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Virtual Reality


Thomm

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Some days ago I had the chance to participate in a 10 minute demo session of the HTC Vive VR system. I would like to share some experiences and exchange opinions.

Certainly, all of us have read numerous reports about the various VR systems.

My verdict is that the "hype" is justified. The HTC Vive does what it is supposed to do: It puts you into a virtual world. Since it is a roomscale VR system, you can walk around on a few square meters of floor. In the first of the three demos I have experienced, this is used to put you on a platform of a sunken ship, where you can walk up to the guardrails and peek over them to see the ocean floor. This demo also clarified two things for me: Can the system give an impression of "infinite distance" and can it show "big objects" convincingly. Turns out that the answer is yes on both questions. Actually, the view distance was not really "infinite" because the ocean ground faded out in the middle distance because of the foggy apperance of the water. But the "big object" display was demonstrated nicely by a whale which approached me and passed by. I involuntarily took a step back, which proved to me that the virtual whale made an impression on me.

The next demo was painting in 3/D with the two controllers. It worked without problems, and mainly demonstrated to me how the two controllers could be used in a CM-like environment by pointing at menues floating in 3/D space and selecting locations on a map (in this case, the color palette).

The last demo put the player in a cubicle (limited floor space not a problem in this case) and let one play around with various objects. It all felt very real. In fact it felt so real that I thought to myself why I am wasting time not doing anything useful in the virtual reality.

Summary:

  • These systems are the future, no doubt about it. What I have been shown corresponded very well with the media reports of "presence". It all felt very real, and was implemented flawlessly as far as I can tell.
  • The technoloy is kind of scary in that it adds an additional motoric component to playing games. In the office demo, you could easily throw objects around, and you did so with the same movements as in the real world. Perhaps this lowers the threshold of doing stupid things in the real world, also.
  • The two major problems I saw are: (a) Resolution. It is simply too low at the moment. You can see the pixels. It is not a perfect experience. But of course this problem will be solved in the next years, and I guess easily so. (b) Comfort: The googles are heavy and you start to sweat, especially after adding the ear phones.
  • Of course it is cool to be able to walk around, but I do not think that will be the defining factor in the future. I guess nobody wants to play a game for, say, two hours standing up. It should be a killer app for architects, though, selling in general, where you can walk around objects that are not physically in a store.

I want to add that I could try out a Samsung Gear VR and it did pretty well compared to the Vive, the main criticism being, again, the visibly low resolution. The demo running in the Gear VR demonstrated the future of watching movies very well.

I have yet to try out a car racing game in VR. These should work very well and would be the most attractive applications of VR for me.

Best regards,
Thomm

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I brought this subject up probably well over a year ago when the Oculus was very early in the proto stage.

I seemed to be greeted with many negative attitudes how CM couldn't be played in VR.

Frankly, I heartily disagree.

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  • 1 month later...

Adding my perspective on this subject (as a long time CM player and an Oculus Rift owner)...

VR support would be HUGE for the Combat Mission series.  Don't believe me, here is why

1.  The best games on Oculus / Vive right now are 3rd person perspective floating camera (just like CM).  They are easy to navigate, no motion sickness issues, great UI, and just plain amazing in terms of how much they add to the feeling of immersion.  The ability to move the camera with your head is amazing and something you have to try to understand how much it adds to the game.  CM would be AMAZING.

2.  Porting CM to add VR enable should be relatively straightforward.  It is already a 3D rendered game (OpenGL, right?).  Updating for Rift/Vive is mostly

      A.  Tieing the camera control to head movement api

      B.  Mapping the mouse interface to the gamepad / touch control api

      C.  Adding stereoscopic rendering and prewarp when using VR  (this is part of the 3d engine, straightforward in opengl)

      The min computer specs for Oculus/Vive are really powerful, so you shouldn't need to worry about performance issues.

3.  There isn't that much content right now for VR, so having a quality game like CM in the Oculus store would bring a lot of new customers to the series.  Very similar to the first apps in the iPhone app store..

I would happily pay full price for a VR update to any of WW2 CM series.  Really seems like low hanging fruit (for the dev team) to me!

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I just want to report that I own an HTC Vive is it is downright awesome. It is simple enough to use that my 70+ in laws tried it and are now buying a PC capable of running it and ordered one themselves. Every few days new and cool a games and apps are released. I bought it mostly for flight sims (DCS and FSX are awesome) but it is great in room scale play as well. It would be neat to command Combat Mission from the  ground level (Like they do with Scourge of War Gettysburg and Headquarters in the saddle mode) as sort of a infantry company commander simulator.

Anyway, good stuff. If you can afford it, I recommend it. And between the Vive and the Rift get the Vive because of the room scale play options. My buddy bought the rift at the same time and I have time in both.

Oh did I mention VR-video pole dancers......

Los

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18 hours ago, jeep said:

Adding my perspective on this subject (as a long time CM player and an Oculus Rift owner)...

VR support would be HUGE for the Combat Mission series.  Don't believe me, here is why

When I started reading your post I was thinking - "he's nuts this is not a FPS game there is no way it would be a good thing"

 

18 hours ago, jeep said:

1.  The best games on Oculus / Vive right now are 3rd person perspective floating camera (just like CM).  They are easy to navigate, no motion sickness issues, great UI, and just plain amazing in terms of how much they add to the feeling of immersion.  The ability to move the camera with your head is amazing and something you have to try to understand how much it adds to the game.  CM would be AMAZING.

Then I kept reading.  Yeah that would be really cool.  I could play the game that way very likely.  Neat.

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