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I love all the experimentation in this area but I'm afraid systems like this are going to fall into a sort of uncanny valley of VR. Your brain is incredibly goo

I love all the experimentation in this area but I'm afraid systems like this are going to fall into a sort of uncanny valley of VR. Your brain is incredibly good at picking out the discrepancies between the real world and a high-resolution 120fps image with surround sound - just as it is incredibly good at recognizing objects and motions masquerading as human. It's like going from 2D/24FPS to 3D/48FPS. You'd think it would be a huge increase in perceived realism but it's quite the opposite. What you want is magic window, which is what you get when a film or even a game really pulls you in and your perception sort of synchronizes with something completely out of step with your physiology and totally unbelievable for many other reasons. Instead, you get a feeling of unreality or surreality, and the final gap between the media and your perception is unbridgeable. I think that's part of why VR/3D/HFR stuff has always been so unconvincing, and why it's no coincidence that it's finally only catching on when we pair it with totally unrealistic games and demos. You need the fantasy. Because it's so clearly not reality, and anything that attempts to replicate reality too closely will be rejected. Anyway, cool tech though, and I'm sure I'll enjoy using it some day. But for now I think the foreseeable future of VR is in virtual environments, not in the duplication or capture of real ones.

jonknee 11y ago
I think the reason VR is better with games and demos is because it's hard to properly record in the real world. That's what Google is trying to solve here and I expect the results are far ahead of current solutions. It's both using a lot of hardware and a lot of software, I'm very excited to check out the results!
adityasankar 11y ago
I think that's a slightly pessimistic view. This experimentation is what will eventually enable the bridging of the uncanny valley. And I think that day will be here sooner than we think.
andrewparker 11y ago
You're talking about Presense, which is the point at which your brain flips and is convinced what its seeing is real. Michael Abrash has a wonderful deck he wrote while at Valve about what it will take for VR to create Presense in the viewer. It's worth a read if you care about how we'll navigate past the uncanny valley of VR you describe: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...
- devindotcom 11y ago
  Heh, I figured there was probably a word for it out there somewhere invented by the people actually doing the stuff. I'll take a look at this, thanks.
- nhaehnle 11y ago
  Since people might not be familiar with the term yet, I feel it's useful to point out that it's spelled "presence" with a 'c', as in, you feel as if you were actually present in a virtual reality.
  - nightpool 11y ago
    Haha I was reading the parent and I was like "Pre-sense?" "What would that have to do with feeling immersed in VR?" This cleared it up, thanks.
    - pitchups 11y ago
      Heh, and for a moment there I thought Pre-Sense was some Google Tech - similar to Adsense - for monetizing 3D VR :)
- Veedrac 11y ago
  There's a ton of really interesting stuff on his old Valve blog: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/
dethstar 11y ago
I freaked out while a piece of metal came to my face when i was watching Mad Max Fury Road in 3D. Is my brain fucked up?
tunesmith 11y ago
I actually loved 3D/48FPS - I felt like I was watching a play in a large diorama. I've regularly wondered if different theaters tuned it differently, or if people's brains just have differences, since so many other people reported 48FPS as looking fake.
- TheGRS 11y ago
  If you already felt like it looked like a play, then that's why people didn't like it. Sets look like they would on a stage, not what the stage represents. If the story takes place in a castle in 18th century England, you want the viewer to be thinking "I'm in 18th century England right now" and not "I'm in a theater watching a film about 18th century England". Creating a film is a lot about suspension of disbelief, so if your brain is saying "that looks like a set" instead of "that looks like a castle", then you've lost that battle.
  - yorak 11y ago
    Or then it is like the case with youngsters and mp3s, where the studies have found that they actually prefer the "sound" of compressed music - with compression artifacts and all. If a hifi enthusiast (~tunesmith) would say that uncompressed music sounds better, you wouldn't shoot his argument down by saying that improved fidelity and dynamics just allow you to hear the music was recorded and postprocessed in a studio. What I'm trying to say with this mp3 analogue is that it is very much a matter of habit and preference. Technically lower quality video does not lead to better immersion if it is not something you have learnt to expect.
- jkaunisv1 11y ago
  What killed 48FPS for me was how obvious it made the transitions between heavily CG/post-corrected scenes and fairly unedited ones. The overall color tones and movements weren't consistent. To me the Hobbit 2 was visually half film, half video-game. I could see a movie with no CG (or careful use of it) being very enjoyable in 48FPS.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
Nadya 11y ago
Pay careful attention to her reaction: https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg The brain is actually fairly easily tricked. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/26/the-alice-illusion-scientists-convince-people-that-theyre-dolls-or-giants/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/2...
- Artemis2 11y ago
  You can get immersed easily in any video game (I felt vertigo the first time I jumped from a building in Minecraft), but you can always tell what is real.
- devindotcom 11y ago
  Sure, the brain is trickable. We had people jumping out of the way of the train and gunshot in "The Great Train Robbery" as well, of course. Notably the guillotine simulator that is so effective is a virtual environment, which is what I was suggesting will be the rule for a while in VR.
- revelation 11y ago
  You can get the same reaction from playing any other game with an element of surprise on just a normal display.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    I differentiate between jump scares/immersion and presence. Imagine playing a hack and slash game. A user is not reacting every time their character is hit. They may have an initial reaction to a surprise attack that catches them off guard, but no more. There is some level of immersion but there is no level of presence. They never feel like they might be in danger and their body does not react as if it is in any danger. Presence would be having a feeling of discomfort anytime your avatar was injured. The brain having tricked itself into thinking it is the avatar. When the avatar gets hit by a weapon, the user's body sweats and tenses up, believing it was just hit by an actual weapon. Air-pressured tactile gloves can help develop a sense of presence. For example, pressure when grabbing a rock may trick your brain into believing the rock is real. I wanted to focus more on the studies than the .gif. Having a mannequin stabbed and the participant's body reacting is a sense of presence and not simply a jump scare. The brain couldn't tell its own body from that of a mannequin.
Kiro 11y ago
You sound like someone who hasn't tried Oculus Rift. In that case I'm happy to inform you that you're wrong.
- jboy55 11y ago
  I've tried the Rift, and I completely agree with him.
  - volaski 11y ago
    agree that oculus rift doesn't feel real? I own a rift too, and I don't understand how someone can easily say it doesn't feel real if they actually tried it. Sure it brings nausea sometimes, and sure a lot of the graphics are crappy, but can you so certainly say that it doesn't feel real? I haven't seen anyone who's tried oculus rift that say "huh how is this different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake"
    - Leszek 11y ago
      I've tried an Oculus Rift (DK1 only though), so here you go: how is it different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake. Genuinely though, I found it a far less engaging, far less immersive experience than a normal 2D screen. Maybe the later models are better, I don't know, but I definitely don't see what the fuss was about.
    - jboy55 11y ago
      It doesn't feel real, because I know its fake. My brain isn't fooled into believing that I exist in this different world. I fulling know I'm looking at a video game, in fact I found the raster lines reminiscent of classic arcade games. I had fun, but what the article in this thread is talking about is a 'holodeck' feeling. The uncanny valley is where the space between where your brain registers the image as imaginary and is ok with it (3d cartoons) and where it rejects the image as if its offended at being lied to (polar express). The rift is very much in the former, my brain knew it was a game.
- devindotcom 11y ago
Arjuna 11y ago
You might be interested in this talk that Michael Abrash gave about 2 months ago at Facebook F8 [1]. It starts at around 00:42:20. It is a fascinating talk where he provides a number of interesting demonstrations regarding how the brain interprets information, including depth perception, color interpretation, movement, auditory cues [2] etc. Highly recommended. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=2540 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=2540 [2] Absolutely fascinating. What you hear depends on what you are looking at, not just on what you are hearing. This demonstration starts at approximately 01:02:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=3720 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=3720
- drcross 11y ago
  I found that talk to be juvenile. If I want to look at optical illusions I'll google search them myself.
iblaine 11y ago
>so clearly not reality, and anything that attempts to replicate reality too closely will be rejected You should see some Oculus demos in person before making claims that VR is easily rejected by your body. There are some roller coaster demos that can make you nauseous within a minute.
- Myrannas 11y ago
  To be fair a reasonable amount of people find Oculus rift makes them nauseous in any application.
  - fworm 11y ago
    But 99% of times it's motion sickness. You only get it if the camera moves, which is not the case here.
nickysielicki 11y ago
Totally disagree. A few months ago I was walking around the Unreal 4 Paris Apartment demo [0] with a Occulus DK2. The resolution isn't quite there, but it definitely felt real. I think that VR can definitely provoke feelings of reality, at least if the people working on it keep going forward in resolution like they have been. [0]: https://youtu.be/Y6PQ19BEE24 https://youtu.be/Y6PQ19BEE24
methehack 11y ago
I think it's worth correcting your use of "Uncanny valley". My understanding (see links below) is that "Uncanny Valley" refers to virtual beings trying to trick you into thinking they're real but coming off as creepy instead -- e.g. the Tom Hanks voiced train conductor in "The Polar Express". Creepy. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley and the new yorker article here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2 It does not refer, as you suggest, to the general case of VR not seeming real. There is a special thing that happens when we see fake beings trying to pawn themselves off as real. It think it's worth preserving the distinction.
- mturmon 11y ago
  It is readily apparent that the commenter is using an analogy ("a sort of uncanny valley of VR"). Let's not get sidetracked.
netcan 11y ago
Well put and fascinating points. I;m not entirely sure if this is adding to or disagreeing with the points you make… A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need. Back to Jump. Our starting point is a made up idea of what VR entertainment looks like. Game of Thrones in VR. Jerry Springer in VR. Xuxa in VR. You make a valid point that this won’t work. I totally agree. But, I’m fairly optimistic about the ingenuity of artists. Lots of things run into these kinds of problems. A conversation between two actors pretending to be doctors is not uncanny, but there are arts to making it palatable. They will figure out POV issues. Should you be a character or an invisible eye like in flat films? Maybe they could use filters to make it look like ‘A Scanner Darkly’ to get over the issue you describe. This is what art does. They’ll figure it out.
- xrjn 11y ago
  > A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need. That's an incredibly interesting point. I've never seen 'future' technology like that before, but it's certainly an excellent analogy. Looking back to how people saw the future in the 20th century, you can see that many things did not come to exist in the way they were imagined, but do exist now in some other fashion. It's incredibly difficult to predict what will be the next reddit, or the next anything. It remains to be seen if/when VR will take off, and how it will differ as we see it right now. Certainly what's interesting is that we're watching our VR dreams being turned into tangible products that can bring real VR experiences.
abandonliberty 11y ago
I'm unconvinced about the existence of an uncanny valley in frame rate. I think it has more to do with what we're accustomed to. High FPS on large panning scenes is amazing, and the conversion back to low fPS is just as noticeable and jarring. A friend of mine staunchly opposed high FPS until the 60fps NSFW reddit changed his mind.(well, for HD porn anyway).
saluk 11y ago
The problem with 48fps on the big screen was that it didn't feel "filmic". It actually WAS more realistic, but in that specific instance this actually hurt the message of the content. When we are recreating live events, concerts etc, we aren't going for filmic, we are going for the feeling of being there. I have tried the Paul McCartney example on GearVR which uses a similar technique as Jump - it's not perfect but it is a lot better than watching the concert on a screen. TL;DR - We are approaching what we might want in a captured live experience, where early 48fps3d movie experiences may have passed what we want in a filmed one.
jl6 11y ago
My experience of The Hobbit was that the 24fps version felt like being in Middle Earth, and the 48fps felt like being on the film set - which strictly speaking was the more realistic experience, but far less satisfying.
- collyw 11y ago
  I always find sports footage strange to watch on TV. I have a feeling its because of a higher frame rate, and less blurring of movement. Its kind of crisper but less absorbing.
- Otik 11y ago
  People have been watching movies at 24fps for so long that they've been trained to put their brains into movie mode and suspend their disbelief when they see something at that rate. There were similar outcries at the advents of colour movies and "talkies". Once people have watched a few HFR movies, I'm sure they'll get used to it and learn how to suspend their disbelief again.
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    Maybe, maybe not - it may also depend on the movie being made. I thought the Hobbit was kinda tacky compared to LotR, it seemed to have a much smaller budget, especially in the CGI and extras/makeup department. But, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now - 3D was kinda crappy too at first, but some years later the movie makers have improved the technique to make it far less annoying. It's become more than just a gimmick now.
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    Maybe, maybe not - it may also depend on the movie being made. I thought the Hobbit was kinda tacky compared to LotR, it seemed to have a much smaller budget, especially in the CGI and extras/makeup department. But, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now - 3D was kinda crappy too at first, but some years later the movie makers have improved the technique to make it far less annoying. It's become more than just a gimmick now.
- 7952 11y ago
copsarebastards 11y ago
I'm still holding onto hope that we'll surpass the uncanny valley and get to a point where we can create things that are totally believable. There's going to be a weird time before we get there but I don't think that should be viewed as meaning it's impossible.
davesque 11y ago
I wonder how much of that uncanny value would simply be due to the unfamiliarity of the technology. For example, I'm sure we all know about the stories of people freaking out when they saw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_ga... though there's some doubt as to whether or not they actually ran to the back of the room. Either way, my point is that I'm sure all new technologies at first seem either unnaturally boring or unnaturally exciting. Eventually, people get used to them and that effect wears off. At this point, I think the only real obstacles standing in the way of widespread VR adoption are the possibility of motion sickness and the resolution of the displays (screen door effect). Otherwise, it seems like the tech has matured and would be very useful to a lot of people.

jonknee 11y ago

I think the reason VR is better with games and demos is because it's hard to properly record in the real world. That's what Google is trying to solve here and I expect the results are far ahead of current solutions. It's both using a lot of hardware and a lot of software, I'm very excited to check out the results!

adityasankar 11y ago

I think that's a slightly pessimistic view. This experimentation is what will eventually enable the bridging of the uncanny valley. And I think that day will be here sooner than we think.

andrewparker 11y ago

You're talking about Presense, which is the point at which your brain flips and is convinced what its seeing is real. Michael Abrash has a wonderful deck he wrote while at Valve about what it will take for VR to create Presense in the viewer. It's worth a read if you care about how we'll navigate past the uncanny valley of VR you describe: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...

devindotcom 11y ago
Heh, I figured there was probably a word for it out there somewhere invented by the people actually doing the stuff. I'll take a look at this, thanks.
nhaehnle 11y ago
Since people might not be familiar with the term yet, I feel it's useful to point out that it's spelled "presence" with a 'c', as in, you feel as if you were actually present in a virtual reality.
- nightpool 11y ago
  Haha I was reading the parent and I was like "Pre-sense?" "What would that have to do with feeling immersed in VR?" This cleared it up, thanks.
  - pitchups 11y ago
    Heh, and for a moment there I thought Pre-Sense was some Google Tech - similar to Adsense - for monetizing 3D VR :)
Veedrac 11y ago
There's a ton of really interesting stuff on his old Valve blog: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/

dethstar 11y ago

I freaked out while a piece of metal came to my face when i was watching Mad Max Fury Road in 3D. Is my brain fucked up?

tunesmith 11y ago

I actually loved 3D/48FPS - I felt like I was watching a play in a large diorama. I've regularly wondered if different theaters tuned it differently, or if people's brains just have differences, since so many other people reported 48FPS as looking fake.

TheGRS 11y ago
If you already felt like it looked like a play, then that's why people didn't like it. Sets look like they would on a stage, not what the stage represents. If the story takes place in a castle in 18th century England, you want the viewer to be thinking "I'm in 18th century England right now" and not "I'm in a theater watching a film about 18th century England". Creating a film is a lot about suspension of disbelief, so if your brain is saying "that looks like a set" instead of "that looks like a castle", then you've lost that battle.
- yorak 11y ago
  Or then it is like the case with youngsters and mp3s, where the studies have found that they actually prefer the "sound" of compressed music - with compression artifacts and all. If a hifi enthusiast (~tunesmith) would say that uncompressed music sounds better, you wouldn't shoot his argument down by saying that improved fidelity and dynamics just allow you to hear the music was recorded and postprocessed in a studio. What I'm trying to say with this mp3 analogue is that it is very much a matter of habit and preference. Technically lower quality video does not lead to better immersion if it is not something you have learnt to expect.
jkaunisv1 11y ago
What killed 48FPS for me was how obvious it made the transitions between heavily CG/post-corrected scenes and fairly unedited ones. The overall color tones and movements weren't consistent. To me the Hobbit 2 was visually half film, half video-game. I could see a movie with no CG (or careful use of it) being very enjoyable in 48FPS.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

Nadya 11y ago

Pay careful attention to her reaction: https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/avVTybvh.jpg The brain is actually fairly easily tricked. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/26/the-alice-illusion-scientists-convince-people-that-theyre-dolls-or-giants/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/2...

Artemis2 11y ago
You can get immersed easily in any video game (I felt vertigo the first time I jumped from a building in Minecraft), but you can always tell what is real.
devindotcom 11y ago
Sure, the brain is trickable. We had people jumping out of the way of the train and gunshot in "The Great Train Robbery" as well, of course. Notably the guillotine simulator that is so effective is a virtual environment, which is what I was suggesting will be the rule for a while in VR.
revelation 11y ago
You can get the same reaction from playing any other game with an element of surprise on just a normal display.
- Nadya 11y ago
  I differentiate between jump scares/immersion and presence. Imagine playing a hack and slash game. A user is not reacting every time their character is hit. They may have an initial reaction to a surprise attack that catches them off guard, but no more. There is some level of immersion but there is no level of presence. They never feel like they might be in danger and their body does not react as if it is in any danger. Presence would be having a feeling of discomfort anytime your avatar was injured. The brain having tricked itself into thinking it is the avatar. When the avatar gets hit by a weapon, the user's body sweats and tenses up, believing it was just hit by an actual weapon. Air-pressured tactile gloves can help develop a sense of presence. For example, pressure when grabbing a rock may trick your brain into believing the rock is real. I wanted to focus more on the studies than the .gif. Having a mannequin stabbed and the participant's body reacting is a sense of presence and not simply a jump scare. The brain couldn't tell its own body from that of a mannequin.

Kiro 11y ago

You sound like someone who hasn't tried Oculus Rift. In that case I'm happy to inform you that you're wrong.

jboy55 11y ago
I've tried the Rift, and I completely agree with him.
- volaski 11y ago
  agree that oculus rift doesn't feel real? I own a rift too, and I don't understand how someone can easily say it doesn't feel real if they actually tried it. Sure it brings nausea sometimes, and sure a lot of the graphics are crappy, but can you so certainly say that it doesn't feel real? I haven't seen anyone who's tried oculus rift that say "huh how is this different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake"
  - Leszek 11y ago
    I've tried an Oculus Rift (DK1 only though), so here you go: how is it different from a video game, it's obvious it's fake. Genuinely though, I found it a far less engaging, far less immersive experience than a normal 2D screen. Maybe the later models are better, I don't know, but I definitely don't see what the fuss was about.
  - jboy55 11y ago
    It doesn't feel real, because I know its fake. My brain isn't fooled into believing that I exist in this different world. I fulling know I'm looking at a video game, in fact I found the raster lines reminiscent of classic arcade games. I had fun, but what the article in this thread is talking about is a 'holodeck' feeling. The uncanny valley is where the space between where your brain registers the image as imaginary and is ok with it (3d cartoons) and where it rejects the image as if its offended at being lied to (polar express). The rift is very much in the former, my brain knew it was a game.
devindotcom 11y ago

Arjuna 11y ago

You might be interested in this talk that Michael Abrash gave about 2 months ago at Facebook F8 [1]. It starts at around 00:42:20. It is a fascinating talk where he provides a number of interesting demonstrations regarding how the brain interprets information, including depth perception, color interpretation, movement, auditory cues [2] etc. Highly recommended. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=2540 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=2540 [2] Absolutely fascinating. What you hear depends on what you are looking at, not just on what you are hearing. This demonstration starts at approximately 01:02:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=3720 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDu-cnXI8E8&t=3720

drcross 11y ago
I found that talk to be juvenile. If I want to look at optical illusions I'll google search them myself.

iblaine 11y ago

>so clearly not reality, and anything that attempts to replicate reality too closely will be rejected You should see some Oculus demos in person before making claims that VR is easily rejected by your body. There are some roller coaster demos that can make you nauseous within a minute.

Myrannas 11y ago
To be fair a reasonable amount of people find Oculus rift makes them nauseous in any application.
- fworm 11y ago
  But 99% of times it's motion sickness. You only get it if the camera moves, which is not the case here.

nickysielicki 11y ago

Totally disagree. A few months ago I was walking around the Unreal 4 Paris Apartment demo [0] with a Occulus DK2. The resolution isn't quite there, but it definitely felt real. I think that VR can definitely provoke feelings of reality, at least if the people working on it keep going forward in resolution like they have been. [0]: https://youtu.be/Y6PQ19BEE24 https://youtu.be/Y6PQ19BEE24

methehack 11y ago

I think it's worth correcting your use of "Uncanny valley". My understanding (see links below) is that "Uncanny Valley" refers to virtual beings trying to trick you into thinking they're real but coming off as creepy instead -- e.g. the Tom Hanks voiced train conductor in "The Polar Express". Creepy. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley and the new yorker article here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2 It does not refer, as you suggest, to the general case of VR not seeming real. There is a special thing that happens when we see fake beings trying to pawn themselves off as real. It think it's worth preserving the distinction.

mturmon 11y ago
It is readily apparent that the commenter is using an analogy ("a sort of uncanny valley of VR"). Let's not get sidetracked.

netcan 11y ago

Well put and fascinating points. I;m not entirely sure if this is adding to or disagreeing with the points you make… A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need. Back to Jump. Our starting point is a made up idea of what VR entertainment looks like. Game of Thrones in VR. Jerry Springer in VR. Xuxa in VR. You make a valid point that this won’t work. I totally agree. But, I’m fairly optimistic about the ingenuity of artists. Lots of things run into these kinds of problems. A conversation between two actors pretending to be doctors is not uncanny, but there are arts to making it palatable. They will figure out POV issues. Should you be a character or an invisible eye like in flat films? Maybe they could use filters to make it look like ‘A Scanner Darkly’ to get over the issue you describe. This is what art does. They’ll figure it out.

xrjn 11y ago
> A few weeks ago I commented on some thread about robot maids and such. My point was and is that when we picture a far off idea that we suspect is coming (AI, VR, human-less hotel-resorts) we need mental placeholders where people go now. Technology tends to replace people in the way reddit replaces librarians but we can’t picture reddit in advance until the world wide web or something similar exists. So, flying cars, robot mades and sexy female AIs. They’re placeholders for future automation or changes that make the need go away rather then meeting the need. That's an incredibly interesting point. I've never seen 'future' technology like that before, but it's certainly an excellent analogy. Looking back to how people saw the future in the 20th century, you can see that many things did not come to exist in the way they were imagined, but do exist now in some other fashion. It's incredibly difficult to predict what will be the next reddit, or the next anything. It remains to be seen if/when VR will take off, and how it will differ as we see it right now. Certainly what's interesting is that we're watching our VR dreams being turned into tangible products that can bring real VR experiences.

abandonliberty 11y ago

I'm unconvinced about the existence of an uncanny valley in frame rate. I think it has more to do with what we're accustomed to. High FPS on large panning scenes is amazing, and the conversion back to low fPS is just as noticeable and jarring. A friend of mine staunchly opposed high FPS until the 60fps NSFW reddit changed his mind.(well, for HD porn anyway).

saluk 11y ago

The problem with 48fps on the big screen was that it didn't feel "filmic". It actually WAS more realistic, but in that specific instance this actually hurt the message of the content. When we are recreating live events, concerts etc, we aren't going for filmic, we are going for the feeling of being there. I have tried the Paul McCartney example on GearVR which uses a similar technique as Jump - it's not perfect but it is a lot better than watching the concert on a screen. TL;DR - We are approaching what we might want in a captured live experience, where early 48fps3d movie experiences may have passed what we want in a filmed one.

jl6 11y ago

My experience of The Hobbit was that the 24fps version felt like being in Middle Earth, and the 48fps felt like being on the film set - which strictly speaking was the more realistic experience, but far less satisfying.

collyw 11y ago
I always find sports footage strange to watch on TV. I have a feeling its because of a higher frame rate, and less blurring of movement. Its kind of crisper but less absorbing.
Otik 11y ago
People have been watching movies at 24fps for so long that they've been trained to put their brains into movie mode and suspend their disbelief when they see something at that rate. There were similar outcries at the advents of colour movies and "talkies". Once people have watched a few HFR movies, I'm sure they'll get used to it and learn how to suspend their disbelief again.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Maybe, maybe not - it may also depend on the movie being made. I thought the Hobbit was kinda tacky compared to LotR, it seemed to have a much smaller budget, especially in the CGI and extras/makeup department. But, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now - 3D was kinda crappy too at first, but some years later the movie makers have improved the technique to make it far less annoying. It's become more than just a gimmick now.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Maybe, maybe not - it may also depend on the movie being made. I thought the Hobbit was kinda tacky compared to LotR, it seemed to have a much smaller budget, especially in the CGI and extras/makeup department. But, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now - 3D was kinda crappy too at first, but some years later the movie makers have improved the technique to make it far less annoying. It's become more than just a gimmick now.
7952 11y ago

copsarebastards 11y ago

I'm still holding onto hope that we'll surpass the uncanny valley and get to a point where we can create things that are totally believable. There's going to be a weird time before we get there but I don't think that should be viewed as meaning it's impossible.

davesque 11y ago

I wonder how much of that uncanny value would simply be due to the unfamiliarity of the technology. For example, I'm sure we all know about the stories of people freaking out when they saw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Arriv%C3%A9e_d'un_train_en_ga... though there's some doubt as to whether or not they actually ran to the back of the room. Either way, my point is that I'm sure all new technologies at first seem either unnaturally boring or unnaturally exciting. Eventually, people get used to them and that effect wears off. At this point, I think the only real obstacles standing in the way of widespread VR adoption are the possibility of motion sickness and the resolution of the displays (screen door effect). Otherwise, it seems like the tech has matured and would be very useful to a lot of people.