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You're talking about Presense, which is the point at which your brain flips and is convinced what its seeing is real.

Michael Abrash has a wonderful deck he wrote while at Valve about what it will take for VR to create Presense in the viewer. It's worth a read if you care about how we'll navigate past the uncanny valley of VR you describe: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...

Heh, I figured there was probably a word for it out there somewhere invented by the people actually doing the stuff. I'll take a look at this, thanks.

Since people might not be familiar with the term yet, I feel it's useful to point out that it's spelled "presence" with a 'c', as in, you feel as if you were actually present in a virtual reality.

Haha I was reading the parent and I was like "Pre-sense?" "What would that have to do with feeling immersed in VR?" This cleared it up, thanks.

Heh, and for a moment there I thought Pre-Sense was some Google Tech - similar to Adsense - for monetizing 3D VR :)

There's a ton of really interesting stuff on his old Valve blog:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/

Pay careful attention to her reaction:

https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg

The brain is actually fairly easily tricked.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/2...

You can get immersed easily in any video game (I felt vertigo the first time I jumped from a building in Minecraft), but you can always tell what is real.

Sure, the brain is trickable. We had people jumping out of the way of the train and gunshot in "The Great Train Robbery" as well, of course. Notably the guillotine simulator that is so effective is a virtual environment, which is what I was suggesting will be the rule for a while in VR.

You can get the same reaction from playing any other game with an element of surprise on just a normal display.

I differentiate between jump scares/immersion and presence.

Imagine playing a hack and slash game. A user is not reacting every time their character is hit. They may have an initial reaction to a surprise attack that catches them off guard, but no more. There is some level of immersion but there is no level of presence. They never feel like they might be in danger and their body does not react as if it is in any danger.

Presence would be having a feeling of discomfort anytime your avatar was injured. The brain having tricked itself into thinking it is the avatar. When the avatar gets hit by a weapon, the user's body sweats and tenses up, believing it was just hit by an actual weapon.

Air-pressured tactile gloves can help develop a sense of presence. For example, pressure when grabbing a rock may trick your brain into believing the rock is real.

I wanted to focus more on the studies than the .gif. Having a mannequin stabbed and the participant's body reacting is a sense of presence and not simply a jump scare. The brain couldn't tell its own body from that of a mannequin.

How does something like this compare? I would like to try it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cML814JD09g&feature=youtu.be

(The bit with the spider webs especially registered with me as something that might be a trigger for making your brain go wonky.)

If they have material so when you swing your sword - you actually hit something. Or when you shoot your gun - it provides some kick and feedback as if you were firing a real weapon then I can see this working really, really well.

The audio cues are there - the visual cues are there. Add in some haptic feedback and maybe even smell (ie. make a room full of dead bodies and blood smell rancid) and you've hit every sense but taste. I can easily imagine it would cause a state of presence if done right.

Obviously their graphics will have to be "good enough" (although sadly it won't reach their CGI'd video editing level anytime soon :( )

That's the stock, first time seeing VR reaction for alot of people.

What really matters though is persistence of engagement. Outside of those of us who've drank the koolaid or have a vested interest, how often the general public will come back to VR and how long they will stay inside it will be the critical factor for success.

That rate is still well below the threshold needed.

See also this guy's reaction (around 1:20):

https://youtu.be/Odax7F3tWhM?t=1m20s

It's not about whether the brain can be tricked or jump scares will work, it's about whether you'll go "Oh wow" or "My head hurts this looks stupid"

Like an 8-bit guillotine vs this one.

The original commenter actually made the exact distinction between VR (what you linked) and capturing real life video

> Pay careful attention to her reaction: > https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg

Note: This jpg is actually a gif (?)

That's the power of Virtual Reality

Well put and fascinating points.

I;m not entirely sure if this is adding to or disagreeing with the points you make…

A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need.

Back to Jump. Our starting point is a made up idea of what VR entertainment looks like. Game of Thrones in VR. Jerry Springer in VR. Xuxa in VR.

You make a valid point that this won’t work. I totally agree. But, I’m fairly optimistic about the ingenuity of artists. Lots of things run into these kinds of problems. A conversation between two actors pretending to be doctors is not uncanny, but there are arts to making it palatable. They will figure out POV issues. Should you be a character or an invisible eye like in flat films? Maybe they could use filters to make it look like ‘A Scanner Darkly’ to get over the issue you describe.

This is what art does. They’ll figure it out.

> A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need.

That's an incredibly interesting point. I've never seen 'future' technology like that before, but it's certainly an excellent analogy. Looking back to how people saw the future in the 20th century, you can see that many things did not come to exist in the way they were imagined, but do exist now in some other fashion.

It's incredibly difficult to predict what will be the next reddit, or the next anything. It remains to be seen if/when VR will take off, and how it will differ as we see it right now. Certainly what's interesting is that we're watching our VR dreams being turned into tangible products that can bring real VR experiences.

VR has already taken off. It's not everyday mainstream yet, but it is well on its way.

I do like that way of looking at future technology, but I think we're close enough to VR "happening" that we don't need that sort of thought experiment.

Totally disagree.

A few months ago I was walking around the Unreal 4 Paris Apartment demo [0] with a Occulus DK2. The resolution isn't quite there, but it definitely felt real. I think that VR can definitely provoke feelings of reality, at least if the people working on it keep going forward in resolution like they have been.

[0]: https://youtu.be/Y6PQ19BEE24

My experience of The Hobbit was that the 24fps version felt like being in Middle Earth, and the 48fps felt like being on the film set - which strictly speaking was the more realistic experience, but far less satisfying.

I always find sports footage strange to watch on TV. I have a feeling its because of a higher frame rate, and less blurring of movement. Its kind of crisper but less absorbing.

People have been watching movies at 24fps for so long that they've been trained to put their brains into movie mode and suspend their disbelief when they see something at that rate.

There were similar outcries at the advents of colour movies and "talkies". Once people have watched a few HFR movies, I'm sure they'll get used to it and learn how to suspend their disbelief again.

Maybe, maybe not - it may also depend on the movie being made. I thought the Hobbit was kinda tacky compared to LotR, it seemed to have a much smaller budget, especially in the CGI and extras/makeup department.

But, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now - 3D was kinda crappy too at first, but some years later the movie makers have improved the technique to make it far less annoying. It's become more than just a gimmick now.

To me it felt like a video game, and in fact the action supported this. I was left wondering why someone would go to the trouble of making a computer game that you cannot play.

You might be interested in this talk that Michael Abrash gave about 2 months ago at Facebook F8 [1]. It starts at around 00:42:20.

It is a fascinating talk where he provides a number of interesting demonstrations regarding how the brain interprets information, including depth perception, color interpretation, movement, auditory cues [2] etc. Highly recommended.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=2540

[2] Absolutely fascinating. What you hear depends on what you are looking at, not just on what you are hearing. This demonstration starts at approximately 01:02:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=3720

I found that talk to be juvenile. If I want to look at optical illusions I'll google search them myself.

I think that's a slightly pessimistic view. This experimentation is what will eventually enable the bridging of the uncanny valley. And I think that day will be here sooner than we think.

You sound like someone who hasn't tried Oculus Rift. In that case I'm happy to inform you that you're wrong.

I've tried the Rift, and I completely agree with him.

agree that oculus rift doesn't feel real? I own a rift too, and I don't understand how someone can easily say it doesn't feel real if they actually tried it. Sure it brings nausea sometimes, and sure a lot of the graphics are crappy, but can you so certainly say that it doesn't feel real? I haven't seen anyone who's tried oculus rift that say "huh how is this different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake"

I've tried an Oculus Rift (DK1 only though), so here you go: how is it different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake.

Genuinely though, I found it a far less engaging, far less immersive experience than a normal 2D screen. Maybe the later models are better, I don't know, but I definitely don't see what the fuss was about.

It doesn't feel real, because I know its fake. My brain isn't fooled into believing that I exist in this different world. I fulling know I'm looking at a video game, in fact I found the raster lines reminiscent of classic arcade games.

I had fun, but what the article in this thread is talking about is a 'holodeck' feeling. The uncanny valley is where the space between where your brain registers the image as imaginary and is ok with it (3d cartoons) and where it rejects the image as if its offended at being lied to (polar express).

The rift is very much in the former, my brain knew it was a game.

I've tried it up until Crescent Bay, and it's fabulous. But I still feel it is very much for carefully fashioned, virtual experiences, and will have trouble replicating things via video, however many gopros you put on the task.

"These mobile phones will never reach a mass market! The batteries are far too big!"

I think the reason VR is better with games and demos is because it's hard to properly record in the real world. That's what Google is trying to solve here and I expect the results are far ahead of current solutions. It's both using a lot of hardware and a lot of software, I'm very excited to check out the results!

I actually loved 3D/48FPS - I felt like I was watching a play in a large diorama. I've regularly wondered if different theaters tuned it differently, or if people's brains just have differences, since so many other people reported 48FPS as looking fake.

If you already felt like it looked like a play, then that's why people didn't like it. Sets look like they would on a stage, not what the stage represents. If the story takes place in a castle in 18th century England, you want the viewer to be thinking "I'm in 18th century England right now" and not "I'm in a theater watching a film about 18th century England". Creating a film is a lot about suspension of disbelief, so if your brain is saying "that looks like a set" instead of "that looks like a castle", then you've lost that battle.

Or then it is like the case with youngsters and mp3s, where the studies have found that they actually prefer the "sound" of compressed music - with compression artifacts and all. If a hifi enthusiast (~tunesmith) would say that uncompressed music sounds better, you wouldn't shoot his argument down by saying that improved fidelity and dynamics just allow you to hear the music was recorded and postprocessed in a studio.

What I'm trying to say with this mp3 analogue is that it is very much a matter of habit and preference. Technically lower quality video does not lead to better immersion if it is not something you have learnt to expect.

What killed 48FPS for me was how obvious it made the transitions between heavily CG/post-corrected scenes and fairly unedited ones. The overall color tones and movements weren't consistent. To me the Hobbit 2 was visually half film, half video-game.

I could see a movie with no CG (or careful use of it) being very enjoyable in 48FPS.

I wonder how much of that uncanny value would simply be due to the unfamiliarity of the technology. For example, I'm sure we all know about the stories of people freaking out when they saw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_ga... though there's some doubt as to whether or not they actually ran to the back of the room. Either way, my point is that I'm sure all new technologies at first seem either unnaturally boring or unnaturally exciting. Eventually, people get used to them and that effect wears off. At this point, I think the only real obstacles standing in the way of widespread VR adoption are the possibility of motion sickness and the resolution of the displays (screen door effect). Otherwise, it seems like the tech has matured and would be very useful to a lot of people.

I'm unconvinced about the existence of an uncanny valley in frame rate.

I think it has more to do with what we're accustomed to.

High FPS on large panning scenes is amazing, and the conversion back to low fPS is just as noticeable and jarring.

A friend of mine staunchly opposed high FPS until the 60fps NSFW reddit changed his mind.(well, for HD porn anyway).

The problem with 48fps on the big screen was that it didn't feel "filmic". It actually WAS more realistic, but in that specific instance this actually hurt the message of the content. When we are recreating live events, concerts etc, we aren't going for filmic, we are going for the feeling of being there. I have tried the Paul McCartney example on GearVR which uses a similar technique as Jump - it's not perfect but it is a lot better than watching the concert on a screen.

TL;DR - We are approaching what we might want in a captured live experience, where early 48fps3d movie experiences may have passed what we want in a filmed one.

I'm still holding onto hope that we'll surpass the uncanny valley and get to a point where we can create things that are totally believable. There's going to be a weird time before we get there but I don't think that should be viewed as meaning it's impossible.

>so clearly not reality, and anything that attempts to replicate reality too closely will be rejected

You should see some Oculus demos in person before making claims that VR is easily rejected by your body. There are some roller coaster demos that can make you nauseous within a minute.

To be fair a reasonable amount of people find Oculus rift makes them nauseous in any application.

But 99% of times it's motion sickness. You only get it if the camera moves, which is not the case here.

I think it's worth correcting your use of "Uncanny valley". My understanding (see links below) is that "Uncanny Valley" refers to virtual beings trying to trick you into thinking they're real but coming off as creepy instead -- e.g. the Tom Hanks voiced train conductor in "The Polar Express". Creepy. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley and the new yorker article here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2

It does not refer, as you suggest, to the general case of VR not seeming real. There is a special thing that happens when we see fake beings trying to pawn themselves off as real. It think it's worth preserving the distinction.

It is readily apparent that the commenter is using an analogy ("a sort of uncanny valley of VR"). Let's not get sidetracked.

I freaked out while a piece of metal came to my face when i was watching Mad Max Fury Road in 3D. Is my brain fucked up?