Virtual Reality support?

[Los]

As an avid VR DCS flyer I can attest to almost everyone who is flying in vr is not going back to TiR. It amuses me to see all the non vr gamers  with little or no time in vr telling everyone else how much vr sucks for gaming. However as I said before I don't think vr would add much to the SB experience at this point. 

 

BTW down at Benning we have a nice the infantry simulators running through vr. Very cool.  Its basically putting a whole squad through vbs/vr. 

 

Just go DOOM for vr a few weeks ago. Holy crap very excellent.

 

Los

Edited January 7, 2018 by Los

[Captain_Colossus]

i think as the technology develops and when and if it becomes more mainstream, it would obviously imply society changing profoundly. that's happened already with the smart phone and social media, all the studies are indicating people rely on them to a such a degree that they feel anxiety being disconnected from their devices when they don't have access to them. when this gets going, it will be the next step in that, like any habit.

[Ssnake]

57 minutes ago, Kev2go said:

While there Vr might not work with SB right now, its incorrect for people here to BASh VR headsets as not yet being capable enough for gaming. 

You may not have been referring to me specifically; I certainly didn't "bash" VR, and I don't think it's an appropriate characterization of this thread's tone, so please dial back a bit on the escalating rhetoric. VR isn't an option for Steel Beasts in the near future, and there are profound reasons or at least points of consideration why it may not even be in the medium to long-term perspective.

I'm not convinced that it addresses an important deficit in the current UI concept. At the same time I have to fundamentally reject any implication that converting an existing game to VR is a more or less simple task, and that the lack of enthusiasm on our part is therefore proof of us "hating it". So I'm asking whether it's "worth it", and we may disagree about the added value. That it would make Steel Beasts "cooler" I might agree with. At the moment I still don't think it'd be worth it because I'm looking at the quite substantial effort that would be required to make it work, and I'm looking at all the things that I couldn't do if I were to divert development priorities to VR support.

 

We only have limited resources and therefore must choose wisely which projects to pursue.

[ssidiver]

11 hours ago, Kev2go said:

While there Vr might not work with SB right now, its incorrect for people here to BASh VR headsets as not yet being capable enough for gaming.  Current Commercially sold V.R headsets are not the same Early  limited sale Developer Model  headsets of Oculus or other brands that were being sold a Few years ago which were less mature state. One also has to remember that next Gen V.r Headsets are already in the works. For EG with HTC Vive 2 already teased being unveiled later in 2018 . So V.R is  a Worthy Investment by this point in time.

 

Vr works fine for DCS from the Main ones already available.  And  alot who have bought it actually prefer their headsets to Track IR. 

Have you tried just opening a Steel Beasts  windows in Oculus? I have not tried it and I am sure the controls would not be easy manage. But you can now open any WinOs window in the Rift, or so they say.

[Skybird03]

I recently tested X-Plane 11 in VR, which has its VR in an early demonstration included (they consider it to be pre-Beta).

 

To my surprise, it worked much better than I imagined. In small planes with a limited amount of buttons workload, it works better than in a big airliner, however. There is good potential - but also the limitations are clearly shown. Some of the current ergonomic deficits however are already confirmed to be adressed. 

 

If somebody thinks about the pros and cons of VR in SBP, X-Plane is a good demonstrator to test one's expectations. By concept, their handling philosophy is brilliant. I provide a link to an explaining text that may give you a first impression of how it works. They base on that no other hardware than the two VR controllers should be used, and I tell you - this way it indeed works best, better than mouse better than joystick, better than HOTAS. The typical vulnerabilties of VR when needing to handle a complex, button rich environment, can only be ergonomically avoided by going all the way.

 

And that means in SBP this would need FULLY interavtive onboard stations in tanks. Every button that is needed for sim funcionality, must be fully functional in the graphical interface. A redesign of so many, many vehicles, that means. Plenty of work.

 

Also, X Plane demonstrates better by experiencing it in VR than a thousand words what prevents VR in SBP the most. CPU power. While the small, simple planes run smooth in VR, a Boeing 737, not even on the complexity level of PMDG's, brings even my brandnew very fast system - an i7 8700K with Asus 1080TI-OC, to its knees in frames. The Cessna flies with medium settings in grapohics options, the 737 even with lowest settings does not really give joy to fly. With the many LOS calculations needed in SBP, I think with present technology you simply can forget VR in SBP. Not even mentioning once again the distance-blurriness problem and the lacking resolution.

 

Technically it currently is not possible, I think, not in  the private consumer market segment. It would be way to expensive. Just increasing the resolution in headsets does not help either - you need the platform power to support these many more pixels in resolution. I think some people here underestimate that.

 

Anyhow, here is the text on how complex cockpit handling in VR must be done, at least imo:

 

https://developer.x-plane.com/2018/01/interacting-with-x-plane-in-vr/

 

And here, the paragraph on "Controls and Manipulators", especially where the explain how their yoke works.

 

http://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-11-20-vr-beta-instructions/

 

It makes an awful lot of sense of how they do it. The only other way that is reasonable is to have limited cockpit controls and then having them all on your external game controller you use. That is why racing sims with a hardware wheel are the genre of choice for VR, no other major simulation genre works better in VR, not counting exotic, brilliantly working gems like Eleven Table Tennis or such that have no cockpit needs at all.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Skybird03

[Kev2go]

22 hours ago, Ssnake said:

You may not have been referring to me specifically; I certainly didn't "bash" VR, and I don't think it's an appropriate characterization of this thread's tone, so please dial back a bit on the escalating rhetoric. VR isn't an option for Steel Beasts in the near future, and there are profound reasons or at least points of consideration why it may not even be in the medium to long-term perspective.

I'm not convinced that it addresses an important deficit in the current UI concept. At the same time I have to fundamentally reject any implication that converting an existing game to VR is a more or less simple task, and that the lack of enthusiasm on our part is therefore proof of us "hating it". So I'm asking whether it's "worth it", and we may disagree about the added value. That it would make Steel Beasts "cooler" I might agree with. At the moment I still don't think it'd be worth it because I'm looking at the quite substantial effort that would be required to make it work, and I'm looking at all the things that I couldn't do if I were to divert development priorities to VR support.

 

We only have limited resources and therefore must choose wisely which projects to pursue.

???

 

I think you are took what i said the wrong way.  to my very general statement not aimed at anyone in particular except maybe the users who keep trying to tell others 'vr sucks or is not yet mature enough technology  for gaming when its contrary to the case . It's no different than what some others are saying.  There is nothing for me to tone down. There is no aggessive rhetoric i am escalating.

22 hours ago, Los said:

As an avid VR DCS flyer I can attest to almost everyone who is flying in vr is not going back to TiR. It amuses me to see all the non vr gamers  with little or no time in vr telling everyone else how much vr sucks for gaming. However as I said before I don't think vr would add much to the SB experience at this point. 

 

BTW down at Benning we have a nice the infantry simulators running through vr. Very cool.  Its basically putting a whole squad through vbs/vr. 

 

Just go DOOM for vr a few weeks ago. Holy crap very excellent.

 

Los

 

Yes I know it's not ready with sb nor will benefit as much as one would think hence my initial opening statement of ackolwegement. In that post you quoted.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Kev2go

[streakeagle]

On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 9:17 AM, Haferja said:

 

1. The Rift has 1080 x 1200 per eye (in sum 2160 x 1200). It's just a few years ago that i played on a 22' tft with 1280 x1024. So if your theory is true than simgaming wasn't possible then. 

2. The cv1-version of the rift is the first consumer version. Cv2 with a much higher resolution will come in 2019 maybe earlier. From my point of view: If you want to prepare your software for that "revolution" then you have to make strategic decisions NOW. 

3. The benefit of it all? Well, not on the tactical side (for that i'm playing a lot of "ugly" looking 2d hex-based wargames and have a lot of fun). But on the sim side: Immersion and the look (and feel) of beeing inside a tank and manage the systems would be a complete different story.

4. I played DCS since its first module. On my opinion VR is/will be a sim-gamechanger. 

The sum does not apply. The view is 1080 x 1200 and it is spread over a 110 degree field of view. Games played on 20-inch monitors typically had fields of view around 60 degrees and optional zoom views to make up for the low resolution, even at 1920 x 1200. What matters is the pixel density. The number of pixels per degree of the real-world field of view determines the image quality. 1080p on a 24-inch monitor looks pretty good. If you use a 46-inch monitor at the same distance, the pixels are now twice as large in both the vertical and horizontal. The actual field of view for my 46-inch setup is about 70 degrees horizontally. So I have 1920 pixels / 70 degrees -> 27.42 pixels per degree. When I switch to oculus, I have 1080 in the horizontal spread over 110 degrees, that is 9.82 pixels per degree. That is a huge difference is quality readily apparent when reading gauges or viewing text data on a HUD. I have been waiting for something like 4K to become the standard because 1920x1080 has never cut it for me. At 1:1 where the in-game field of view matches my real life field of view of 70 degrees, the gauges are still a tad too grainy. I need at least 8K to really eliminate aliasing altogether.

 

So oculus has 1/3 the density in the horizontal, but it has to process 2160 x 1200 to support 3D. It requires high end hardware to get something that looks a lot like 640x480 (9.82 / 27.42 x 1920 => 687.7, darn close to 640). You can gain some performance back if you get rid of the stereo 3d and allow Oculus to put the same image in both eyes. That allows for higher image quality settings for a given frame rate. But that still doesn't make up for the grainy image. If I need 8K to get my 46-inch monitor to finally look as good as I would like (crystal clear gauges/no jaggies even with antialiasing disabled at 70 degrees field of view), Oculus would need 24K to duplicate the image quality in stereo. A GTX 1080 is capable of running 4K at decent quality settings, but it would choke on 8K, and 24K is out of the question. I am sure the tech will eventually get there, but look how long I played at 1600x1200 or 1920x1080 before 4K was available and the cpu/gpu could actually run games at that resolution. Maybe in 3 to 5 years? or 8 to 10? In the mean time, VR wins in two areas: 1:1 tracking and a vertical field of view as large as its horizontal field of view. While other people were using triple head displays to get a wide horizontal field of view, I was wishing for an equally wide vertical field of view so that I could see the control panel, the HUD, and the target tracking above me as I struggled to pull into him. It may be blurry or jaggy, but VR allows me to see most of what I would see in reality. That is something that no 14-inch CRT, 20-inch LCD, or even a 65-inch TV could ever do. But as much as I enjoy that "big picture" in VR, the moment I go back to a conventional screen it allows me to appreciate the tremendous graphics quality gains in recent years: high poly models with ultra high resolution textures and shadows. In VR, you can turn down the texture and shadow quality because you can't see them anyway, but leaving them on at full quality kills your frame rate.

Edited March 10, 2018 by streakeagle

[Kev2go]

18 hours ago, streakeagle said:

The sum does not apply. The view is 1080 x 1200 and it is spread over a 110 degree field of view. Games played on 20-inch monitors typically had fields of view around 60 degrees and optional zoom views to make up for the low resolution, even at 1920 x 1200. What matters is the pixel density. The number of pixels per degree of the real-world field of view determines the image quality. 1080p on a 24-inch monitor looks pretty good. If you use a 46-inch monitor at the same distance, the pixels are now twice as large in both the vertical and horizontal. The actual field of view for my 46-inch setup is about 70 degrees horizontally. So I have 1920 pixels / 70 degrees -> 27.42 pixels per degree. When I switch to oculus, I have 1080 in the horizontal spread over 110 degrees, that is 9.82 pixels per degree. That is a huge difference is quality readily apparent when reading gauges or viewing text data on a HUD. I have been waiting for something like 4K to become the standard because 1920x1080 has never cut it for me. At 1:1 where the in-game field of view matches my real life field of view of 70 degrees, the gauges are still a tad too grainy. I need at least 8K to really eliminate aliasing altogether.

 

So oculus has 1/3 the density in the horizontal, but it has to process 2160 x 1200 to support 3D. It requires high end hardware to get something that looks a lot like 640x480 (9.82 / 27.42 x 1920 => 687.7, darn close to 640). You can gain some performance back if you get rid of the stereo 3d and allow Oculus to put the same image in both eyes. That allows for higher image quality settings for a given frame rate. But that still doesn't make up for the grainy image. If I need 8K to get my 46-inch monitor to finally look as good as I would like (crystal clear gauges/no jaggies even with antialiasing disabled at 70 degrees field of view), Oculus would need 24K to duplicate the image quality in stereo. A GTX 1080 is capable of running 4K at decent quality settings, but it would choke on 8K, and 24K is out of the question. I am sure the tech will eventually get there, but look how long I played at 1600x1200 or 1920x1080 before 4K was available and the cpu/gpu could actually run games at that resolution. Maybe in 3 to 5 years? or 8 to 10? In the mean time, VR wins in two areas: 1:1 tracking and a vertical field of view as large as its horizontal field of view. While other people were using triple head displays to get a wide horizontal field of view, I was wishing for an equally wide vertical field of view so that I could see the control panel, the HUD, and the target tracking above me as I struggled to pull into him. It may be blurry or jaggy, but VR allows me to see most of what I would see in reality. That is something that no 14-inch CRT, 20-inch LCD, or even a 65-inch TV could ever do. But as much as I enjoy that "big picture" in VR, the moment I go back to a conventional screen it allows me to appreciate the tremendous graphics quality gains in recent years: high poly models with ultra high resolution textures and shadows. In VR, you can turn down the texture and shadow quality because you can't see them anyway, but leaving them on at full quality kills your frame rate.

 

i think you are really spoiled and have overly high standards if you think you need 8K to enjoy gaming. Grahics cards ( Ie 1080 TI) are just enough to handle  4k. what makes yo think Vr would be viable in 8k let alone 4k?

 

1080P  resolution and 90HZ refresh is still good enough for VR when next generation arrives and its the gaming standard still even now since evne 4k requires top notch enthusiast grade hardware Ah well some people will never be happy and always want something better.

 

Everyone who plays DCS and other games in VR are more than happy with thier expereince, even if there is still room to improvements as there will be as newer generation headsets show up.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Kev2go

[Ssnake]

7 hours ago, Kev2go said:

i think you are really spoiled and have overly high standards if you think you need 8K to enjoy gaming. Grahics cards ( Ie 1080 TI) are just enough to handle  4k. what makes yo think Vr would be viable in 8k let alone 4k?

I think we should refrain from attacking personal opinions that way.

Also, I think that streakeagle is right. In the long run people will move towards an image quality that matches or exceeds what you can currently get from desktop monitors (why settle for anything less, if it were available). There is an unbroken trend in desktop computing and entertainment electronics to drive up screen resolutions. Those of us old enough to remember the first days of personal computing may also remember 12" greenscale monitors in TV resolution at best, often just a quarter of that. That was merely 40 years ago. It doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to expect stereoscopic displays at 8K in 20 years. And the inherent logic why this is actually necessary from a functional point of view is an opinion that I share as well.

[Kev2go]

12 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I think we should refrain from attacking personal opinions that way.

ANd i think you should stop mmistaking other peoples opinion as an attack on opinion, and behave so aggressively a a white knight.

 

. Anyone can appreciate better resolutions, but saying you "need" a certain resolution for gaming comes off as an excuse not an opinion. Especially when the hardware iis just barely here ( only via best Ethusiast grade card) to support 4K gaming. Those are facts, not attacks on "personal opinion" AS of now  going out buying an 8k Monitor would be nothing 

 

Why play steel beasts at all if you "need" an 8k monitor. Not that 8k will be really Useful as it doesn't have some sort of top notch visuals that 8k would really bring out the true potential of the visuals. As ll we really need is Food and water to sustain ourselves, along with a shelter . Anything else is a "want" 

 

AS of now 8k is really only truly "needed" for people who work professionally in the Photograhic/ Video editing industry. Otherwise going out an buying a 8k monitor ( or even tv for that matter) right now  is nothing more than a "fashion statement" since there is lacking Hardware, And content ( Ie  Channels, ) respectively to support it for entertainment purposes.

Quote

Also, I think that streakeagle is right. In the long run people will move towards an image quality that matches or exceeds what you can currently get from desktop monitors (why settle for anything less, if it were available). There is an unbroken trend in desktop computing and entertainment electronics to drive up screen resolutions. Those of us old enough to remember the first days of personal computing may also remember 12" greenscale monitors in TV resolution at best, often just a quarter of that. That was merely 40 years ago. It doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to expect stereoscopic displays at 8K in 20 years. And the inherent logic why this is actually necessary from a functional point of view is an opinion that I share as well.

 

 

20 years down the line yes. But not in a few years. it will not be the standard yet. simiarily Vr will have drastically progressed 20 years down the line.

 

We are talking about now, and the short term, ( ie couple of years)  not decades down the future of progress. thats a different story. im sorry but you cannt compare Moving up from Monochrome green monitors to current recent times of moving up a resolution. Back then Computers were primarily used as Workstations. OS were command based, and not UI interface,  and not for Home entertainment purposes  like we have today, IE watching videos, playing video games. especially since most people didnt have a need for a computer or couldn't  justify to afford one 40 years ago. Yes people will have moved on to higher resolutions then.

 

20 years later is a entiely story and this is where i think you are again  overeating and getting the wrong idea from what im trying to say.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Kev2go

[Ssnake]

38 minutes ago, Kev2go said:

ANd i think you should stop mmistaking other peoples opinion as an attack on opinion, and behave so aggressively a a white knight.

Calling someone else "spoiled" because his expectations are higher than yours is more than just a different opinion. I hope you can see the difference too.

[Kev2go]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

Calling someone else "spoiled" because his expectations are higher than yours is more than just a different opinion. I hope you can see the difference too.

 

Sorry dont take it the wrong way, but i couldnt help but say that, When expectations are unrealistic, Its find it hard to take it as just a different opinion, especially when its made it as all or nothing. ( I either play 8k gaming or i dont play)

 

The hardware isn't there to support 8k gaming as of now,  since we just reached the capability for  smooth enough 4K gaming with end level  Nvidia 1000 series cards ( hence why 8k  its nothing more than a Fashion statement for leisure purposes) and im sure realistically he isn't feeling so strongly  going to avoid playing games just because he cant get that "expectation" for a long time, which otherwise means he can  still get enjoyment from currently viable resolutions. Similarily add extra power that Vr requires and that makes 8k Vr gaming expectation even more unrealistic for the present or short term future time span.

 

Same reason why even i consider  1440p Resolution setting is nothing more than a fashion statement on my Samsung Galax s7, ( and impractical since it drains battery more anyways than using 1080P setting) since i cant tell the difference between 1080p and 1440p on such  a screen, when going with the lower setting.

 

 

You wouldn't notice much resolution improvement over 4k  anyways unless you intend to go play on a large tv, same reason why most people agree 4k is not necessary  on monitors smaller than 27 Inches.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Kev2go

[Ssnake]

Note that Streakeagle didn't say anywhere in his post anything about the timeline, and certainly not that he'd expect it "now". That's all something that you apparently read into it. The argument that in a flight sim he can't read the gauges properly is valid, likewise you can see in DCS videos a lot of rather extreme zooming (HUD or general orientation) where in reality the pilot would always have the same FOV. And that is because the human eye's resolution is so high (actually, it's variable - very high near the center view, not so much for peripheral vision, but since our focus can dart anywhere as far as eye movement allows, a display system would either have to render dynamically with eye tracking, or render constantly at a resolution that approximates the retina, with a field of view that approximates the human eye).

 

I think we're all on the same page that current technology simply can't deliver that.

Maybe we'll never get there because it'd be total overkill for anything that is NOT VR, and maybe VR is never going to make it into the average people's households so that there won't be a commercially viable path towards developing the necessary technology. Who knows. But that doesn't mean that the underlying arguments are invalid.

 

Well, my two cents. I'll leave it at that.

[Kev2go]

well its all relative. 

 

I wouldnt consider Vr gaming out of reach. ANd certainly not a mere "fashion statement" as there are plenty of games already out there and upcoming titles that either have Vr Comparability, or  which are entirely Vr based. The Content is there so Vr has A Use, and its price has gone down to the 500-700 dollar range for PC headseats, so while not cheap its certainly in the affordable range for a greater amount of a consumer base. 

 

Hardware can support it in its current resolutions without actually needing the highest end enthusiast card to run it. ( even Mid range cards like the 1060 have pretty decent results, and a Nvidia 1070 is more than solid)   And for Consoles its certainly more common than on PC due to greater affordability. VR is available and even cheaper on Consoles.

 

So i wouldn't consider VR by no means  an enthusiast's toy of curiosity or a  mere fashion statement any longer.( this would have been true in earlier days of  the CDK production models sold, where there was lack of mainstream support and content)

 

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Kev2go

[Ssnake]

I'm still not convinced that VR has much of a market potential beyond the enthusiasts. The headset manufacturers are pumping titles into the market to ensure that their customers have sufficient content, and I never debated the value of VR for a racing game or a flight simulation in general, particularly in dogfights or for those who just enjoy flying around in a beautiful landscape.

But look at the most popular game type - first person shooter - you can't do it because it literally makes people sick within minutes. So game developers are trying to find game designs where your visual frame of reference doesn't change, or change rather slowly. And while I have no doubt that there will be some clever games to incorporate that limitation into their design, I'm not yet convinced that the mass-market breakthrough (=tens of millions of headsets sold) will come from the gaming market. Maybe as a substitute for home cinema, once that headsets become as lightweight and convenient to use as normal glasses (not seeing that happening anytime soon).

 

Everybody was convinced that video telephony would be the future, soon, from the 1930s to the 1980s, but it took the combination of Skype and smartphones for an actual mass-market breakthrough. The technology was, sorta-kinda there since the 1960s but it took another four decades to find the right formula.

It's similar with 3D cinema - stereoscopic anaglyph films are around since the 1950s but the first film that actually was a large scale box office success was Avatar. And to be honest, I am yet waiting for a second film that does 3D as well. [Old man rant] Sure, pretty much all films are now released as 3D in the theaters, but we're not really given much of a choice here. If you want to see a film on widescreen, there's only one way to see it. Otherwise watch it in hall six please, in enlarged TV format, the early afternoon screening. When I go to the cinemas these days (and I used to love that), I begrudgingly tolerate being forced to wear 3D glasses but I can't say I enjoy the forced rollercoaster scenes that I know are only there as a token scene to justify why the whole pice was shot in 3D (when we all know it is because it increases box office revenues by 30%). I'm pretty sure, if the choice whether to shoot a film in 2D or 3D was left to the directors, and if the decision was made purely on artistic merit we would hardly see any 3D movies.[/Old man rant]

 

So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that what I'm seeing with VR goggles right now is a lot of potential. But I'm not convinced yet that all the conditions for a mass market breakthrough are in place - convenience of use, a sufficient number of (different) application cases, content availability, low purchasing price (or a massive functional advantage in at least one popular application case), and sufficiently potent companies to invest into the field. So far only the last point is solid green.

[ssidiver]

In the last few months I purchased a new 'gaming' PC, from our local computer shop which happens to specialize in VR. I wrote the specs for the PC including a CPU and GPU 'just' below the 'top of the range'; even so while the PC was in test in shop, one of the staff commented to me that the test was going great and he had never seen a PC with 'specs like these' before.

 

After 'bedding' the PC in at home and talking extensively with the shop owner, I went back, tried their demo set up and purchased a Rift. I am happy with it. The apparent resolution is no where near my perceived resolution on a 1920 x 1080 display, but the depth perception is great.

 

In my opinion it's a case of the software being ahead of the hardware in this area and I think other technologies will overtake the headsets before the resolution increases enough. In my humble opinion probably some form of holographic display. Putting two high enough definition displays right in front of your eyes is probably a hard problem to solve.

[Ssnake]

Microdisplays have been around for a long while. That in itself isn't the problem. But they are being manufactured in homeopathic quantities (like, for high end military simulators) and cost about 10,000.- bucks per piece (and you'd need two of them).

The concept of the Oculus and similar headsets is to take advantage of the current smartphone manufacturing lines by sourcing the display mnufacturing process to companies that already have mass production established, to drive down the costs (and still an Oculus is sold for more than what an entire gaming console plus three games costs). The challenge is to find hardware that is cheap enough.

 

But displays are the by far smaller part of the challenge.

You need to render all scenes stereoscopic (=twice), and you need to render them at a constant and high frame rate (90fps +). That alone usually means an entirely different approach to scene rendering. Also, you need to be a lot more careful in the artwork production process. You often can no longer save polys and texture space by leaving out parts of a model that you couldn't see with a fixed perspective because, d'oh, the player can move the camera. So you need a full and complete model where in the past you might get by with only half of it, which in turn would give you twice as much texture space to make things look pretty. Also, your 3D objects need to be more detailed than before, you can no longer work with certain tricks like extensive normal mapping. So, this affects the entire artwork development pipeline, and the design of the render engine. At the same time the current VR generation effectively makes the player short sighted in his virtual environment (as discussed in depth above).

These are all significant factors that a developer couldn't ignore when considering the question whether to design a game for VR.

[ssidiver]

Yes and all that data and programming has to run on consumer grade CPUs and GPUs. Oh and running around the house with a box strapped to your face just looks silly.

 

The hardware needs to be robust and 'cheap' for VR to 'take off'. I have not found a game I would like to play in VR, and I don't think anything as detailed as Steel Beasts would be easy to play in VR, the interface being not flexible enough. There are a lot first person shooters, but then Unity tutorials give you a step by step guide to building them.

 

What I enjoy at the moment are 'movie clips' shot with  VR cameras; the 'immersion' is fantastic, even with the apparent lack of fidelity. Personally I want to create 3D models of places I have been, not only 360 deg pics but things you an walk through as well.

 

For most programs and games it is just plain easier to look at a screen and use your keyboard than strap the head set on and use the controls provided.

 

I think that the popularity of VR will increase as the production of VR TV programs and movies increases. Then again when an alternative to the headset is available.

[Wolfakov]

Quote

I'm not yet convinced that the mass-market breakthrough (=tens of millions of headsets sold) will come from the gaming market

 

VR market is slightly below 1m unit (quick research : steam H&W survey vs number of active accounts). But it's steadily growing. The big interrogation mark is about the next generation. If a good portion of consumers "switch" to newer product, it will drive a lot of used stuff in second hand market. Which may entice fresh development for new VR games, which in turn, may emulate H&W sales.
A new segment of customer, that don't have the financial to purchase fresh VR stuff, will take the opportunity to get into it. The breakthrough isn't here..... but it may happen. That is still a long shot.  VR is nothing new, but compared to previous industry attempt, VR is now well known and accepted as a great product, not a "nerd" thing. Perception of a product, beyond its simple technical aspect, is a key factor in sales.

But that does not mean everyone has to develop VR. It remains costly and time consuming, while directed at a small fraction of customer base.

[Kev2go]

On 3/14/2018 at 6:56 AM, ssidiver said:

Yes and all that data and programming has to run on consumer grade CPUs and GPUs. Oh and running around the house with a box strapped to your face just looks silly.

 

why be concered what other people think you do within the  confines of your own home? For many games you dont need to " run around" the house. Youd be sitting ( or standing) in one spot.

besides what are window blinds for right?  # privacy

 

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The hardware needs to be robust and 'cheap' for VR to 'take off'. I have not found a game I would like to play in VR, and I don't think anything as detailed as Steel Beasts would be easy to play in VR, the interface being not flexible enough. There are a lot first person shooters, but then Unity tutorials give you a step by step guide to building them.

 

Steel beasts is far less graphically demanding than DCS ( just as an example) . VR would work within something as "detailed" as SB if it can be made to work with more visually appealing/ updated games.

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Kev2go

[Ssnake]

There are many factors at play beyond visual scene complexity, like the integration of the render cycle with the simulation cycle, and possible interdependencies. As a minimum you need to guarantee that ANY scene you would throw at the graphics card is guaranteed to render at 90 frames per second. The next big - and largely unsolved - problem is that of movement within the virtual environment. What works with first person shooters doesn't work - at all, as far as I can see - with VR games. So, this may require an entirely different approach to the whole design of the game.

 

It's these points that make a direct transfer of an existing title into a VR title such a big challenge. I'm not saying "insurmountable" - but the complexity is by far greater than just looking at the polycount of a scene. Just because one can imagine that a solution exists doesn't mean that it's easy to get there.

[ssidiver]

I can not see the major customers customers paying to up grade to VR soon.

 

But thank you for the picture I now have in my mind, of people running around with boxes strapped to their faces, yelling 'tank tank'; as they struggle to point and click on the correct button of the interface.

 

I have in the past run around the bush shouting 'tank tank', but that was a long time ago and my face was not covered.

[Kev2go]

17 minutes ago, ssidiver said:

I can not see the major customers customers paying to up grade to VR soon.

 

But thank you for the picture I now have in my mind, of people running around with boxes strapped to their faces, yelling 'tank tank'; as they struggle to point and click on the correct button of the interface.

 

I have in the past run around the bush shouting 'tank tank', but that was a long time ago and my face was not covered.

What? LOL

 

Do DCS players run around yelling" plane plane  plane ! "  whilst making swooshing noises and flying by stretching thier arms and imitating a plane  ? and struggling to click interfaces? Nope. Certainly not anymore than you do ( or dont) with non VR experience.

 

Similarly one would still be able to use interface combined with Aiming device ( joystick or mouse) whilst actually sitting. by a desk. for a Armored sim. 

 

Im sorry but your descriptions of what you think Vr experience looks like is cartoon comical grade. Have you actually seen a Vr headset? or read about  how it works?  Surely you have never used one, as on one who ever has never  has had such critical yet comical description of the experience.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Kev2go

[ssidiver]

Oh dear!

 

Read my first post in this thread. Yes I do use VR daily! But one other thing you seem to have missed, many people who use Steel Beasts like to play infantry 'realistically'.

 

I do sometimes wonder when some people take a throw away line and not see the mildly humorous side.

[Ssnake]

Mils humor is very difficult to detect in written language, particularly on the interwebs, where everything seems to devolve into a shouting match.