Unexpectedly Good Things VR Will Probably Cause (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Unexpectedly Good Things VR Will Probably Cause (2016)

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100 pointsthenomad32 comments

4: Many people have reported that slowly conditioning themselves to be resistant to motion sickness inside VR has also helped them become more resistant to motion sickness outside of VR. As in, some VR users are saying "I can read in the car for the first time!"

I emphasize slowly because trying to muscle through motion sickness has the opposite effect and can even lead to giving yourself an aversion to VR that resembles having an aversion to tequila after a "bad tequila night". Some people who have done this to themselves get sick from just the smell of a headset.

Having muscled through VR sickness exactly once back in the DK1 days, I heartily agree with the second half of this statement. In the language of my people, dinnae dae that.

Incidentally, if you're thinking of becoming a VR dev, that's one thing to bear in mind. You will, by definition, spend a lot of time in an unoptimised and buggy VR environment that sometimes has really interesting things go wrong.

Feeling queasy and having to take a lie-down occasionally very much comes with the territory. Ask me about the dodgy fog shader that had flipped its eye outputs some time...

> sometimes has really interesting things go wrong

I've still never felt sick from VR, but I can believe that. I was using Job Simulator on a PSVR a few days ago when the tracking started wigging out. Turns out, having the room you are 'in' randomly and repeatedly (every few seconds) moving around a few inches in a random direction and occasionally tilting away from vertical is a really quick way to completely lose your balance. I was lent forward reaching for something, and just completely froze in place until it settled itself - I knew that that if I kept moving there was no chance I wouldn't fall over, which is a weird sensation when you know on some level that the room isn't actually moving.

In hindsight, I could have just closed my eyes and/or removed the headset and stood up properly, but for some reason that didn't occur to me at the time (which I think is a testament to the sense of presence that VR can invoke).

Yeah, that sort of thing's a semi-regular occurrence if you're pushing the limits on VR dev a bit. No fun.

Yeah I dabbled super briefly with VR development and what I actually struggled with is how annoying it is to have to keep taking off and putting on the HMD to do iterative development. I really want something I can keep on my head and flip it down into view.

The weirdest psychological effect of going in and out of VR like that for me was a couple of times I turned to look at my scene while not in VR expecting the item I was editing to be there. A little like that split second after waking up from a dream and expecting something from the dream to have actually happened.

Maybe the resolution isn't good enough yet but I really think the solution is to have a virtual screen inside the VR environment so that you never have to take off the HMD.

Reminds me of the scene in The Explorers wherein the kid would type in his computer and control that sphere in 3D space.

Some guy spent a day at work in VR desktop setting https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/05/i-tried-t...

TLDR verdict: Not yet.

That article is a waste of time and only serves to muddy the waters, much like what happened to tilting trains. There are plenty of ways the mentioned issues could be ameliorated, though there's no way past the resolution issue, right now.

Oh goody!

I __really__ like horror sci-fi.

Watching something like Alien(s/3) or Even Horizon in VR is going to be my personal "killer app".

Imagine falling asleep and wakinh up with the headset on to some bizarro warped imagery. Or your own living space subtley wronged.

Sign me up!

Biggest lifehack I've discovered for ameliorating this problem: close your eyes before putting on or taking off the headset. Really helps.

I would love to be able to read in a car.

Got any additional info on this?

I think it's the same way. Start reading in the car, once you start to feel sick slowly stop. Once you feel better start reading again. Repeat.

I suspect the opposite has happened to me. Never had issues with motion sickness pre-VR. Drove with people and read/used my phone/whatever with no issues. A few days ago, I got motion sickness as a passenger in the car (using a phone - NEVER happened before). I suspect it was VR getting me to this point.

Just as an fyi, dramamine (non-drowsy if you're trying to work) works really well for VR induced motion sickness.

PR snake oil.

Fitness didn't come true with the Wii. Better be prepared to still go outside and have a life. Your body will produce vitamins as your reward.

Eyestrain is subjective, and this is far from an optometrist's prescription to treat any disease or disorder. Doctors recommend tooth brushes, but which is THE ONE TRUE toothbrush?

Psychology is not hard science. This technology can either harm or help, with no guarantee of either. Use as directed.

> Fitness didn't come true with the Wii

The question is 'why'? There's no denying playing a Wii game involved burning calories so the only explanation is that people stopped playing it.

So the question is really about whether or not people will do the same with VR and currently the majority of users seem to think otherwise.

Personal note. I had a Wii and never used it. I bought a Vive 6 weeks ago and have used it every day.

There is no evidence this is funded by anyone, so please, keep the allegations to yourself.

> Better be prepared to still go outside and have a life. Your body will produce vitamins as your reward.

Many people don't have good fitness options outside a controlled environment, for a variety of reasons.

> Eyestrain is subjective

No, it's measurable externally!

> but which is THE ONE TRUE toothbrush?

Dentists generally don't give a shit about brands, but ask 20 what the right toothbrush to get if budget is not a factor and they'll all quickly converge on one answer that has a fair sum of science backing it.

Seems like one potential interesting application should be the treatment of Phantom limb syndrome [1]. This is the sensation that a amputated limb is still attached, and sufferers often experience pain.

One treatment is the use of a mirror box. I guess this somehow lets them feel like they can move the limb, and in some cases results in reduced pain.

A VR "mirror" box or other therapy, might be even better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb

Another side effect that might not be immediately obvious to many cis people -- VR provides a safe place to explore your gender identity without fear. Want to swap out for a female/male body when you look down? It's as easy as toggling a switch in many games.

I recently tried the PlayStation VR in a store; it was a really strange experience to look down at myself when playing the EVE demo, to find out I a) had a body and b) it was of the other gender.

I thought that was the most interesting part of the experience; the spaceships looked pretty flat in the distance and I was sad that my hands in-game didn't move along with my controller (as they do in some games).

I wonder if skiing might be good for VR based exercise - you already wear goggles, hold poles (controllers) and have your feet clamped into restrictive boots.

Would need some kind of machine to attach the boots and provide some motion & feedback...

There's one on steam. It's really good but I can only do it for five minutes because motion sickness.

I'll look it up if you can't find it.

If you used it on one of those older ski simulator arcade games it'd be perfect!

Eh, the motions you perform machines are only vaguely like actual skiing.

There are, however, exercise machines like Skier's Edge [0] which are much closer.

0: http://www.skiersedge.com/

And progress on: Strobing and low pixel persistance to remove blur (blurbusters.com) And reduced latency to prevent motion sickness.

I'm skeptical of #2 - because regardless of the optics, while the focus may be "at infinity" - your eyes are still actually focused on a screen mere inches from your face. This was a problem back in the 1990s - and it will always be a problem - because optics. It can't be good for the eyes (mainly eyestrain if anything).

Could you elaborate? Although your eyes are receiving light from a source that is centimeters away, they are not focusing on an image centimeters away.

Not the OP but the problem is the fixed focal depth so if you are looking at objects closer or further away your eye focus remains the same but you have to change the vergence of your eyes. You go wall-eyed or cross-eyed. This is generally what gives you eye strain and the pause for thought in letting kids use too much VR. Solutions include using several different overlapped displays to render objects at different focal depths.

Your eyes can't distinguish between light coming in from really far away and light coming in from nearby that's been bent to appear as if it's really far away.

The light is coming from an object inches from your face, but is the focal point of your eyes actually inches from your face?

Hearing any mention of VR brings back memories of me trying out Mario's Tennis on the Nintendo Virtual Boy at Blockbuster Video back in the 1990s and then having a headache for the entire ride home.

If VR goggles reduce eye strain, I can't wait to start using them them for work, side benefit is during breaks you can browse reddit in complete privacy.

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