Standup VR minus Omni = Augmented Reality.

blazespinnakerblazespinnaker Posts: 235
edited December 2015 in Lounge
I've been thinking about this and I can see the attraction to stand up VR without the Omni. You can walk around in a limited space and do very cool things with 100% total tracking to your body.

But isn't that just augmented reality? I think the AR devices will own that space. If you want to be in a small room sized virtual space, I'd go the AR route. It's a HELL of a lot safer, you have pure body tracking, and you don't feel socially isolated. You can also collaborate in a more social way with people who don't have a headset on.

I think if you want to go the VR route and it involves standing up, you probably will want to leverage the capability of being in a real VR environment. That means not limiting the space to your room (as small as it might be). That means the Omni (or other ODT)


  • xxann5xxann5 Posts: 593
    I would consider Augmented reality to be something that does just that, augments my reality. Something like a pair of glass' that would overlay information about the stuff i am looking at in my day to day life without constraining myself to single room. I would consider an HMD that completely replaces my reality with something else entirely as VR regardless of what the locomotion system is.

    Don't get me wrong i am REALLY looking forward to the Omni! However it is not necessarily the best thing to use all the time. For example, a golf sym would be perfect for the Vive's 15"^2 tracking space where you can walk up to the tee and then take your shot and then teleport to where the ball lands, you could even get down on your knees to line up the ball on the green. I think that would be horrible in the Omni. I think the majority of the time I would use the Omni, but for games specifically tailored for a confined tracked volume of space will be better outside the Omni.
  • I agree with @xxann5's definition of AR. AR is something that overlays reality rather than replaces it. Like what they're doing with Hololens:

    I think there's room in the market for both AR and VR. I''d predict in the future there will be HMDs that offer both in one package.
  • xxann5xxann5 Posts: 593
    I think if AR can become sleek enough where the glasses are comfortable enough and the processing can be done with something about the size of a phone that can fit in your pocket than I would be willing to bet that that will basically replace the cell phone market. I would even go as far as to say faster than smartphones took over the... umm.... dumb(?) phone market.

    Think about it. Everyone is glued to their phones as it is. Now imagine something coming out that will allow people to basically look at there phone ALL of the time. The possibilities are endless! Even ignoring the marketing possibilities. GPS overlay when walking or even in the car, no more having to look down at the GPS, or anything else, taking your eye's off the road. Imagine picking up an item at a store and immediately seeing the nutrition facts, or a waning that its not fair trade or the manufacturing company is being looked into for poor working conditions. Or you're at a grocery store and once you start pushing a cart your shopping list appears above the handle. your delly order then gets put in immediately a map of the fastest path to pick up all your items while bringing you to the deli counter at approximately the same time your order is fulfilled is overlaid on the real world.

    If it gets good enough it could even replace monitors and TV's. The possibilities are staggering. If Magic Leap delivers something as awesome as the hype they are creating about its going to dworf VR by order's of magnitude.

    To be clear AR and VR are not mutually exclusive. In a way they compliment each other. I would say that AR is the cell phone's what VR is to PC's. The next step in interacting with.... well everything.
  • blazespinnakerblazespinnaker Posts: 235
    edited December 2015
    I've used DK1/DK2 quite a bit and I mostly dislike the experience unless I'm really leveraging them (ie, stand up / Active VR). I much prefer just using a big monitor. I have played Elite Dangerous with DK2, for example, and now I just use my big monitor. There isn't that much benefit and doesn't really increase my game play enjoyment that much TBH. Craning my neck around to leverage the HMD while sitting down? Or bending over to look at things? Lol, ouch. These things go against every ergonomic rule known to us computer geeks..

    The golf example I think is really great, btw, because I think that's a perfect example of where AR is much superior to VR. AR (from what I've seen) can easily throw up a scene for you to hit into without all the uncomfortable aspects of VR (blindness, social isolation, totally geeking out, maybe tripping over something like a pet or other obstacle).

    I think it made a lot of sense when the HTC marketing dude jumped over to magic leap. He understood that AR is everything that (non active) VR is promising without the downsides.

    I think this will become more clear as time progresses, but I think unless you're doing Active VR, I think people will prefer putting on an AR HMD.

    Also, of course, an ODT like the Omni will obviously be necessary component for Active VR. I suspect also it will be the folks who have an Omni and play games like the dual blaster multi player Omni arena that will have a very high degree of satisfaction with VR in general. Some people (VR concerts / Sporting events) will be satisfied with sit down VR, but a higher percentage of sit down VR'ers will see VR as more of a gimmick and will probably just end up using their big monitors.
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