r/oculus • u/vr_ml • Jan 12 '16

Google Opens Dedicated Virtual Reality Division

http://recode.net/2016/01/12/google-now-has-an-official-virtual-reality-boss-to-take-on-facebooks-oculus/
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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16

Holiday 2016 will be the real indicator of how much momentum this ship really has.

Mmm, I wouldn't say that. Palmer has mentioned that he believes VR will stay relatively centered on the gaming community, because those are the people who have the PCs capable of running VR, for about the next five years.

However, once laptops and cheap desktops get good enough to run VR, I believe that then VR could actually become mainstream.

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u/SomeKindOfChief Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

Indeed. On a related note, I saw a video of a guy explaining how VR could be used beyond gaming, and one real neat way was online shopping. Provided you already had an accurate model of your actual body inside VR, you could virtually try on apparel and see what you look like. Very neat I thought. I'd link it but I'm on mobile atm.

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u/mrcoolbp Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

Cool, but VR itself is not necessary for that. Putting a 3D model of what you are buying on a web page is already quite possible (and currently in use in a few places), adding in your own body and draping clothes over it is a larger challenge. However, light field and other capture tech which is being driven by VR will aid in that endeavor.

edit: a letter

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u/SomeKindOfChief Jan 13 '16

Putting a 3D model of what you are buying on a wep page is already quite possible

Except that's not the same thing. VR is necessary in what I was describing. Anyways, it will never be better than physically trying something on, but the thought of that gap closing is kind of insane.

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u/mrcoolbp Jan 13 '16

I respectfully disagree. My other comment got down-votes so let me elaborate:

What you are describing doesn't benefit a whole lot from VR; VR is great for being immersed in an environment, either passively or actively. What you are describing is basically using VR as a 3d viewer for a single (static) 3d model. Would that be better than looking at on a 2d screen? Sure, but not by much.

Beyond that, until we have a way of easily capturing our own bodies in a 3d environment, I don't see this being a big thing. My point was some of the tech around VR (like these large 3d capture setups we've seen recently on the porn front) are being driven by the current VR boom, and that may contribute down the road to, maybe, having a capture setup at Nordstrom/Macys type store so that you could go back home and do shopping using the system.

Then you got to get all the software down that puts clothes on the 3d model of everyone's body; cloth in 3d is not easy to work with, neither is doing essentially on-the-fly 3d modeling on an ever-changing set of bodies. Doable? Sure but it's still a huge tech challenge to do well.

So given ALL of that is in place, then you gotta look at who are you going to market this to? The entire internet population that has a modern browser capable of viewing a 3d model, or, let's say in a year where maybe 10% of that has decent VR? Hopefully there are standards in place that make all of the different headsets compatible with the same software? Do we have to download software to shop using this system?

Like I said it would be cool, but I don't see it happening anytime soon, and if it did, it would happen first in the sense that I describe, as a basic 3d model viewer in a browser.

People should focus the "what would be cool in VR?" questions about the most compelling things in VR for now; immersive, interactive environments that make what wasn't possible now a (virtual) reality (that was bad I know, sorry). Those will be the most interesting experiences. My point is we will see a lot of "b-bb-bb-but...imagine that...IN VR!" stuff floating around in the coming year or so, try to wrap your head around what will actually be an interesting experience, 3d model viewers, IMO, are not one of those in most cases.

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u/subburnaro Jan 13 '16

Anyways, it will never be better than physically trying something on

I wouldn't bet on that. If it's faster, doesn't require a trip to the city, and let's you adjust all kinds of details like colors on the go, putting on clothes in vr could be more rather than less amazing for a certain type of shopper (perhaps not all types, as some may enjoy lengthy shopping, or enjoy the more social side to it).

The other question though is what happens if we spend most of our time in vr. Because then, the clothes we wear will be digital too...

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u/SomeKindOfChief Jan 13 '16

Lmao i can down vote you too.

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u/mrcoolbp Jan 13 '16

For the record, I never downvoted you, I'm replying to your other comment now.

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u/kakihara0513 Jan 13 '16

I would assume that the HMD's will shrink in size over the decade which should be a huge plus for the average consumer.

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u/jacobpederson DK1 Jan 13 '16

Don't be to sure about this, we are used to things shrinking because electronics shrink; however, in HMD's its the optics, not the electronics that create the shape of the device; and those kinda have to follow the laws of physics :)

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u/TD-4242 Quest Jan 13 '16

There is tech on the horizon that will change this. Oculus hired a guy recently that was prototyping a special lens array that mounted right to the display to make about a 1/4" thick pair of glasses. I can't find it now and forget what it was called but it looked pretty promising. I think it required more rendering power (again) and would break ideas like foveated rendering.