Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[Whiteball]

43

[pogo]

You do build up tolerance for things like car sickness, sea sickness. I don't think it's age related; sea sickness in particular can happen at any age.

One thing that does happen to you around your 40s is you lose your ability to focus, which may make it harder to use VR devices, or mean you can't use them without glasses. Its why many people of advanced age start using reading glasses, or switch to bifocals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia

[Jamesac]

I'm mid-40s and in the last couple of years I've had to remove my glasses to read. I've worn glasses since I was about 10 (or so) and it still feels weird to have to remove them, like gaining microscopic vision or something.

[Dio]

You do build up tolerance for things like car sickness, sea sickness. I don't think it's age related; sea sickness in particular can happen at any age.

Some of Oculus' research indicates that VR sickness can be a learned behaviour and get worse with exposure. It's one of the reasons they're very keen for apps to be very gentle on the user in the early days.

[phattslagg]

I've always had issues with certain games - Half Life and Serious Sam are two games I remember being completely unable to play due to motion-sickness, for instance. No problem with Gran Turismo, Wipeout or Quake on PS1 though. Really hoping I'll be OK with Rift.

[venusian]

The thing which most often gets me is when the app (by which I mean my app) crashes and suddenly the display freezes. Except that because the display keeping up with head movements in the expected normal, when it freezes suddenly the world wheels around wildly eurgh.

[Mqark]

My own virtual arcade would be nice
[youtube]gB9jCEXVQDk&sns[/youtube]

http://gizmodo.com/this-amazing-80s-arc ... 1655723292

Now, that is a nice simulation! I just spent a good 20 minutes in there (mostly playing the different audio tapes).

Now, if they had the real arcade games instead of colour gameboy versions (or whatever they are) and slightly more natural controls to interact with the machines...

I could imagine spending a lot more time in there if they also let me play 1980's VHS tapes while assuming a natural sitting position in front of a 14 inch TV/VCR combo.

This demo highlights to me that I'd really like to be seeing my hands interacting with objects.

[gilesgoat]

You do build up tolerance for things like car sickness, sea sickness. I don't think it's age related; sea sickness in particular can happen at any age.

Some of Oculus' research indicates that VR sickness can be a learned behaviour and get worse with exposure. It's one of the reasons they're very keen for apps to be very gentle on the user in the early days.

Look .. I spent 5 months aboard with a certain amount of time out in the open the sea ( and in bad sea ) ..

To a minimal extent you get used to .. but it's minimal .. trust me 24 hours or so of bad sea while also having to do lot of work with all that is really really really shit and no matter what you do (*) it does not really go away, the worst part is when the nausea still does not go away but also turns into a MASSIVE headache and then the feeling like you have fever.

The other effect is being unable to walk straight for a good 24 hours if not even more once you finally hit the land.

(*) : avoid drinking water or fluids or any sort, eat salty dry things ( stomach totally empty is bad as well ), drink lot of espressos ( the effect last only 30 mins or so ) ..

You can't really get used to sea sickness at the point you don't feel it any more .. unless you use some sort of drugs or stimulants or maybe something snaps in your brain but did not on mine ..

Sea sickness is terrible.

[Harlequin]

The other effect is being unable to walk straight for a good 24 hours if not even more once you finally hit the land.

I think this is a common experience for sailors

(*) : avoid drinking water or fluids or any sort, eat salty dry things ( stomach totally empty is bad as well )

I have been advised that consuming plenty of porridge is a good idea.

drink lot of espressos ( the effect last only 30 mins or so ) ..

And this, I suspect, is why the navy found you too difficult to manage.

[Whiteball]

I thought they said that VR sickness was not caused by or related to sea sickness type Nauseas?

People talk about it though becuase it feels similar to them, but is in fact nothing to do with the same mechanics/issues?

[zip accident]

I thought they said that VR sickness was not caused by or related to sea sickness type Nauseas?

People talk about it though becuase it feels similar to them, but is in fact nothing to do with the same mechanics/issues?

Who said that?

IMO whoever they are, they are wrong. There may be differences, but I'd like to know what they are.

[gilesgoat]

Whatever it is, it seems pretty clear to me that at least it starts the moment "your world spins around but you not".

Now think about this, you DO NOT go outside, look around you and you are still, actually your head is still, but all the world rotates around you. It simply does not happen as that.

Have you ever seen ( when NOT drunk ) the world spinning around you while your are nor moving nor moving your sight ?

It does not work, something in your brain does not click, likewise I think also 'the amount of stuff that moves' is another factor .. > of some % and you start to get sick too.

The moment vision does not match expectation that's when problem starts.

I heard this explanation a few times that goes "when there's unmatch between what your eyes see and the body perceives a part of the brain begins to think you are hallucinating and therefore you must have ingested something dangerous, this triggers a part of the brain that would attempt to empty your stomach", it's a body defensive reaction.

On the other side sea sickness seems to come from the constant shifting of the center of gravity, it gets to a point your body can't simply take it as it's not designed for that, I don't think what triggers the nausea in this case is related to what triggers the nausea in VR.

Anyway VR sickness whatever it is/how it comes can be REALLY STRONG and strangely enough the more one ( I ) tries to resist/get used to it, the worse actually seems to get, the moment it starts to "click" and set in it's game over, it just goes exponentially worse at the point really makes you feels real sick for HOURS !

[edit] - according to Wikipedia :

Currently, there are no clear theories as to why virtual reality sickness in particular occurs; however, it is closely related to simulator and motion sickness.

The physiology behind VR sickness is not currently clearly understood.

About THIS :

The refresh rate of on-screen images is often not high enough when VR sickness occurs.

The resolution on animation can also causes users to experience this phenomenon. When animations are poor, it causes another type of discord between what is expected and what is actually happening on the screen. When onscreen graphics do not keep the pace with the users’ head movements, it can trigger a form of motion sickness.

On this last two sentences I could say IMHO that "DEFINITELY THEY ARE TRUE", I mean there's an ENORMOUS gap between Oculus DK1 and Oculus DK2 .. I personally feel that resolution and refresh rate/speed are a "tremendous factor".

In fact the faster you render and the higher res you have the more the overall world looks/feels "more natural and more solid".

I personally felt that in order or "what is the worse thing in VR" I put :

- blurring when you move ( i.e. display refresh rate and/or speed of rendering not enough )

- bad tacking ( i.e. scene delay/not perfectly matching the motion prediction )

- low res ( i.e. eyes struggle to focus on things they cannot focus because they are blur by nature )

- small visual field ( i.e. the larger it is, the better it goes but up to a point, too large makes scenes hard to watch )

- quality of the display ( AMOLED and NOTHING else please )

- overall responsiveness of the whole world ( 75 Hz or death ! )

You start cutting in any of those things, the worse it gets, the more of that, the better and less sick you get.

[edit2] - last time I was in Italy I had with me the Oculus stuff.

All my family and some friends and such wanted to try it, I think around 30 people or so had a go.

Now .. EVERYONE and I MEAN *EVERYONE* of each different age/type of person :

- LOVED IT

- found that Minorescue VR was awesome and gave them NO PROLBEM

- tried the Tuscany Villa demo and LOVED IT ... BUT .. NO ONE COULD STAND IT MORE THAN 10 mins, everyone complained stuff like "oh dear my head", "oh dear I am going to puke" .. "oh dear it's very nice but feels too odd" ..

My grandma felt bad in her stomach after trying it until the next day.

So ... "there's something here", I don't know what it is but there is something that "it's not right done that way".

[Dio]

I had one brief play on a DK1 and I was definitely woozy for an hour afterwards.

I'm onsite with one of the big VR games next week, be interesting to see how that looks.

Frustratingly, I'm also in Wales next weekend but on a tight schedule because we couldn't take the kids out of school Friday or Monday, so there's no chance I can find the four hours I would need to get from the Rhondda over to west wales.

[pogo]

I thought they said that VR sickness was not caused by or related to sea sickness type Nauseas?

People talk about it though becuase it feels similar to them, but is in fact nothing to do with the same mechanics/issues?

Sounds very dubious. It's common sense that VR can trigger nausea the same way travelling by boat or by car can. In both the trigger is the motion of your immediate surroundings, as seen by your eyes, not matching the motion of your actual body, as detected by the balance mechanisms in your ear.

Exactly the same could happen with VR, because there the visual and actual motion are separate. In theory software should be able to keep them in sync but that could fail in a number of ways; lag, especially with low frame rates; game freezes; effects such as screen shake; boundaries such as the edge of the play area where your body keeps moving but your in-game character has to stop.

Don't think it can't happen as you're not moving. I've no experience of VR but have experienced brief moments of nauseous feeling in the cinema with dramatic camera movements, when I was stationary. And with VR you are actually moving.

[Whiteball]

I thought they said that VR sickness was not caused by or related to sea sickness type Nauseas?

People talk about it though becuase it feels similar to them, but is in fact nothing to do with the same mechanics/issues?

Who said that?

Read or heard it a while ago and can't recall 100% sure, but I think it was Oculus themselves. Possibly even John Carmack.

As for frame rate/refresh stuff, I remeber reading or hearing that apparently really low, like 3 or 4 fps does not induce the sickness feelings either.
As far as the programming side goes I can only guess at this point as I'm only just starting my DK2 dev.

Playing the various demos, I've not been left feeling queasy or sick from any yet. There is a fleeting moment on some of the roller coaster types when going down hills but that might just be the 'usual' coaster stuff. I feel fine the rest of the ride and afterwards.