Comment by greggman2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by greggman2 | Hacker News Reader

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Well then you can come meet me and about 150 other friends.

I pretty much play VR only at this point. Any time I try a typical flat screen 3D game something is missing. The frustration of having a camera stick. The boringness of having to "press the action button" instead of just reaching out and touch the thing I'm supposed to interact it. And of course most of all the feeling of "presence". The Citadel on the horizon in HL2 (old reference sorry) is a pretty picture but nothing more. The volcano in Farpoint is 3 miles high with a 15 mile high plumb of smoke and I feel that as though I was there. It's like a picture of the grand canyon vs actually being at the grand canyon. They aren't comparable and I can't go back to not feeling like "being there".

This isn't a "gimmick" like 3D movies where they stick things in your face or throw stuff at you just show off the tech. It's qualitatively different.

If there was more content I was interested in I'd spent even more time in VR. Unfortunately there isn't that much AAA VR content and worse for me I can't take horror in VR, it's way to intense, so I probably won't be able to play the new VR Half Life coming out in March.

VR today is like an Apple Newton in 1993. Everyone laughed. Heck in 2007 PDAs where just for geeks. Then in 2008 Apple's PDA shipped, the iPhone, and now everyone has a PDA in their pocket to the point that's you'd be considered strange not to have one. It might be a while, it might even be another 15 years but VR will happen. It's just too compelling when it's good.

This reads like someone who has had VR for a limited time. Yes, it’s very impressive at first, and people write posts like these. After a few years, many realize that the resolution is low, the headsets are uncomfortable, and the experiences are limited. It still has a long way to go. I do agree that it can happen, but it needs to be much better, similar to the state of AR,

> The boringness of having to "press the action button" instead of just reaching out and touch the thing I'm supposed to interact it.

but "reaching out" in VR equates to waving around a VR wand in space and pressing buttons on it, I'm not sure what's the difference?

Your hands are in the same physical location as the object you're interacting with. It removes one of the planks of artificiality and improves the chance your brain will stop signalling that experience isn't real.

I don't entirely agree with OP. I enjoy VR even when it uses the gamepad. If the iteractions have a good "in-game" explanation - no matter how far-fetched - then your brain will stop raising the alarm. So if the game gives a good justification for pushing buttons in-world then that will do the trick.

> Your hands are in the same physical location as the object you're interacting with.

But, they literally aren't. The object is in virtual space, and your hands are interacting with two controllers (wands) that you cannot see and this interaction is then translated to control the virtual space.

I suppose, with practice they would become more of an extension of yourself? But that's not what I assume what was meant with "having to press the action button instead of just reaching out and touch the thing". Maybe the VR I tried just had really shitty controllers?

When you're in VR the space that matters to you is mostly the virtual space. If you move a controler and some representation of that controller matches it's position exactly then you feel that is where your hand is. The fact that your hands are invisible is quickly forgotten. (Fake avatar hands can often actually reduce immersion - uncanny valley time...)

It's similar to tool use. Tools become an extension of your body and you tend to perceive them as such. Musicians, sportsmen etc are familiar with this feeling.

I think a similar thing happens with all tools. The same happens with game controllers, mice, keyboards, etc. While you're getting to know them, they're weird and unfamiliar. And then once you're really used to them, they vanish. When I'm typing a comment, I'm not thinking about fingers or QWERTY. I'm immersed in what I'm doing.

Which is certainly an argument that people get used to VR controllers. But I think it's also an argument against VR being particularly special in terms of immersion.

> But I think it's also an argument against VR being particularly special in terms of immersion.

Or rather, it's an argument against 6DOF controllers being central to VR immersion. I think they make a difference albeit a small one.

Actual physical hand tracking is wonderfully immersive but hits other snags. No haptic feedback and tracking limitations. For some scenarious however it's a step forward.

(You need to design interactions around the controller limitations. Current VR experiences are too enamoured of the novelty and give the user too much freedom. Immersion comes from carefully stage managing the experience to avoid those things that sign-post the artificiality)

I feel like you probably haven't tried VR? The thing about VR is put someone who doesn't understand video games or any of the metaphors people who grow up with them understand, and in something like the HTC Vive they'll still just "get it". People almost immediately start walking around and trying to touch things, pick things up etc.

The biggest problem with VR is headset bulk, and space. Lighter headsets will make a huge difference. Finding a way to give people more raw space to play in will make a huge difference.

I did try VR a few times. And no I didn't like it. I had a lot of trouble with the controls, these wand things and the buttons on it. I'm also not comfortable with regular console controllers, so maybe that's it. But my main problem is that any time I tried it I got overstimulated super quickly and it just made me very annoyed and in a bad mood. It's healthier for me to avoid situations like that.

On the other hand, if the controls were actually like "reach out and touch the thing" (which they just aren't because you're holding things that only signify interaction), I might have felt better about it. Not sure, because so far all VR has made me feel completely helpless wrt the controls.

I'm glad to hear there are a few people happy with the current stuff. But I'll note that in the 1990s wave of VR there were people who would talk exactly like this. It was amazing; they loved it; the tech and content wasn't there yet, but surely in 10 or 20 years, we'd all be spending all our time immersed. And I'll note that James Cameron, director of Avatar, has essentially the same belief about 3D movies: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2428530/the-problem-3d-has-...

I'm still unconvinced. And I'll note that plenty of people get the feeling of presence from novels, from comic books, from movies, from games. Getting lost in a world isn't a property of technology. It's something humans have been doing since we were telling stories around a campfire.

When we want that, that is. As you say, we just as often want distance from our experiences. And quite often we're indifferent to immersion; it's not material to the experience we seek. Movie tickets sales are down 25% since 2000. That might be in part because some people have fancy home theaters that are nearly as good, the at-home 100" screen with 7.1 sound. But I think it's mostly because people are happy watching things on laptops and tablets and phones. They mostly don't want to "be there", however much that horrifies the Martin Scorseses of the world.

Cameron made a great 3D movie that spawned a generation of shitty counterfeit imitations. That article is about how Cameron feels 3D cinema was poisoned by a glut of cheap fake 3D, and he wants real 3D tech to develop so people stop faking it, and he wants a no glasses solution. Is he wrong?

People always had TV. Obviously home viewing is winning because it's getting better and it's much cheaper and more convenient.

I believe he is wrong. Sure, it's possible that Cameron is the only person who can make a good 3D movie. But the explanation that's more consistent with the history of 3D is that he was the person to get in early and ride the novelty wave. Once the novelty wore off, people stopped bothering.

It's true that home viewing is winning because it's more convenient. But my point is that it's obviously worse in terms of viewer experience and the technical qualities that VR proponents believe will finally lead to VR success.

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