And what other than games?
First of all, I am focused on games, but for me my helmet should also become a personal cinema - I have three children, and I rarely get to retire to watch horror, for example. I haven't watched a movie in VR yet, but I love the huge YouTube window. Moreover, now there are applications that allow you to watch movies in VR with friends, in the same space.
I am also interested in Virtual Desktop - I will have access to a stationary computer, right from the couch. It won't change my work remotely much, as the remote desktop isn't VR ready. I will still have one terminal window - I cannot put mail on the right in VR, and ssh on the left.
VRChat has prompted a lot of people to buy both a VR headset and a full body tracking system. Based on the large number of videos, this is a funny world in which something interesting happens all the time and is full of surrealism.
From the applications, I really liked the drawing, although I am not an artist. This is something between an image and a sculpture, and a very meditative process like that.
Here are more different impressive videos with drawing software.
Porn, adult movies
Adult cinema in VR is also quite an interesting topic - both for singles and couples. I think that such videos should have an API that will control vibrators / masturbators. Or such videos will be marked up by a neural network to change the stimulation modes and their intensity.
As for couples, this can be a pretty interesting experience. In a helmet, you watch an adult video, but in reality you have sex with your wife, who repeats the actions of the woman from the video. If we go further, then an adult video can be filmed from two points (from the side of a man and a woman) and then two people can already have sex in helmets.
I do not see any technical difficulties in tracking people's bodies in reality and projecting them into virtuality, while changing their appearance and environment. This space will make available any fantasies and fetishes, including illegal or unsafe in reality.
I believe that reality can only benefit from this. But so far there is no answer - will, for example, a pedophile or a bestiality be able to have sex with a wife / masturbator in reality, while in virtuality he will have sex with a pig or a minor? Will that be enough for him? Or will the rich possibilities of the virtual be able to push even those who have not looked in this direction on this path? Or even encourage you to fulfill forbidden fantasies in real life? Is therapy possible for pedophiles, if every time during virtual sex you very gradually and imperceptibly replace the body parts of the vr doll with older ones? What if this is done in conjunction with psychedelic therapy, which appears to be reprogramming?
There was a case, I started to write on Habr a rather provocative article "Choosing a sex doll in 2040", but from a discussion of what these dolls would be, I quickly moved on to a conversation on the topic of AI psychotherapy and fantasy about the complete digitization of the entire life of people (for to understand how childhood traumas affect the future life and to quickly correct them).
Then I got the idea that it was not bad to conduct an experiment right now: to give the control group of children a “Guardian Angel” - a video camera on the forehead, a microphone and an earpiece. A person should always be sitting at the observation console, who would be watching the child all the time, communicating with him correctly and with pleasure, teaching him and prompting him. Do what parents can never do. Someday such nannies for children will probably appear, only it will be AI.
In general, while I was writing, my thoughts spread in different directions, and this article is unlikely to ever see the light of day. But now, discussing sex in VR, I can't help but remember how I imagined the choice of these dolls and their functionality.
After all, there are already AI models that allow, on the basis of a small survey (where different faces are shown to you and your reaction is read out), to create the woman most attractive to you. When neurointerfaces enter our lives more densely, it will become much easier to understand what we like, what excites or repels. And this applies not only to faces and figures, but also to behavior! Some people like being aggressive, while others like being submissive. Domination or submission. Will our earthly women be able to live up to the ideal that a computer can create?
Immersion phenomena
When I played Rust 5-8 years ago, I realized how much the world can become more alive if the player begins to beg for mercy (or threaten) with his voice, and not in the chat. But it was revealed in full force in the MMO shooter game Will to Live.
Mainly because, firstly, this MMORPG had safe areas for players. Secondly, due to the small number of locations where you can hunt with dignity. Spots for farming that were constantly occupied by someone generated a lot of conflicts both between individual players and between guilds.
In this game, you can at any time bump into two players who are discussing "stupid accountants who do not understand nifig in computers" near the fire, or a group of players who poison jokes. It happens that there are conversations "by concepts", debriefing and conflicts in a raised voice. These are the most real conflicts that evoke genuine emotions - adrenaline is seething as before a fight in real life. And I even scared my wife a couple of times when I started to get really angry and yell into the microphone.
Virtual reality adds a new dimension that makes the gaming experience more real. It adds hands to us with which we can interact with the virtual world and with other players. And this has a much greater effect than perhaps we can imagine. We can also look around and even move around naturally. We are completely focused on the game world, because the world does not end outside the monitor.
A VR player is too different from a computer-controlled character and that is why in Pavlov VR and other games, people can behave strange and incongruous to the game. They systematically ignore the game rules, according to which they should just shoot each other. I have looked at enough material to notice this and this effect is noted by the players themselves.
I have the impression that VR players are more friendly than these same players, but in “flat” games.
When the world stopped being flat and more mechanisms appeared for interacting with it, it became a generator for a variety of funny situations. For example, when one player from the table has time to grab a pistol without cartridges, and the second player has a clip. Due to the fact that in the game you can see what is in the hands of another character, this becomes immediately obvious. Players naturally (that is, without even pressing the 'Push to talk' key) react to this and laugh.
The effects I'm talking about are also noticeable in the Echo Arena game:
* By the way, I really liked how Echo Arena hits players. These blows are subjectively well felt, even if you just watch the video of this game.
Echo Arena players are friendly. It seems to me that the root of this phenomenon is that people in the game easily allow other people to enter their personal space and touch themselves (because VR is safe and does not feel like a threat) and this greatly increases the level of trust between players.
Perhaps this will spread to real life - after such games, it will be easier for people to talk to strangers and they will be more open to the world. VR is very different from the experience of other multiplayer games - I think it can become the place where people can socialize and then go out into the real world.
That is why my attitude to feedback vests * that allow you to “feel the touch” or the bump, or feel the sound of the shot “with the body,” is far from skeptical. I think that we are still poorly aware of how much it can really affect our perception and immersion. We can only say how the vest reacts to certain game events.
Demonstration of the vest:
There are also more restrained reviews, including in Russian. By the way, the 40-point Tacticsuit costs $ 500. This is the cost of the vest, but there are attachments for arms, legs and even a head. It can probably be useful to use it in a shooter to understand where you came from.
We also have little idea of the factors that cause us to immerse ourselves so deeply in work that we remember not having lunch when it’s time to go home. We can go so deeply into the book that we will not notice anything around us, including the passage of time. Or, on the go, immerse yourself in your thoughts and not remember how you got home.
Intuitively, many game creators understand how to tie our minds to what is happening in the game and make us stop noticing the world around us. There are some general practices and developments for this, and something is even formalized. But I think that many possible techniques are still in the shadows, and they have to be discovered, especially in VR, which is still not well understood.
After all, there are games with incredible graphics that we miss, and at the same time there are games without graphics, hours after which fly by unnoticed and where we merge with the character. In general, we do not yet know where that last straw is, which creates the effect of immersion.
I am also very interested - is it possible to carry out body psychotherapy in haptic vest? Or won't it work?
The sports aspect of games
If rhythm games are just kept in good shape, then boxing in VR really exhausts even athletic people. Some people additionally use boxer training elastic bands that are attached to the waist and arms to enhance the training effect.
Here is a video where professional boxers try VR boxing:
There is a lot of attention to sports in VR now, because it works well, in general. I am not suggesting that it will completely replace real sports and training. But for many, this will be a great way out, because you can lose weight and do it in a fun way.
Interesting Icarus hardware has already started selling for VR fitness .
It looks interesting, but it costs from 2000 to 9000 euros for the PRO version. It's a cool thing for abdominal muscles and, in my opinion, this is not such a big price for a large gym. Moreover, it has multiplayer games and a competitive element.
There are bike startups with VR connectivity, but this is a dead end road for me. But the accelerometer device, which could be used on any bike simulator, could take off.
Therefore, I even wrote a letter in support of DecaMove (a project that I will discuss below).
“Good day! I really like your startup DecaMove and I even ordered it myself.
But it seems to me that you have not noticed the potential of this device in vr sports. Please note that exercise bikes connected to virtual reality are now being sold. I think that they are too expensive, and secondly a lot of people already have exercise bikes or treadmills that just stand somewhere in the corner and are not used.
I think it's easy enough to position your device as a sports device. You simply connect the decamove to your leg, record the acceleration determine the potential speed at which the person is pedaling. Faster you pedal, the faster your car / bike / horse goes in the vr game.
I think you need to release a video showing this application of your device.
I also really like your device DecaGear, it will be cool if a device with such functionality comes out for such a price and I wish you the best of luck with this cool project. "
Price of bikes with VR games:
Holodia VR - 400 $
VirZoom - 400 $
DecaMove
How does free movement usually work in VR? Where you look in the helmet - there you move, holding the controller. DecaMove, a small and not very expensive device that is hung on the belt allows you to move more naturally. You will be able to look one way and move the other. I think this is one of the most important things for VR if you use it for games - it allows you to move around in a relatively natural way.
Small overview:
Detailed overview:
You can order here , with delivery it cost me 5700r.
But you don't have to buy DecaMove! After all, you can use a regular smartphone + application instead, if it has an accelerometer and a compass:
In the third part, we'll talk about positioning, tracking, Full body tracking, existing solutions and their prices, and much more.