Virtual Reality Gaming

[nicksofar]

καλησπέρα, σκεφτόμουν το εξής. Τι γίνεται με την τεχνολογία virtual reality? To συγκεκριμένο εγχείρημα είχε δίαφορες εφαρμογές στο gaming στα 90΄s.(virtual boy, atari vr, pc virtual reality applications). To μέλλον της συγκεκριμένης τεχνολογίας, μας έκανε να ονειρευόμαστε μια ενναλακτική gaming πραγματικότητα στα 00΄s. Δυστηχώς απο το 2000 και υστερά η εν λόγω τεχνολογία δεν προχώρησε σε καμία gaming κονσόλα. Τι έγινε άραγε?

 

[Aardvark]

Για ριξε εδω μια ματια,ενα εμπεριστατωμενο αρθρο απο εναν απο τους καλυτερους στο ειδος του επιστημονα ,ονοματι Aardvark.

Αtari VR..Τόσο μπροστά που ούτε καν κυκλοφόρησε

 

[nicksofar]

Σωστός, για την τεχνολογία με κράνος και γάντι μιλάω και εγώ. Το είχα ζήσει αρχές 90ς Αγγλία σε coin op. Τρομέρη εμπειρία, δεν ξέρω γιατι το πάγωσαν, θα ήταν σε συνδιασμό με την σύχρονη τεχνολογία ανεπανάληπτη εμπειρία.

 

[vagosgta3]

Εγω ειχα παιξει πριν πολλα χρονια σε ενα coinop στο κεντρο της αθηνας,ηταν ενα παιχνιδι με αεροπλανα του πρωτου παγκοσμιου πολεμου,κριμα που δεν προχωρισε αυτη η τεχνολογια γιατι θα μπορουσε να ηταν μια ωραια εμπειρια να παιζαμε flight simulator η FPS με κρανος.

 

[vagosgta3]

Trimersion Virtual Reality

βρηκα αυτο το ενδιαφερον θεμα για το Virtual Reality για PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC

Back in the mid-90s the future of gaming wasn't thought to be high-definition, or online communities, or massively multiplayer. It was freaking virtual reality baby! It would be easy to blame Hollywood for getting everyone worked up for technology that wasn't anywhere near ready, were it not for the fact that both Sega and Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon as fast as they could. While the Sega VR got canned early in its R&D, Nintendo actually went and delivered the Virtual Boy to a decidedly under whelmed public. After this rather dramatic failure, VR faded from the general public consciousness for almost a decade.
Today we've actually got the technology that can make VR worthwhile, like solid 3D graphics processing and small, cheap LCDs. As such it's not much of a surprise that a variety of manufacturers had been developing a new generation of consumer VR. Trimersion is one such company. IGN Gear first got to know Trimersion at E3 2006, with the company's silver bodysuit'ed booth babes drawing an ample crowd. Just short of a year later the company is ready for full release with a unit capable of working with the PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC (with VGA to composite adapter, not included). An Xbox 360 dongle is apparently in development.

The Trimersion package consists of three components. The actual head-mounted-display (HMD) is a 1.2 pound unit that sports a pair of roughly 1-inch 640 x 480 resolution LCDs as well as head-tracking movement detection. Stereo headphones are incorporated into the unit, and an adjustable strap allows for a customized fit. The headset makes a wired connection to the gun peripheral, which contains the 4 AA batteries that power the HMD. The gun peripheral replaces the traditional control pad for whatever console is playing the game, and is arrayed with buttons that cover the various bases for each console's gamepad. The third component in the system is a base station that plugs into each console's controller ports (to make the gun peripheral work) and also accepts composite video inputs, which it wireless transmits to the HDM.
The most obvious purpose for a VR peripheral in gaming is the FPS genre, and as such we conducted the majority of our testing with Halo 2 on the Xbox. In our opinion, VR isn't really VR unless there is active head-tracking, and as such we focused our testing upon playing the game with the feature enabled. The Trimersion's head tracking system essentially takes over the role of the right analog stick in FPS titles, which means turning your head moves the aiming reticule and your general view. Actual character movement is handled by one of the forward mounted analog sticks on the gun peripheral.

Ideally a VR system detaches the player's view from where their gun is pointing, which allows for an expanded and immersive view without making the player have to aim with their head. Because the Trimersion is so modular a system and obviously can't retrofit VR-mods into console games, we had to learn how to aim with our faces. The process of doing so revealed some of the Trimersion's greatest weaknesses.

Obviously, people's heads can't rotate 360-degrees, but in games where the view and where a character's body is facing are essentially connected, 360-degree spins are generally required. Pulling a 180 to see who's shooting you in the back is not an easy task with the Trimersion, as one can only really turn one's head perhaps 100-degrees. If you turn your head as far as you can and still can't see behind you, there's not much else to do since you'll eventually have to turn your own head straight, at which point you've got your back to the enemy once again. It is possible to spin a quick 180 with a sharp head jerk to the left or right, but it's not very exact, and will leave a user disoriented and scanning for the target. If you've ever wanted to know what it would be like to be a drunken Space Marine, this is it.

Another big problem is the fact that the headtracking seems to have a bias towards looking down. After a few minutes of use, most users end up with their chins on their chests, even though their character's view may be on the horizon. Fixing the skewed view requires staring at the sky and then slowly bringing one's head back to the horizon. It's something we found ourselves doing every few minutes. In games that incorporate effects like barrel-rise during automatic weapons firing a similar issue occurs, in that one must continually be turning one's head down to compensate for the view being forced upwards by the barrel rise. After a while one physically can't look down any more, at which point one must entirely disengage from combat to look at the sky and straighten things out.

Aiming with one's face is simply not a very functional game play dynamic. In addition to the aforementioned issues, the Trimersion is not very sensitive to very small head movements. Its internal sensor's sensitivity cannot be adjusted, and though most FPS titles allow for in-game sensitivity adjustment, applying acceleration to the view made us feel ill almost immediately. As things stand, making small aiming adjustments to draw a bead on a distant enemy is really rather difficult, as is accurately following a strafing enemy.

We're confident in concluding that VR doesn't work for games that can't separate the player's view from where the character's body / gun is facing, which pretty much means all console FPS titles. The Trimersion head tracking can be disabled, which allows users to use the two analog sticks on the gun peripheral for traditional movement and aiming. This might be a tenable solution were it not for the fact that there's really no point in wearing an HMD if it doesn't do head tracking, and that the gun peripheral is not a comfortable controller to use in this manner. Further discouraging such use is the fact that the Trimersion's LCDs are not terribly good. Though the view supposedly equates to a 40-inch display seen from 6.5-feet away, the LCDs are only 640x480 resolution and as such graphics are degraded. Though the unit is capable of brightness and contrast adjustments, the overall quality never came close to the clarity of even a normal TV, and isn't a pleasure to look at.

Another rather annoying issue with the Trimersion is the fact that it makes use of a wireless connection between the base station and the headset. While it's certainly nice not to be tethered to one's console, we encountered a lot of interference, both in the office and at home, that was not a result of bad base-station placement (we experimented a lot). Though we eventually found a channel that worked pretty well, the occasional static screech and screen distortion effectively broke the spell of an immersive environment.

Conclusion

There's still a certain mystique to virtual reality, and over the couple of weeks the Trimersion has been on the Gear test bench just about everyone wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, even a decade after VR first got people excited, it's still not ready to roll in a consumer application such as this. Though the Trimersion is functional and does a fair job bringing VR to the home for $299, the ultimate experience it provides is seriously underwhelming. Though everyone in the office exclaimed "Cool!" upon seeing the hardware, none played for more than a few minutes, and some complained that it made them feel ill. Despite some obvious care and effort invested in the design and manufacturing of the Trimersion, the product will have to stand purely upon the novelty of the ever-compelling fantasy of Virtual Reality, and not on the quality of the true experience, which is, as VR always has been, very low.

link

http://gear.ign.com/articles/778/778513p1.html

 

[Maddog]

Ένα πρόβλημα που εμπόδισε και εμποδίζει την εφαρμογή της Virtual Reality είναι στην βάση του Ιατρικό: το σώμα μας δεν παίρνει πληροφορίες για την θέση και στάση του στο χώρο μόνο από τα μάτια. Δεν θεωρώ σκόπιμο να κάνω πολλές αναλύσεις ιατρικού περιεχομένου, αλλά η ουσία είναι ότι σημαντικό ποσοστό των ανθρώπων ζαλίζονται ή αισθάνονται εξαιρετικά άβολα φορώντας κράνη virtual reality.

Και φυσικά δεν μπορείς να αφήσεις κάποιον άνθρωπο που στερείται των πραγματικών του αισθήσεων (επειδή βλέπει μια virtual reality εικόνα) ελεύθερο σε κάποιον χώρο να τρέχει στα τυφλά, για προφανείς λόγους ασφαλείας. Ακόμα και να μην ζαλίζεται, υπάρχει πάντα ο κίνδυνος να τσακιστεί κάπου ή να χάσει την ισορροπία του.

Αυτά τα δύο (ακόμη άλυτα...) προβλήματα αυτομάτως περιορίζουν τις πιθανές εφαρμογές και το επίπεδο ρεαλισμού και πολυπλοκότητας κάθε εφαρμογής εικονικής πραγματικότητας. Και αποτέλεσαν ουσιαστικά την "ταφόπλακα" της τεχνολογίας σε οποιοδήποτε επίπεδο πέραν του curio item.

Υπήρχε ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον σχετικό άρθρο σε παλιότερο RetroGamer. Προτείνω να το αναζητήσετε, αλλά δυστυχώς δεν θυμάμαι αυτή την στιγμή σε ποιό τεύχος ήταν.

 

[simonkey]

το ειχα παιξει και εγω αυτο το παιχνιδι με τα αεροπλανα και ειχα εντυπωσιαστει αν και ηταν λιγο ευαισθητο με την κινηση του κεφαλιου,το γιατι σταματησε στα arcade δεν ξερω αλλα γνωριζω οτι εχει εφαρμογη στην εκπαιδευση για to space shuttle.......

 

[AA+]

Μπορεί το VR να έφαγε πόρτα αλλά οι 3D lcd καλά πάνε. Οσοι ήταν στην DTE θα είδαν τηλεοράσεις που δεν χρειάζονται γυαλιά... Φέτος τι θα δούμε άραγε...

 

[Aardvark]

Το μελλον ειναι τωρα.

Paul: We're not going to be building games in the future. We're going to be creating dreams

Cliff: There are two types of people: those who haven't seen it, and those who have and believe. It's like the first time you see IMAX.

Paul: If you're sitting in a chair and the game has you sitting in the chair, it works well. If you're moving in the game and sitting, it doesn't work as well.

Chris: The Oculus Rift is instinctive. It removes the interface. The experience is more connected and you feel like you're there.

Palmer: The consoles killed the arcade, because you could have that at home

Paul: VR could be the beginning of a next generation arcade.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/08/were-live-at-sxsws-virtual-reality-the-holy-grail-of-gaming/

 

[Wally]

Απιστευτο πανελ, φοβερη η εξελιξη στο Oculus Rift

 

[Aardvark]

How Cool και awesome ειναι το μελλον,karalol.

 

[Imgema]

Στο μέλλον οι gamers θα έχουμε τους πιο γυμνασμένους λαιμούς/αυχένες. Η αυτό ή απλά δεν θα μπορούμε να κουνηθούμε.

 

[Maddog]

Μακάρι να πιάσει αυτό το πράμα, σίγουρα η δουλειά μου για επισκευή αυχενικών θα πενταπλασιαστεί.

 

[Ajax87]

Εμενα γιατι δεν με ενθουσιαζει το ολο θεμα με το Virtual Reality; Θα δειξει!

 

[Aardvark]

Virtual Boy emulator για τον Oculus Rift ονοματι VBjin-OVR.

Destructoid

 

[cloud]

Η φράση "Αυτό είναι το μέλλον στο gaming" σε συνδυασμό με εικόνες με Virtual Reality, είναι πολύ retro ακόμα και για το retromaniax!

 

[Aardvark]

Μια προσπαθεια απο την Sony και το PS2 με ενα vaporware συστημα για virtual reality με ελαχιστα 3 παιχνιδια να το υποστηριζουν απο τα λιγα που διαβασα.

Δυο γενιες μετα τι κανουμε,μονο το Occulus.

[video=youtube;wl8tgzPJ-pA]

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?26790-Sony-PUD-J5A

 

[Aardvark]

Μεσα σε λιγες ωριτσες,οχι μονο εφτασε το goal ,οχι μονο το διπλασιασε αλλα και κατι παραπανω.


Ο κοσμος διψαει για VR.

 

[Scatman]

Το συγκεκριμένο είναι ένα είδος "εναλλακτικού" ελέγχου κι όχι Virtual Reality. O κόσμος όντως διψάει για VR, είναι κάτι σαν απωθημένο αφού ποτέ δεν εκτελέστηκε σωστά. Γι'αυτό και η συγκεκριμένη ιδέα έγινε fund αρκετά γρήγορα.

Πρακτικά η σωστή εφαρμογή του θα απαιτούσε πλήρη οπτική, παιχνίδια προσαρμοσμένα πάνω σε αυτό και κάποιο μηχανισμό που θα μεταφέρει τα ερεθίσματα του κόσμου που παρουσιάζει στον παίχτη.

 

[Aardvark]

Σπανια τα ονειρο σου τα βλεπεις σε βιντεο.