General VR and AR chinwag - The Bear and Badger

SpaceGazelle

My missus is exactly the same so the poor boy hasn't had a go but if it was up to me I'd have no problem at all with it. I think regular breaks and an eye on nausea are enough. Nintendo Labo are doing it and if Nintendo allow it then that's good enough for me.

isanbard

I've had a brace of nephews in since they were about 7 or 8. The literature on it is shakey at best and I wasn't too worried about short controlled bursts. There was some supposed idea from a long time ago about eye development but since then I've also seen very encouraging stories about using vr in paediatric wards..

I've found kids tend to love it. The oldies are still very popular (VR Sports Challenge, Toybox, Job Sim) as well as the ever present modded Beat Saber so you can just type in tunes and it finds maps for you. I have an awful lot of tunes in beat saber now. Gorn is popular as the comedy mutilations always go down well. The constant freshness of your RecRoom goes down well with kids brought up with the ipad Roblox stuff. Pierhead arcade is nice quick simple fun.

If you want to sell it more easily there's also been some lovely stuff knocked up in Kingspray (the graffiti one) and Medium (the errr.. sort of clay create thing?)
They also really liked floating about on the Mission:ISS like little spacemen.

I will say that the boy children will likely be very excited to be able to essentially break a bit of the old Soooooperhot by auto hiding behind everything and punching massive red folks in the balls as they flail wildly over their heads. Small people for the win there..

Everyone liked sitting down and.. being in the Pixarish things like the Henry animations.

Ach.. there's so much amazing stuff for tiny little minds to wrap themselves around. That's just the start really.

They don't get sick and they don't seem to have any problems so far. Keep the time down per session is my general rule.

Cupatay

I've let my 9 year old have a go on it but only in 15 minute sessions. Playing the astro bot multiplayer levels with her and the wife was alot of fun. We took it in turns to wear the head set so it limited the time she would have it on.

She hasn't asked to play it again but I know she realy enjoyed me and her mom taking an interest in games with her. I'd recommend going about it that way moot, even the wife enjoyed it and she normally has no interest in games.

isanbard

Oh ay.. I forgot about the amazing PSVR Playroom stuff too.

Little people luuuved themselves some voice changing cat and mouse game, a bit of.. no..no.. all of the Playroom stuff is great as you can do the whole asymmetric interact with what's going on thing. And the voice changing and general scale stuff.

They're all nice and short too so fit in nicely with the little'uns.

n0face

I let my kids play for hours, they seem fine.

SpaceGazelle

It is fine, the reaction of Mums is weird. Sarah used to work at CERN but put a moblie screen in a case and call it VR and she's all IT'LL FRY HIS BRAIN!

Diluted Dante

For short bursts they'll be fine. Watch for motion sickness though.

SpaceGazelle

Although I've just remembered I gave the boy it when he was young so he has tried it once. He ran like fuck ito a wall, so there is that.

Moot_Geeza

More or less precisely what I wanted to hear from everyone, thanks. I won't make a habit of it but it'll impress her more as a rarity anyway. I'd forgotten about the family/double screen Playroom stuff, need to get on those at some point.

isanbard

June 15th a possible release date for the Index then..
Sounds promising.

SpaceGazelle

Looks quite good for Valve kit. I suppose they've got the hang of hardware now. The earlier harware leak (which I still maintain I instigated via the Valve subReddit) showed they were trying both BOE and JDI panels.

https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2018/20180510.html

https://www.boe.com/en/product/xsqj/xnxs/vr-ar/

2160 * 2376 would be lovely. I suspect they can acheive this on GPU's by not rendering at this resolution on the periphery via a software solution.

The Index logo seems to involve stacked lenses.

https://twitter.com/steamdb/status/1088370699532677120

Could be interesting.

isanbard

May 1st for Index pre orders, shipping in June it is then. Going to be a bit price dependant for me but if it comes in fairly reasonable and has some neat tricks to it then I can see myself being in on this one..
The min spec seems to be a 970 still so I 'd be surprised if it's actually a vast sea change in resolution or specs but if the rumoured fov changes are in then it'll be nice anyways. I've got a 1080Ti that still seems to be running things fine so I hope that should be enough. They can't put out a piece of kit that needs 2080Tis in SLI now can they?
I've heard the reports that the Knuckles are nice as well, not quite as ergonomic to hold as the Touches but offer handy crushability funzies and lots of possible options. Finger tracking was good enough by all accounts on near final versions. Leagues ahead of the old wands mind, they needed a refresh. I like the use of both sticks, touchpads and buttons as well as the obvious finger and grip options. They seem to be rechargeable though I wonder what the charge and runtimes are like?

Some kind of passthrough thing as well so setup and usability should be ok.
Having a CV1 and PSVR I very much like the integrated earphone option and it looks to have a comfy strap. Those both make it so easy to just stick yer head in some vr.
Big ipd slider also means that anyone's head can easily enough be stuck in there and get a nice comfy session going.

Lots of questions but not that long 'till they get answers! Wahey.

SpaceGazelle

I reckon it's going to be quite a resolution bump but how they'll achieve that and keep the specs down is anybody's guess. There has to be a point to the headset, especially if the controllers can be purchased seperately, and Gabe Newell has repeatedly said the res of current headsets was too low.

I also think it'll be sold at or near cost, but that doesn't mean it's going to be cheap for those without lighthouses. They listed it as a few bundles so you can get any combo of headset, controllers and basestations. I've got my Vive basestations so could get away with the headset alone and maybe the controllers later. No doubt they'll bundle a game if you get any combo of two or more. If they can keep the basic headset at around £400 it should fly.

The Knuckles do bring up a problem though because so far there's been workarounds for all the basic input methods so nearly all the games can be played with any setup or headset. It's true finger tracking will be the norm, but you certainly can't do some of the stuff in this without it.

And that means some games will only be playable to those with finger tracking, and VR sales aren't exactly amazing anyway. I suppose this is where Valve comes in with a bundled game. If it's a system seller then job done and everyone will want finger tracking.

I'm way too excited anout this headset. It's like being a kid again, this VR business, when things moved fast and improvements were huge. At the moment we're moving from the NES to SNES/Megadrive. Exciting times.

isanbard

Indeed SG! I'm all in the on crazy VR 2.0 Hypetrain too.

I'll be needing basestations 2.0, controllers obvs and a headset at this rate so the specs are going to have to be nice and juicy to justify the outlay. I'm also of the optimistic mind that Gabe will chuck it all out at cost to get more folks into the VR Steam family again. Epic is getting all the games on exclusives nowadays.. fight back Gaben! Do it at a loss. You know it makes.. errrm.. sense..
I hope they've got some kind of pixiedust going on in there as well with the resolution but I'm not counting on it for now. Better a bit is how I'm tempering it for now.

I saw that moondust crushing demo as well. Very interesting if the Valve teams have been playing with that for a year or so..

I'm hoping that a lot of the knuckles stuff will be translatable easily enough to the big budget Oculus content coming as well. Stormland looks lovely, Asgards Wrath has some great melee going on, I loved me some Lone Echo 1 so 2 should be great and that Titanfall Respawn jobbie.. fingers crossed.
The knuckles are a lot more similar in function to the Touches but with some extra goodies. Someone has to get all clever with the sdk/libraries/IdontknowwhatImtalkingabout right?

SpaceGazelle

Have you tried the Vive? The tracking is just wonderful. Obviously inside out will win in the end but there's a lot to be said for basestation accuracy, and they stand alone and only need a plug. You can touch the Vive wands together and it's just mm perfect.

I still think the res is going to be 2160*2400 per eye because of the JDI and BOE leaks. That's quite a bump if true, although the FOV is rumoured to going up.

Those panels are tiny too, which should mean it's nice and light unless the lenses are stacked and a bit heavier.

isanbard

Maybe tried a Vive once? Not sure. Didn't feel any different as I remember?

I've got a nicely setup 3 sensor CV1 and the only tracking problems come when there's too much direct sunlight sending my ir pickup whiffy on one or more of them. Curtains for the win. Don't need sunlight in vr.
I don't mind sticking a couple of basestations too. I think there's still spare plugs in there somewhere. Heheh

All to the good. I've seen those deep dives into the index rumors too but I'm just not putting too much into it before we get to announce day. There'd be lots of panels and bits and bobs lying around a HTC/Valve/Oculus studio or whatnot. I have a hope SG.. it might be true...

SpaceGazelle

I just think there has to be a point to it. Either, it's going to be really cheap or it's going to be really good. Possibly really good and cheap. I'm hoping for absolutely amaze but at cost price, whatever that turns out to be.

SpaceGazelle

PC Gamers likes NMS.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/no-mans-sky-vr-hands-on/

n0face

Has anyone tried importing 3d models/environments into something so you can view and walk around them? I'm trying to sell my vive to a fiend who wants to show of interior designs in preparation for buying this new one.

voices

It looks interesting, but they seem to be saying that it won't work 100% in VR - which seems a bit like subnautica. I put 50 or 60 hours into Elite exclusively in VR, so not being able to enjoy it like that would be a bit disappointing.

It's all academic anyway as I have no time to play anything other than Trials. brm brm brm (beep beep beep).

Are the grips going to be sold separately to the valve headset?

isanbard

Yup. There's to be bundles of everything, headset on its own, knuckles on their own and base stations if you want the 2.0 thing going on.

Apparently.

SpaceGazelle

n0face wrote:

Has anyone tried importing 3d models/environments into something so you can view and walk around them? I'm trying to sell my vive to a fiend who wants to show of interior designs in preparation for buying this new one.

No but there's surely loads that can do that. It's probably the main commercial application of VR.

voices

The grips look amazing, so really interested to see what valve do with them. Full fat valve software is a very exciting prospect. Some kind of HL3 in VR would be amazing, and I think Valve have always given the impression that they were waiting for an appropriate new mechanic before they were able to create it....

I mean, maybe?

SpaceGazelle

It'd be very different type of game if it were, so it'll never be HL3 even if it was set in the half life universe. There was a leak that it would be a HL game though, but that's rumour. It certainly seems they'll release a game though.

https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-affirms-development-vr-games-first-may-ship-with-knuckles/

voices

It's too late, I'm at 100% hype levels.

SpaceGazelle

Oh me too. It's just that it won't be a traditional fps. I'm hoping for a Portal.

#MeToo

voices

Now I’m at 200% hype!

SpaceGazelle

Gabe Newell said this a couple of years ago;

“We’re actually going to go from this weird position where VR right now is kind of low-res, to being in a place where VR is actually higher res than just about anything else, with much higher refresh rates than you’re going to see on either desktops or phones. You’ll actually see the VR industry sort of leapfrogging pretty much any other display technology in terms of those characteristics. It’s probably not obvious from the first generation of products, but you’ll start to see that happening like in 2018-2019.”

I sort of have faith this is going to be true for the Index.

isanbard

In Gaben we trust... Because otherwise he'll knife you.

SpaceGazelle

He's a bit weird for sure. I remember watching a video of his collection.

Anyway, the original article is here.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-02-10-valve-is-making-three-fully-fledged-vr-games

Sort of neatly explains why everyone is so hyped I guess.

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