatever happened to:
-Acid Rain
-Devil Dogs
-Flesh Eating Bugs

??

-Killer Bees?
-Hansen?
-Tamagotchis?

Krang

I had a go with a VR headset at Futuroscope in france.

It was shit and cost me like £3.

terminallyrelaxed

Basically we're waiting for decent holographic projection to come along, you know, seamless panoramic stuff, with the processing power to keep it all good while you move around.
Wonder how they'll move the floor, to stop you bumping into the wall.....

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten


no_offenc

Quote from: "terminallyrelaxed"Basically we're waiting for decent holographic projection to come along, you know, seamless panoramic stuff, with the processing power to keep it all good while you move around.
Wonder how they'll move the floor, to stop you bumping into the wall.....

A giant, omnidirectional treadmill, with adjustable TextureMatic flooring.

Alberon

Quote from: "terminallyrelaxed"Basically we're waiting for decent holographic projection to come along, you know, seamless panoramic stuff, with the processing power to keep it all good while you move around.
Wonder how they'll move the floor, to stop you bumping into the wall.....

Nah, what you need is to wire the brain directly up to a computer.

Or maybe, we're all already in virtual reality and don't realise it. It would explain a lot.

Quote from: "Mecha Jesus - Mk II"Hansen?
Fucking hell, that's weird - I've been ponedring that myself for that last couple of weeks - the radio in the back room at work is perpetually tuned to Radio 1, and every time I hear that song "Where is the Love", I hear the Hanson song "Where's the Love" in my brain.

I also find myself recalling a bit in the NME (I think) where someone from Hanson was talking about a video they had done that was a piss take of Titanic, and said that they thought it was a great idea because "Nobody had done a Titanic spoof." It really hammers home what a sheltered and ignorant life they led.

Oh, and the point, which I've just remembered, is that VR is still very much alive and kicking, and in constant development. There are entertainment applications - I think you can get VR golf machines - but one of the main uses is remote offices - you have a screen in front of the desk which displays other people, with whom you can interact, as though they were in the room with you.

For further details, take a Computer Science BSc.

Dr. Gizmonic

Quote from: "Alberon"Or maybe, we're all already in virtual reality and don't realise it. It would explain a lot.

Hmmm, I've never thought of it that way.

Mindblowing.

Smackhead Kangaroo

The advent of the Actual reality machine made VR technology redundant. Why play migraine inducing blocky and slow shite when you can sample the delights of Big Brother? Pop Idol? and Those are celebrities get me into there!.
No contest.

Oh and because it was actually shite.