THAT's Dinosaur Encounter?

[mattspace]

Waitaminute - Dinosaur Encounter is a floating window, it's not an immersive thing you exist within? You can't walk around the terrain objects, look around you and see a fully realised world?

Seriously? THAT's what people have been hyping?

 

[Janichsan]

Killer app

 

[powerbook911]

I liked it.

 

[mattspace]

...but it's just a floating window. How is that impressive?

It's a cartoonishly rendered,3D movie, is an empty environment - no jungle, just rocks, floating in space... AND?

I remember years ago when people in the Apple media cargo cult were losing their minds at the idea that Apple had hired a guy whose claim to fame for VR was making something were you paint on a flat canvas but in VR, and I was looking around thinking "is everyone nuts, that's literally the most missing-the-point use of VR anyone has ever made".

And now THIS is what people are raving about? Talk about low standards.

I'm just going off a Youtube video of it... but...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I liked it.

I like it too. There is a weird filter being applied to this. Unless my brain is melting while i'm driven to such extacy that I have an everlasting orgasm, this thing is clearly a let down and a failure. It's so weird.

It's a totally cool demo. The 'window' manifests itself as a portal, from nowhere, into your reality. The terrain inside the portal is completely convincing and 3d. They do not LET you move around in that environment because you'll break your neck walking around your environment once youre in it. And then the dinosaur pops its head out of the portal window INTO your environment.

It's so cool. And the butterfly collision detects to your finger into your space with amazing synchronization of trajectory prediction TO YOUR HAND which can be moving, and into your space.

But you know, it didnt come with the everlasting-gobstopper-orgasm so it totally sucks.

To each their own.

But you cannot be impressed with it unless you experience it with the goggles. Seeing a video of it totally misses the point. You must try it to 'get it'. If I tell you a story about a roller coaster versus experiencing the roller coaster, yea, one is boring, one is not. Same thing with watching a flat video of someone experiencing a 5D interaction.

 

[mattspace]

But you cannot be impressed with it unless you experience it with the goggles. Seeing a video of it totally misses the point. You must try it to 'get it'. If I tell you a story about a roller coaster versus experiencing the roller coaster, yea, one is boring, one is not. Same thing with watching a flat video of someone experiencing a 5D interaction.

I get that you might find it impressive, but in VR-land fully rendered environments that you walk around inside, with fully rendered creatures is table stakes, and while everyone is blowing out their voiceboxes in their urgency to say "It's not VR", the fact is it's a VR headset using passthrough video to make an AR experience.

What does seem particularly telling, is that the headline demo also happens to be, one might say suspiciously limited in the amount of 3D it needs to do - a tiny segment of a world, and a single moving creature.

I'll be keen to see if we get any demos of proper immersive environments and workspaces, rather than flat computing in a window or in space.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I get that you might find it impressive, but in VR-land fully rendered environments that you walk around inside, with fully rendered creatures is table stakes, and while everyone is blowing out their voiceboxes in their urgency to say "It's not VR", the fact is it's a VR headset using passthrough video to make an AR experience.

What does seem particularly telling, is that the headline demo also happens to be, one might say suspiciously limited in the amount of 3D it needs to do - a tiny segment of a world, and a single moving creature.

I'll be keen to see if we get any demos of proper immersive environments and workspaces, rather than flat computing in a window or in space.

Again, it's showing what none of the demos you mention do. It's targeting your human hand and getting a real time trajectory prediction of your moving hand and an interaction with your hand.

It's just a small demo. And it's just a 'taste'.

The Environments are super immersive and feel crazy real. They dont let you walk around in them and it's tough to trick the environments to let you walk around in them. On the moon, in hawaii i would reach down to try to touch the rocks. I had someone hold my hand so i wouldn't walk into stuff and kill myself and tried to trick the system to let me go further, but it only lets you move a foot or so and then bleeds out the environment, again, because you'll likely kill yourself.

But if you wear the goggles it's really clear you can walk through 3d environments and they are shockingly convincing.

And conjuring 3d objects and you can shove your face right up to it like it's a real object, the fidelity is pretty shockingly convincing.

No one talks about it, I forget the app name, but the one that lets you position a jet engine or an F1 car in front of you, when you put your hand into it, the system detects the collision and your hand moves through it and it composites it (not perfectly) and there is a very Star Wars hologram style flicker in the confined area of the collision. I dont know if it does that flicker as just a natural part of the algorithm or they were going for a star wars vibe, but it's kind of cool. But i digress, in that app when you bring the jet engine close to your face and you start reading the labels etc, you will be convinced this thing in front of you is real.

TLDR, i do think the 3d environments, if/when they will let you in them, will be scary convincing. The 180 and 360 videos are scary convincing. I think you may be putting a bit too much weight in a very light demo, that was probably done very early on to test things and give people a feel.

I'm hopeful more development will come soon. For example, a native version of NoManSky would be amazing. That game has a UI system where you move the joysticks to position your cursor to interact with a HUD/buttons on the UI, then you press a button and must hold it for a few seconds until a UI cursor piechart fills in, and only after it goes full, does that UI widget get engaged. It's i guess so you dont accidentally mis click on UI things. This entire mechanism could be completely obviated with eye tracking and the finger tap gesture and be WAY faster AND more accurate than the joystick mechanism. I played it via SteamLink on a virtual huge AVP screen, and I kept accidentally wanting to use the AVP eye tracking mechanism as it's such a natural replacement. It made me think how cool and powerful the eye tracking can be, and that it can actually be a FASTER UI input device at least for some use cases.

This is all nascent. I wouldn't damn it quite this early...and probably not laude it too much quite yet too.

 

[mattspace]

Again, it's showing what none of the demos you mention do. It's targeting your human hand and getting a real time trajectory prediction of your moving hand and an interaction with your hand.

Accurate hand tracking is an off-the-shelf part, and a commoditised function in AR-land, and has been for a few years.

TLDR, i do think the 3d environments, if/when they will let you in them, will be scary convincing. The 180 and 360 videos are scary convincing. I think you may be putting a bit too much weight in a very light demo, that was probably done very early on to test things and give people a feel.

I'll be interested to see - the overall vibe I have from the reportage so far, is it seems to be coming from people who don't know the wider AR/VR/XR landcape / context.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Accurate hand tracking is an off-the-shelf part, and a commoditised function in AR-land, and has been for a few years.



I'll be interested to see - the overall vibe I have from the reportage so far, is it seems to be coming from people who don't know the wider AR/VR/XR landcape / context.

Hand tracking may be off the shelf, but it's not system wide as far as I know. You may know the rest of the industry far better so I will defer to you on this. The few times I tried some of the others, it didnt work well, certainly wasn't offered on the demo/games i tried, which relied on in hand joysticks etc. That said, I tried those for maybe a sum total of 30 minutes of use across 3 devices like Quest (which i tried a long while back and then I think there was like some janky beta way to enable hand tracking of some kind back then and it wasn't on by default, if I recall).

Anyway, the dinosaur should be targeted to joe average with no experience. The VAST majority of the public has no experience with this. You need intro stuff. The super experienced dont need demos like that. They'll figure stuff out.

That said, it would have been cool if they did have a 'super advanced demo' of some sort to light the imagination of the more experienced set too! Impressing those folks does have a lot of value too. So perhaps that's the point you're getting to, and with that, I would agree.

 

[mattspace]

Hand tracking may be off the shelf, but it's not system wide as far as I know. You may know the rest of the industry far better so I will defer to you on this. The few times I tried some of the others, it didnt work well, certainly wasn't offered on the demo/games i tried, which relied on in hand joysticks etc. That said, I tried those for maybe a sum total of 30 minutes of use across 3 devices like Quest (which i tried a long while back and then I think there was like some beta way to enable it back then and it wasn't on by default, if I recall).

On SteamVR with a Leap Motion sensor you were pretty much able to replace the controllers, so in something like Gravity Sketch, your hand is the tool for drawing, and your thumb to index finger pinch the variable aprture for the drawn matter.

No doubt, what Apple will bring is a degree of cohesive polish, but again, still waiting to see video of actual tools where it's direct manipulation with your hands, rather than eye-tap and finger-gesture. Voxel clay manipulation, that sort of thing.

Anyway, the dinosaur should be targeted to joe average with no experience. The VAST majority of the public has no experience with this. You need intro stuff. The super experienced dont need demos like that. They'll figure stuff out. That said, it would have been cool if they did have a 'super advanced demo' of some sort to light the imagination of the more experienced set too! Impressing those folks does have a lot of value too. So perhaps that's the point you're getting to, and with that, I would agree.

I would imagine part of the rationale for not doing immersive demos is the fear that people will be off-balance, but in my experience putting literally hundreds of people from children through to the elderly into VR environments, the proprioceptive validity of the experience means people are no more likely to lose balance etc in immersion than they are out of it.

Granted, I was using lighthouse tracked systems, which are better for absolute accuracy than inside-out systems.

More demos of things you can only do in a 3D headset, not "3d headset ways of doing 2d computing" is something I'm keen to see.

 

[mattspace]

Another example, this is Leap Motion's AR system (5 years ago), which is projection onto a clear face-shield, rather than passthrough video. Hand tracking is clean, object occlusion is accurate, and the UI is interesting - this is the sort of stuff I'm more keen to see than floating iPad windows. In the broader scope of things, VisionOS looks a bit, eh *shrug*

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

Waitaminute - Dinosaur Encounter is a floating window, it's not an immersive thing you exist within? You can't walk around the terrain objects, look around you and see a fully realised world?

Seriously? THAT's what people have been hyping?

I guess Apple can't have people go too far into an immersive 3D environment because they might get seriously injured if they smash that glass front and land on it.

 

[Jony Ive]

Waitaminute - Dinosaur Encounter is a floating window, it's not an immersive thing you exist within? You can't walk around the terrain objects, look around you and see a fully realised world?

Seriously? THAT's what people have been hyping?

For most people it's the first time they try a VR headset so that's why they're so hyped.

 

[Rychiar]

Waitaminute - Dinosaur Encounter is a floating window, it's not an immersive thing you exist within? You can't walk around the terrain objects, look around you and see a fully realised world?

Seriously? THAT's what people have been hyping?

Did you not hear it vividly described by all these reviewers?

 

[mattspace]

For most people it's the first time they try a VR headset so that's why they're so hyped.

Yes, I think that's what's so disquieting about the hype (and it happened when Apple last tried to dip its toe into VR, despite having woefully underpowered hardware for it), is that the Apple Media Cargo Cult has become instantly expert and opinionated about what is good or bad, and what will make the format successful, based entirely on whatever decisions Apple made in their implementation.

People who clearly don't have experience doing stuff in VR who come out with phrases like "nobody has figured out what VR is useful for, but now Apple has given us the first headset you'd actually use" - I've read multiple variations on this theme.

 

[mattspace]

Did you not hear it vividly described by all these reviewers?

Yes, but then I saw what it was. It's like hearing someone tell you about this amazing new thing they've discovered called "Moving Pictures" that's simply astounding and going to change the world, when IMAX already exists.

 

[mattopotamus]

I know for me, my heart rate actually elevated when the dinosaur seemingly breaks into the room and is face to face with you.

 

[mattspace]

I know for me, my heart rate actually elevated when the dinosaur seemingly breaks into the room and is face to face with you.

3D Proprioception is a powerful tool and works on a largely subconscious level - you'd probably have the same physiological reaction to an untextured geometric primitive moving towards you, just from the anticipation of collision and instinctive judging of mass based on size.

Have you ever tried Richie's Plank Experience?

Richie's Plank Experience on Steam

You're on a plank, 80 stories high. Knees shaky, palms sweaty. You have a choice. Do you walk or do you freeze? Richie's Plank is the only VR experience that lets you clone any real-world plank into the virtual world for 2X the immersion.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Rychiar]

Yes, but then I saw what it was. It's like hearing someone tell you about this amazing new thing they've discovered called "Moving Pictures" that's simply astounding and going to change the world, when IMAX already exists.

It’s all about the fidelity and realism with these Micro oled screens. There’s nothing else out there that create such a Scene right in your room and the interactivity with the tiny dinosaurs is great. The first time I just watched it not realizing how much ya can interact with it

 

[spaxxedout]

Waitaminute - Dinosaur Encounter is a floating window, it's not an immersive thing you exist within? You can't walk around the terrain objects, look around you and see a fully realised world?

Seriously? THAT's what people have been hyping?

I’m a huge Vision Pro fanboy and I have to agree. Shouldn’t have been preinstalled.

 

[mattspace]

It’s all about the fidelity and realism with these Micro oled screens. There’s nothing else out there that create such a Scene right in your room and the interactivity with the tiny dinosaurs is great. The first time I just watched it not realizing how much ya can interact with it

I think Varjo would disagree on that:

Apple Vision Pro vs Varjo XR-4 (Comparison) - VRcompare

View a full technical comparison between the Apple Vision Pro and Varjo XR-4.

vr-compare.com

 

[mattspace]

I’m a huge Vision Pro fanboy and I have to agree. Shouldn’t have been preinstalled.

My issue isn't with it being preinstalled, more that something is being praised by people who don't understand the implications of *why* it's done the way it's done (and seemingly not spoken about by people who do).

It's analogous to the original Marathon on Mac - it was the Apple world's answer to Doom on PC, but whereas Doom ran full screen, with a little UI strip at the bottom, Marathon used 2/3 of the screen real estate for UI, so the actual 3D game window was this tiny little space, which meant the less capable 3D hardware on the Mac could run the game.

 

[coffeeboat]

I'm just going off a Youtube video of it... but...

In the nicest way, do you think it's possible your opinion is slightly less informed than that of the people who have actually experienced it?

It sounds like your attitude is that the people who liked it just don't understand VR so they're wrong to be impressed by this headset and if only they did a bit more research into other VR headsets they'd understand how inferior it is. Apple have made trade-offs in the overall design, but those trade-offs are exactly what makes this appealing to the kind of people who would never consider buying a Varjo XR-4, whatever that is. And there's clearly value in bringing this to a wider audience, even if it means that the dinosaur doesn't come all the way out of the window.

 

[chaospet]

...but it's just a floating window. How is that impressive?

It's a cartoonishly rendered,3D movie, is an empty environment - no jungle, just rocks, floating in space... AND?

I remember years ago when people in the Apple media cargo cult were losing their minds at the idea that Apple had hired a guy whose claim to fame for VR was making something were you paint on a flat canvas but in VR, and I was looking around thinking "is everyone nuts, that's literally the most missing-the-point use of VR anyone has ever made".

And now THIS is what people are raving about? Talk about low standards.

I'm just going off a Youtube video of it... but...

View attachment 2347147

If you've only seen a YouTube video of it, you haven't had the experience. First person, it's pretty cool. The big dinosaur leans out of the window and into your 3D space, and it feels like it is inches from you. Its head follows you, and it snaps at your hand if you reach out to it. Even knowing that the dinosaur isn't really there, it kinda made me jump when it did that. Not saying its life changing or anything, but it's a really neat experience that shows off how immersive the headset can be - the immersive sensation is much greater than any other headset I have tried.

 

[Eso]

Spatial video is kind of the same to be honest. It really does not look very good, but people have been raving about it like they just cloned a family member. There’s a sweet spot of focus and depth that has good quality. But for the most part, it’s just a simple stereoscopic effect that isn’t really executed very well. It feels like the images for each eye don’t quite align with each other. The depth effect can be very subtle for one part of the image and much more pronounced for another, so there’s a very artificial feeling to it. Overall the image itself is relatively low quality - low resolution, low dynamic range, noticeably blurry.

Those videos where the continuously camera circles a subject are actually a much more convincing 3D effect: