Now that I have that image in my head...
of a lungfish with a little tear in his eye?
But I was referring to this:
"Imagine removing your head
"
Well, like I said, Marks was talking about it, but I can't find the talk, so you're welcome to dismiss if you'd like. Or perhaps I just confused the ratcheting comments from the talk I linked. Regardless, I wasn't proposing it as a locomotion solution, though I do think it will bring ADS to a new level, assuming it's tolerable.
It sounds like you were when you said this:
"the impressive girth of (Touch's) tracking ring is a direct result of the comparatively poor visibility of IR markers."
Sorry, I was saying the large diameter of the ring
was the compensation, not that no compensation was made.
Again though, you're speaking as if you know for a fact that Oculus haven't compensated for this by providing ample power to the IR diodes and/or a higher-sensitivity IR camera.
Actually, I've mentioned exactly that as one of the
compensations which would be dictated by their decision to use low-visibility markers.
You
do understand I'm not saying Rift is "broken" or whatever, right? =/
Multiple laser bars sweep across the room in different directions, and each sensor detects the laser pulses at slightly different times. I don't see any similarities to GPS.
They both use time differentials calculated from receiving signals generated by a beacon to determine position and heading. Obviously the implementation won't be identical since they use different mediums for signal propagation, but the principle is the same. The advantage of radio signaling is somewhat apparent, so I was wondering if anyone knew why lasers were chosen instead.
You're not a developer yourself though, so a lot of the "if this then that" stuff you pepper your posts with will continue to be disputed.
Sorry, but I guess I don't understand. How does your job affect your ability to draw conclusions? What if you get fired?
In any case, I came here
looking to have my conclusions challenged. Based on all of the information I've collected, my conclusions seem reasonable enough, but I also realize the information I have collected to date is not comprehensive, so by extension, neither is my understanding of the subject. My goal was to discuss my conclusions to first help determine validity, and then discuss what additional conclusions could be drawn from that determination.
For example, it's been reported that steady, sustained motion is comfortable. This makes sense, because the vestibular system is inertial; if there are no changes in speed or direction, there is nothing for the vestibular system to detect, so there is no disconnect, hence no source of discomfort.
It seems reasonable enough to suggest that a technique which seems to offer comfortable traversal for an arbitrary duration with arbitrary speed and heading is at least worth some investigation as basis for an abstracted locomotion solution. There are implementation details to work out, but thus far I haven't seen any reason to rule it out as having potential.
The most obvious roadblock would the need to transition from stationary to moving and back again. That requires a
change in velocity, and that's precisely what the vestibular system detects, so
now we have a disconnect, which is typically a good source for discomfort.
However, we do have workarounds available to us. The most obvious solution is to skip the acceleration phase entirely. With no
acceleration detected by the eyes, there's nothing for the ears to confirm or deny, so no opportunity for uncomfortable disconnect. So while this causes the user no
physical discomfort, the abrupt change in velocity can still be a bit jarring, because while we never suffered through
conflicting sensory input an excellent source of discomfort years of experiential learning has taught us that something else probably should've happened in between then and now, and we somehow slept through the entire process.
So we've delivered a bit of an immersion slap to the user, because despite avoiding the cardinal sin of pitting the senses
against one another, we've also failed on our promise of delivering expected results, which is something else I yammer about a lot. A simulation is convincing and believable when it delivers the expected results, and we just gave them something different.
Well, the good news is that our firm belief that acceleration is a thing comes
entirely from the experiential learning I mentioned. Thanks to the excellent teamwork of my eyes and ears over the years, I've become quite adept at recognizing and gauging acceleration when I experience it, and experience has additionally taught me that it's what happens whenever you change speed.
But here I am in a place where acceleration
doesn't seem to be a fundamental aspect of changing velocity. We're definitely moving now despite the fact that nothing resembling acceleration has been detected by the eyes; a somewhat astonishing fact actually
confirmed by the ears! Huh. Didn't see that coming, yet here we are, seemingly having skipped acceleration entirely. That's certainly not how it worked where
I grew up, but whatever, I guess; apparently that's how it works
here. No sense arguing with reality itself.
And this is exactly the point where experiential learning stops working against us and starts working in our favor instead, and a strong general sense of presence actually helps facilitate that transition. While acceleration was definitely a thing in the place we were before, its clearly not a thing
here, where we are now, and this has been verified not just by two separate senses, but just as importantly, by
repeatability. Repeatable results are fundamental to experiential learning, and experiential learning is what tells us what "normal" is, and in a sense, reality is nothing more than everything our experiential learning has taught us to expect as normal.
And thats the key here. Because learning is an ongoing process, as long as we have a good idea of what to expect and when repeatability we can adjust our sense of normality quite quickly. Just as people become accustomed to working underwater and in zero gravity, people will become accustomed to the quirks of the new environments
were introducing them to. Ultimately, it doesnt matter if things are a little different here than they were there, because theyre predictable, so before long, well all learn exactly what to expect.
Hey, theres that expectations word again. Earlier we agreed that not meeting expectations is bad, but now we understand that expectations can be quite fluid, and as long as we have consistency we can start making accurate predictions, and in turn realign our expectations to fit this new reality we've found ourselves in. Reality is what it is, and whatever the rules, we will adapt, improvise, and overcome. We sorta can't help it; it's just how we're wired up. When you get the result you expected to get, that's a normal result by definition.
#dealwithit, amirite? Well, yes and no. Navigating an abstracted environment requires abstracted locomotion, so at the end of the day assuming we aren't limiting ourselves to non-abstract environments we
are gonna need to deal with it, whether "it" turns out to be teleportation, gliding, a combination thereof, or shit nobody's even thought of yet.
But adaptability is our thing. We're just as comfortable with abstraction as we are anything else; as long as we're able to predict the results of our actions, then those results will indeed meet our expectations. As gamers, we should be quite used to "figuring out what the rules are here," because it's the first thing we do when we get a new game. Even if it's a franchise we're intimately familiar with, we need to immediately find the new features, so we can start using them to our advantage. We're not merely able to adapt, but
eager to do so. The central conceit of
all gaming is, "Ah, but what if
this was reality?
Then what would you do?" VR just makes it harder for players to remember this isn't reality.
Insomniac has a game coming for Touch where you chuck fireballs at each other by making a fist to form the fireball and then you hurl it at your opponent like a baseball. Obviously, that's not how you
really throw a fireball at someone; it's a total abstraction. I mean, they completely
ignore the incantation and who
aims with their hands when you could be using them to transcribe scrolls instead?? So every time the player uses their primary ability, they're totally pulled out of the experience because this is just some lame abstraction that's nothing like the real thing, right?
No, because that's how it works
here, where we are now. Rather than being a constant reminder of how fake this all is, it's instead an immensely satisfying experience because it's perfectly predictable; fireballs always appear right when you call them, and always go right where you throw them, just as they should. It's also satisfying because it provides the user with consistency. This is how all spells are cast in this world more or less and the player is never left wondering when they'll need to fall back to a completely separate solution due to circumstances they're often unable to control or even predict. If the user is forced to use the fallback system with any regularity, they will quickly adapt and begin using it as their primary solution, because it provides that oh so satisfying reliability and predictability. If the fallback system also proves to be an unsatisfactory conduit for their intent too unreliable, cumbersome, ineffective, etc. they will simply move on to experiences which
do provide such a conduit.
So has nothing changed? Learn the rules and play the game? Well, that's really the essence of gaming itself. We dictate the obstacles to success, and give the players the tools required to overcome them. When the players understand what they can expect from those tools however incredible those expectations may seem to those of us stuck here in Plain Old Reality they will do "the normal thing," and start using whatever tools are available to them to help achieve their goals.
So this world doesn't have acceleration. Who gives a shit? Are you a Nuverse physicist or something? Obviously not, or you'd have no reason to expect acceleration to be a thing in the first place. Dragons also violate the laws of physics as we currently understand them, but I don't think that stops anyone here from wanting to pal around with one, especially after you hear he can teach you how to throw BALLS OF FUCKING FIRE at anyone who crosses you. Having a 20m dragon
literally towering over you is going to be a pretty convincing argument that it's time to update your physics model. Dat experiential learning.
And
that's why presence is such a powerful new tool in our arsenal.
Presence is when the information being sent to your eyes and ears is so compelling that it completely
overwhelms any sense of disbelief you may have. Sure, experiential learning ensures your first response will always be, "Whoa, this can't be happening," but that won't change the fact that it
is happening, and you can be sure
this experience will be logged right alongside the rest of them. It really doesn't make any difference what Professor Stabelboson said, because there is
definitely a dragon looking you right in the eyes! Maybe the old man was full of shit or maybe something changed, but regardless, one thing you can be
certain of is that it's time to learn some spells, because the dragon just said so.
And the greatest thing about experiential learning is that assuming he always behaves in a way consistent with this world every new encounter with the dragon just makes you
more convinced that he's real. If you can happily accept all of the "clear" violations of physics which occur every time you take a ride on your new friend, do you really think you'll get hung up on something as mundane as a lack of acceleration? As long as we don't let its absence make you sick, your brain will happily except such phenomena as being just as realistic as the dragons whose existence they allow. If it does make you sick, then your brain will find it to be
equally realistic, and will be decidedly
less happy about it.
So is there anything at all we can do to ease users' transitions in to this new reality they've found themselves in? As a matter of fact, there is. I mentioned that the eyes can experience short bursts of acceleration without causing any discomfort. This helps to satisfy the part of your brain saying, "Hey, wasn't more supposed to happen there?" but the stimulation ends before the vestibular system has the chance to raise any alarms. Will it be precisely the same way we experienced acceleration back on Earth? No, but we'll get used to it here, just like we got used to it there, and the simulated acceleration will help to smooth and speed that adaptation for us. Remember too that a native Nuversian would find simulated acceleration even more disquieting than we find it comforting, because they've never experienced such a thing at all. Hopefully they're just as adaptable as we are, because now that we adaptable humans are fortunate enough to be able to travel freely from one reality to the next, we're starting to become perfectly comfortable with the fact that sometimes acceleration is a thing, and other times not so much.
So we've established how "believability" is in fact a
side effect of presence and how this helps people adapt to new rulesets even more quickly and easily than they would normally do already. But for a truly enjoyable experience, users also need a clear and effective way of communicating their intent, and this is where video gaming has fallen over for most people; the high level of abstraction we've suffered through in the past meant most users found the controls to be neither clear nor effective. Most people don't have any trouble groking simple abstractions like "push button -> light goes on" but anything much more complex than that and they're likely to start waving their hands around in a
reflexive effort to better communicate their meaning. 6DOF tracking finally gives
computers the same ability to look at someone else's hands and say, "Oh,
that's what you mean," which humans have enjoyed for so long.
That's some powerful juju. We know that steady-speed cruising doesnt trigger a disconnect, and we understand why that is the case, but what if youre still new to gliding and just find zipping around at those speeds to be unsettling simply because you
havent had a chance to become acclimatized to this form of travel? Then dont push off so hard. Theres no reason for us to set the users velocity arbitrarily, nor empower them with the ability to estimate how many meters per second theyll be able to comfortably travel taking in to account both the content of the environment and the time elapsed since they fed their meatbag then call up an interface which allows them to accurately communicate their current needs. I dont know shit so I cant help you guys with implementation here, but it seems entirely possible to use a 6DOF to allow users to set their own velocity in the clearest and most natural way possible. Well, how fast
would you like to move?
This fast.
Even small children instinctively understand precisely how fast this fast is, in the same way they understand how big this big is. They also understand intuitively when they need to grow their arms
physically longer to properly convey how big this big really is, and the only thing stopping them from doing so without a second thought is the inability to actually do so. How logical does the ability to grow your arms need to be before you use it reflexively? Again, examine the logic of the child. When they realize their arms aren't long enough to properly describe just how big, they immediately stand on their tiptoes. What's the logic in that? Experiential learning has taught them that standing on your tiptoes does indeed extend your reach, clearly evidenced by the fact that it invariably helps them reach the cookies. Simple, effective, and predictable; the obvious go-to any time you need to grow your arms a bit. Show them a better way to grow your arms, and they will happily incorporate it in to their own sense of reality. Show them it's simply not possible, and they'll manage to come to terms with that too.
Anyway, I hope this helps you guys understand that I've not just done my homework but also put a fair bit of thought in to this stuff. I am fully aware of the fact that without ready access to a lab, there could be a lot of flaws in my reasoning. Indeed, it was this knowledge that motivated me to ask if anyone could identify any such flaws, so that I might update my model. While I do appreciate all attempts to assist in this endeavor, replies like, "Where do you even work?" and, "STFU and buy a Vive," do surprisingly little to help pinpoint these errors or explain what makes them so. <3
