Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0cf8612b2e1e | Hacker News Reader

I am struggling to come up with some mainstream uses for this. Sports, concerts, plays, etc are something that could theoretically be used on a recurring basis to entice the public.

My only nerd imaginations are something like a WH40k game. Watch a MOBA in 3D. Fortnite.

Maybe a few historical events? This was the moon landing configuration. The view from the grassy knoll to Kennedy.

View on HN

Improbable tried baseball.[1] They have some kind of deal with the Major League Baseball company. Improbable's metaverse is so expensive to operate that they can't run it 24/7, so they only rent servers for pay per view special events.

American football would make more sense as something to view in VR. The action is complicated to follow.

[1] https://www.improbable.io/news/improbable-builds-major-leagu...

The MLB VR app[1] is pretty neat. You can sit behind home plate with a virtual strike zone, track balls, launch trajectory, height, a bunch of stats as you watch the game play out in real time. Including live games.

A lot of the negative reviews are people confused it's not a game, it's to watch baseball games.

I can't say I'd watch a ton of games on it but I watched some playoff games on it.

Only complaint is that the players are just little cards running around the field. MLB has very good 3D tracking[2] of players on the field, if you could see a somewhat realistic model of players on the field that would be pretty amazing.

If they iterated on the concept I could see more people adopting it.

[1]https://www.meta.com/experiences/mlb/2873640696088444/

[2]https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-gameday-3d-guide

My wife would absolutely pay money to go to an auditorium with 100 other people to watch a live taylor swift concert. Even though its technically feasible to do it in your home, or even to watch it the next day, I know she would pay to be part of a "live" experience.

They have that now in movie theaters that simulcast stage performances.

Sure, but there's a huge visceral difference between looking at a screen versus "being there" in what your brain interprets as, for example, a small black-box theater with a stage in the middle.

Yeah but a movie costs $10-20 retail and costs much less to deliver technologically speaking.

All that fancy “you’re really there” technology costs a lot more with diminishing returns on the running costs.

Theres places like https://www.cosm.com/the-experience that have a spherical view and seating right up close that do live sports and concerts that are more engaging than a normal flat screen.

Yes there is a big difference.

But if you look at all the options --

1) paying hundred of dollars or more, potentially having to travel to a different city to watch the actual event, where you enjoy it with friends/family and the rest of the crowd

2) watch a filmed version in the theater or Blu-ray for $10, with your family/friends and other fans

3) purchase a $3500 headset that is heavy and uncomfortable, watch a filmed version for $10-20, with yourself

The movie theater experience seems like a pretty good deal. If I am not watch the real thing, I might as well just spend $10 and get a great experience.

I'd be interested in using it for auto racing. Usually the tracks are too large to see all at once, the cars are going by too fast to track, and in most cases both apply. Especially if you could zoom in on areas of interest as they happen.

Lapz is basically that for F1 races on the Vision Pro https://youtu.be/Z9OlYcfLmTY?si=k0bFAeMFl0bHEVx3

According to the article, was.

> I am struggling to come up with some mainstream uses for this.

Grilling with Mark Zuckerberg? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibm3WhfLk08

TV OEMs tried to make 3D home entertainment a thing over a decade ago, and it was a failure. Has the environment changed enough to make a difference? I have my doubts, even though the average Internet bandwidth has gone up, at least 3D TV was nominally a shared social activity.

It's more Tha the tech improved. It's a way better feeling than any 3d projection and it's able to be interacted with.

The main issue is adoption. They aren't cheap enough that you'll simply gather a family around to play locally. At best you communicate online and experience it through peers from afar.

One of the biggest reasons 3D tv failed is the lack of socializing while using it. You were required to have glasses for each person watching which limited the ability to use in group settings.

This makes that problem even worse.

It didn't let you socialize because you needed to keep an exact angle. There's no restriction with VR since you can portray an avatar or person. So thars mitigated.

It's more a matter that VR is expensive and still not small enough to he accessible.

DoD is soon getting its Enemy of the State wish fulfilled with pervasive targeted imaging from VLEO. Projecting that realtime imagery in 3D would be icing on the cake.

DoD won't do it with any of these consumer headsets, though, because you can't get anything wireless approved for use in a SCIF. And no, they won't even consider doing anything outside of the SCIF.

VR/AR for DoD is a dead end, unless you have a deep personal relationship with some random Air Force Colonel who is willing to personally walk all your work through all the paperwork on the promise of a board seat when he retires.

-signed, former DoD-targeted VR consultant

What about Microsoft's AR goggles for soldiers? DoD has been investing in that for years and through multiple iterations; iirc it's been fielded for tests and is moving steadily toward production. I saw a headline that someone else was buying it from Microsoft for billions of dollars, so it seems to be worth something.

Excellent example of neo-IBM syndrome. Soldiers have complained about IVAS being too heavy and making them sick. But nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft. It's been going for years and, honestly, anyone honest with experience with Hololens predicted its demise on day one.

Anduril is the company buying IVAS. Founded by Palmer Luckey, who also founded Oculus. Unfortunately, he was never really the technical brains behind Oculus, more "the kid with hubris who got caught up in the ride." Anduril itself seems to be doing well, and I'm even considering applying, but I'm still on the fence about whether them buying IVAS is a good signal.

> Soldiers have complained about IVAS being too heavy and making them sick.

That was feedback on an earlier test and iirc those bugs were/are addressed with later versions. Of course there are going to be bugs as the product is developed.

A strategy games like baldurs gate would be amazingly immersive if selected characters were fixed to the table and the full world was rendered to the horizon

I would love this when playing DnD. You could even have the app recognize dice and compute modifiers for attack rolls and what not.

DnD with the option to switch between 3rd and 1st person views would be amazing.

Personally, I'd like an NFL game where you drop your players on the line, draw the routes on the field, and then switch to 1st person QB view for the snap.

https://www.meta.com/experiences/nfl-pro-era/419397521067812...

NFL Pro Era for MQ3 sent chills up my spine when I first walked out into the arena.

Demeo (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1484280/Demeo/) is the pure board game implementation of that concept, with a lot of effort put into actually taking advantage of the VR aspect without siloing players off from each other.

Architecture, and any other physical design work?

But if it really is good for watching sports, that's a big market already.

>My only nerd imaginations are something like a WH40k game

Okay, actually, wargaming in VR would be sick if executed well...

Try Demeo Battles!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com