Off topic: Oculus

WindWalkr · Oct 28, 2016

Getting back on topic..

Assume for a moment that driving is a solved problem; ie. we place the observer in the cab and let them manipulate the controls. The next question becomes how you interact with the rest of the world beyond the immediate confines of the Train. Even if we allowed you to get out of the cab and walk around, there are a number of limitations:

* From everything I've seen of VR so far, you'd need to use teleports to cover any distance; moving through the world using "game" controls would make most people ill.
* Trainz routes are big. You are small. Getting anywhere apart from the immediate surrounds of the train will take forever.
* Train routes and content are built to be viewed from the middle distance. Get too close and there simply isn't enough detail in most routes, and on most objects. While this could be solved in time, it's a longer-term content issue and not something that the technology can help with.
* If you're talking about Surveyor, most of the things that you would want to interact with are far larger than you are, which makes manipulating them a bit of a challenge.

An interesting question is whether it might make more sense to view the world as a model layout; eg. scale everything way down so that you stand above the world and can view or walk around large areas without having to rely on teleports, etc. - or at least only using teleports over large distances (eg. multiple kilometres per hop, rather than multiple meters). To keep things manageable, we'd probably want the route raised off the floor; around desk height.

Objects get a lot smaller this way, and are easier to manipulate. Some objects might even get too small potentially, but that sounds less of a serious problem and more just something that we'd need to solve.

Thoughts?

chris

ish6 · Oct 28, 2016

Hello Chris

I'm thinking baby-steps, Chris, and what better place to begin then to have VR TRAINZ CAB, and what's involved. If you ask the community in a survey if they prefer inside the Cab, or outside I got a feeling most will say that they prefer to be inside the Cab; So an introduction to VR TRAINZ CAB in realistic mode can be successful here.

As you know, VR is about what you see, and what you could see you can click on, and there are many advantages here, for example, "A learning curve" , and what I mean is that VR TRAINZ CAB can teach people how to use advance driving controls. I, myself, still use the basic controls to drive, but VR can teach me how to drive using advance controls, much like a tutorial in this case! For now, I say keep the driver restricted to the CAB ... Then, we can see how this goes before taken the driver out of the cab to ride along.

Example of a cab view using oculu headgear, Chris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Ga7Dk5TEI
Pay attention to the first 10 min of this video!

Anything else further, Chris, it's not feasible. What I mean is that it'll be too much to soon for this demographic target. I think that VR TRAINZ CAB can be very successful in the long run, simply because everything will take place in the Cab so there's no dizziness, or nausea to worry about.

After this initial step then we can begin to talk about VR TRAINZ SURVEYOR ... I'm not really going to deep here, except that I think teleports are needed; In fact, a train station can serve as a teleport. Chris, layouts are too vast, so restrictions need to be put in place .... example, restriction on zooming, scrolling, etc ... it could really spin one's head if not done properly. VR TRAINZ SURVEYOR is a bit more difficult to implement, however, it's why I say VR TRAINZ CAB for now should be the route to take!

Take Care
Ish

Andrew608 · Oct 30, 2016

I've an Oculus CV1 now but started with a DK2 a year or so back. I use it fairly regularly.. a couple times a week at least. I mainly play racing games like Assetto Corsa and VR with a decent seat/pedal/wheel cockpit setup really does provide great immersion and makes it feel like your really driving (minus g forces of course).

I recall having some issues with nausea in the early days every once in a while (with the DK2 which was only 60ps and a less refined API). If it happened I'd simply stop and come back to it later or another day. After a bit of time I stopped have any nausea issues at all. With the CV1 I haven't had any nausea issues but it does run at 90fps and the Oculus API and game code has been optimized over time so that probably helped keep performance up and nausea down.
Its seems to be something thats very dependent on the individual, but also you shouldn't give up right away if you experience it either, you may acclimate to it. Since trainz is relatively relaxed compared to racing cars at 100-200mph I don't think this would be much of an issue in driver at least.

It can get hot and I usually end up sweating after longer sessions eventually which isn't the most comfortable so I'd likely be in non-VR mode when doing any route/session building and would probably only use it in driver mode.

Cab view would be great and I've been enjoying the "model trainz" layouts and think it'd be great to have the ability to use VR in driver mode and be able to walk around your layout room. Moving and controlling with the standard mouse/keyboard controls should suffice at first. The CV1 comes with an XBox1 controller so porting driver controls to be used with a gamepad could be beneficial. Head tracking is quite good on the CV1 and being able to move your head which moves the in game camera to look at a part of a layout without the need to move the mouse or arrow key around would great. Being able to lean in and look closely at yard switching operations would be cool. I'd think it'd almost feel like your in your own (virtual) model train room.

ish6 · Oct 31, 2016

Andrew608 said:
I've an Oculus CV1 now but started with a DK2 a year or so back. I use it fairly regularly.. a couple times a week at least. I mainly play racing games like Assetto Corsa and VR with a decent seat/pedal/wheel cockpit setup really does provide great immersion and makes it feel like your really driving (minus g forces of course).

I recall having some issues with nausea in the early days every once in a while (with the DK2 which was only 60ps and a less refined API). If it happened I'd simply stop and come back to it later or another day. After a bit of time I stopped have any nausea issues at all. With the CV1 I haven't had any nausea issues but it does run at 90fps and the Oculus API and game code has been optimized over time so that probably helped keep performance up and nausea down.
Its seems to be something thats very dependent on the individual, but also you shouldn't give up right away if you experience it either, you may acclimate to it. Since trainz is relatively relaxed compared to racing cars at 100-200mph I don't think this would be much of an issue in driver at least.

It can get hot and I usually end up sweating after longer sessions eventually which isn't the most comfortable so I'd likely be in non-VR mode when doing any route/session building and would probably only use it in driver mode.

Cab view would be great and I've been enjoying the "model trainz" layouts and think it'd be great to have the ability to use VR in driver mode and be able to walk around your layout room. Moving and controlling with the standard mouse/keyboard controls should suffice at first. The CV1 comes with an XBox1 controller so porting driver controls to be used with a gamepad could be beneficial. Head tracking is quite good on the CV1 and being able to move your head which moves the in game camera to look at a part of a layout without the need to move the mouse or arrow key around would great. Being able to lean in and look closely at yard switching operations would be cool. I'd think it'd almost feel like your in your own (virtual) model train room.

Hi Andrew, and Thanks for your thorough observation and handling of the product!!!

Ish

WindWalkr · Oct 31, 2016

Andrew608 said:
After a bit of time I stopped have any nausea issues at all.

Have you tried out EVE Valkyrie on the rift? How do you feel about that one? How abut Lucky's Tale?

Its seems to be something thats very dependent on the individual, but also you shouldn't give up right away if you experience it either, you may acclimate to it.

I would definitely agree with this statement, and it's one of the reasons that I'm not convinced that the current crop of products is really mass-market ready. Early adopters can accept limitations like this, but the average family is going to be (rightly) fairly unhappy if they spend $1-2k on a VR experience and find that they become nauseous soon after putting on their headsets. Oculus made a big thing about 'not poisoning the well' in the early days of the current generation and I'm not convinced that even they have achieved this yet.

It can get hot and I usually end up sweating after longer sessions eventually which isn't the most comfortable so I'd likely be in non-VR mode when doing any route/session building and would probably only use it in driver mode.

Vive is probably worse in this respect. I'd assume that somebody will find a way around this in the not-too-distant future. I simply chalk this up to being an early adopter. It's something that we have to live with for now, but I don't think designing with it being a core assumption is a good idea- better to just ignore it and let the hardware guys work out a solution.

Moving and controlling with the standard mouse/keyboard controls should suffice at first.

Depends on what you mean by moving here, but "standard first person controls" definitely don't work well for most people in VR. This is why so many games rely on teleports at the current time- they're a lot easier on the 'stomach'.

chris

Andrew608 · Oct 31, 2016

WindWalkr said:
Have you tried out EVE Valkyrie on the rift? How do you feel about that one? How abut Lucky's Tale?

Sorry i havent tried those titles on the rift.

WindWalkr said:
I would definitely agree with this statement, and it's one of the reasons that I'm not convinced that the current crop of products is really mass-market ready. Early adopters can accept limitations like this, but the average family is going to be (rightly) fairly unhappy if they spend $1-2k on a VR experience and find that they become nauseous soon after putting on their headsets. Oculus made a big thing about 'not poisoning the well' in the early days of the current generation and I'm not convinced that even they have achieved this yet.

Indeed, my GTX970 only does OK and I understand the next crop of 10x series cards from nvidia will have much better performance including some specific VR optimizations. I'm tentatively planning on upgrading to a 1070 or 1080 for VR when i cant take the 970 performance anymore.

WindWalkr said:
Vive is probably worse in this respect. I'd assume that somebody will find a way around this in the not-too-distant future. I simply chalk this up to being an early adopter. It's something that we have to live with for now, but I don't think designing with it being a core assumption is a good idea- better to just ignore it and let the hardware guys work out a solution.

Fair enough. Technology will get smaller lighter etc.. which should help as well.

WindWalkr said:
Depends on what you mean by moving here, but "standard first person controls" definitely don't work well for most people in VR. This is why so many games rely on teleports at the current time- they're a lot easier on the 'stomach'.

chris

I was envisioning a method to move the viewing cameras location on any axis (x,y,z) then let me look where i want with VR head tracking. I can put myself in bumper cam in Assetto Corsa where i'm basically 5 inches off the tarmac and drive 100mph with the cv1 on without issues so I wouldn't think it'd be too much to have camera movement in driver mode.
Teleporting seems reasonable too, I'd just want to be able to customize and pick specific spots to teleport to somehow.

WindWalkr · Oct 31, 2016

Andrew608 said:
Sorry i havent tried those titles on the rift.

I think they come free with the Rift so you might want to give them a shot to see how you feel about them.

I was envisioning a method to move the viewing cameras location on any axis (x,y,z) then let me look where i want with VR head tracking. I can put myself in bumper cam in Assetto Corsa where i'm basically 5 inches off the tarmac and drive 100mph with the cv1 on without issues so I wouldn't think it'd be too much to have camera movement in driver mode.

I think that if you're basically moving forward, it's not too much of a problem for most people. Sideways motion (strafing) or pitch/roll seems to be much more disconcerting. This is why i mention Lucky's Tale - i actually find that one quite problematic despite it being a launch title of the Rift; the constant sideways motion of the camera is very draining.

Teleporting seems reasonable too, I'd just want to be able to customize and pick specific spots to teleport to somehow.

In the games I've experienced using this mechanic, there seems to typically be "playable areas" (ie. areas that aren't halfway through a wall, or halfway up a cliff) and you can teleport anywhere within those areas by pointing the Vive controller in the appropriate direction (they tend to use a ballistic trajectory so you can point out an exact location on the ground without having to worry about small objects such as walls or boxes getting in the way). The oculus rift doesn't have hand controllers yet, but I'd expect that we'll start to see this kind of experience on the oculus when they are available in a few months.

chris

PerRock · Nov 3, 2016

WindWalkr said:
You might think so, but we did it and it turned out that the support headaches with all of the different vendors and models and chipsets and OSes ate most of the (rather modest) profits on that platform. I'm not suggesting that it's the same for every app, but that's the way it was for Trainz.

For better or worse, iOS is substantially more profitable for us than Android. I don't get to drive home in a Ferrari (sigh), but it was a worthwhile investment and as such we've continued to release content and updates for that platform.

Android as a platform continues to mature, so I would assume that devices will continue to standardise and development and support costs will continue to drop over time. I'm not suggesting that we write the platform off entirely. But we don't have any immediate plans on Android.

chris

How mature are you expecting? 9 of ever 10 smartphones are Android devices... http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/03/goog...early-9-in-every-10-smartphones-using-it.html Or is it still because you guys still think that we're all thieves?

peter

WindWalkr · Nov 4, 2016

PerRock said:
How mature are you expecting? 9 of ever 10 smartphones are Android devices...

I'm not sure how "number of devices" relates to the maturity of the platform. Specifically, what I'm referring to here is the ability to write code and test on a small number of devices, and have a reasonable expectation that it will work on the majority of devices. You can call this "standardisation" if you want instead of "maturity", but the short version is that developers have a reasonable expectation that a given platform will be reasonably internally consistent. Android has enough problems with variations in screen sizes and chipsets (this can be argued as a good thing for the user, but it's inarguably a problem for low-level developers) without having to worry about software compatibility issues as well.

Or is it still because you guys still think that we're all thieves?

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there.

You seem to be under the impression that I'm knocking the Android ecosystem due to personal bias. While it's true that I prefer Apple products for personal use, I'm enough of a tech geek to not really care heavily about such debates. What I'm stating here are the simple facts of N3V's experience with the Android platform, across the entire team (many of whom prefer Android devices). It cost us more to develop for than iOS, and it made us less money. We can argue all day about why that is, but in the end it doesn't really matter. That "9 out of 10" may be accurate as a simple fact but is a massively misleading figure when it comes to doing business in the ecosystem.

Anyway, this is way off topic. If you want to continue discussing what can be done to make the Android market profitable for Trainz, I'm all for it, but please start a thread on the Android subforum about it rather than posting here.

cheers,

chris

T-LO · Jan 26, 2017

WindWalkr said:
Getting back on topic..

Assume for a moment that driving is a solved problem; ie. we place the observer in the cab and let them manipulate the controls. The next question becomes how you interact with the rest of the world beyond the immediate confines of the Train. Even if we allowed you to get out of the cab and walk around, there are a number of limitations:

* From everything I've seen of VR so far, you'd need to use teleports to cover any distance; moving through the world using "game" controls would make most people ill.
* Trainz routes are big. You are small. Getting anywhere apart from the immediate surrounds of the train will take forever.
* Train routes and content are built to be viewed from the middle distance. Get too close and there simply isn't enough detail in most routes, and on most objects. While this could be solved in time, it's a longer-term content issue and not something that the technology can help with.
* If you're talking about Surveyor, most of the things that you would want to interact with are far larger than you are, which makes manipulating them a bit of a challenge.

An interesting question is whether it might make more sense to view the world as a model layout; eg. scale everything way down so that you stand above the world and can view or walk around large areas without having to rely on teleports, etc. - or at least only using teleports over large distances (eg. multiple kilometres per hop, rather than multiple meters). To keep things manageable, we'd probably want the route raised off the floor; around desk height.

Objects get a lot smaller this way, and are easier to manipulate. Some objects might even get too small potentially, but that sounds less of a serious problem and more just something that we'd need to solve.

Thoughts?

chris

Hi Chris,

Google has shown with Earth VR how this can be done. And all I thought was: Wow I wish TRAINZ would be like that.

cascaderailroad · Jan 26, 2017

I'm in no rush to ruin my eyesight ... If I want to immerse myself in Trainz, I'll get a 52" TV

T-LO · Jan 30, 2017

cascaderailroad said:
I'm in no rush to ruin my eyesight ... If I want to immerse myself in Trainz, I'll get a 52" TV

I believe as everything this is a question of dosage. But a 52" TV is no match to an OCULUS Rift.

wholbr · Jan 30, 2017

T-LO said:
Hi Chris,

Google has shown with Earth VR how this can be done. And all I thought was: Wow I wish TRAINZ would be like that.

It would seem that Google and other mobile gaming providers now see the future more in augmented reality gaming rather than virtual reality. Augmented reality is exclusive to mobile gaming as the use of the device camera in the real world setting makes for great outdoor active gaming.

Pokeman Go has demonstrated what can be achieved with augmented gaming, many other developers are now trying to bring forward applications to repeat that success.

Bill

sonofham · Feb 17, 2017

WindWalkr said:
I think Driver cab view is pretty easy to imagine, especially with vr hand controllers to operate the various levers.

Surveyor is much more of a question mark. Jerking the camera around at above the speed of sound sounds like a quick recipe for nausea. We'd need to really rethink how you interact. A first-person view with teleports might work but is perhaps a bit limiting. Viewing the route scaled down so that you can walk around in the small VR play area and still cover a reasonable amount of in-game distance might work better perhaps?

chris

ish6 said:
Hello Chris

I'm thinking baby-steps, Chris, and what better place to begin then to have VR TRAINZ CAB, and what's involved. If you ask the community in a survey if they prefer inside the Cab, or outside I got a feeling most will say that they prefer to be inside the Cab; So an introduction to VR TRAINZ CAB in realistic mode can be successful here.

As you know, VR is about what you see, and what you could see you can click on, and there are many advantages here, for example, "A learning curve" , and what I mean is that VR TRAINZ CAB can teach people how to use advance driving controls. I, myself, still use the basic controls to drive, but VR can teach me how to drive using advance controls, much like a tutorial in this case! For now, I say keep the driver restricted to the CAB ... Then, we can see how this goes before taken the driver out of the cab to ride along.

Example of a cab view using oculu headgear, Chris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Ga7Dk5TEI
Pay attention to the first 10 min of this video!

Anything else further, Chris, it's not feasible. What I mean is that it'll be too much to soon for this demographic target. I think that VR TRAINZ CAB can be very successful in the long run, simply because everything will take place in the Cab so there's no dizziness, or nausea to worry about.

Take Care
Ish

Could have sworn I asked that exact question about whether T:ANE would have VR in the cab and being able grab the levers,etc... in the Thread: Ask your questions about Trainz: A New Era here but I can't seem to find it there.Strange.

[edit]maybe it was the question I had forgotten to ask in my post there?

cascaderailroad · Feb 17, 2017

Let me know when you are running Trainz on Oculus and Trainzdriver, and I will be right over to try it out

ish6 · Feb 17, 2017

cascaderailroad said:
I'm in no rush to ruin my eyesight ... If I want to immerse myself in Trainz, I'll get a 52" TV

It's not the same, Cas ... Do you want to see trainz on a 52 inches TV? ... if you have a tv that big, I have a 55 inches HD TV, with Roku, just add the youtube app, launch, find any trainz video there, there's a thousand of them, and give it a spin.

The issue here is that, perhaps you never tried VR :hehe:-- It's awesome, tho --- But Of course, of course of course, like anything else in life, you use with cautious ... don't over it do, which a decision that always lies with the end-user!

Kind Regards
Ish

wholbr · Mar 8, 2017

Hi everybody.
Apologies for bumping this thread, but Paul McCauley the co- designer of Oculas has recently given a media interview on the future of the VR headset. Asked what Oculus needs to do to improve, McCauley stated, “It's heavy and it’s costly”. They need to reduce the cost of it, and if that means sacrificing a few features which are incremental improvements, then that’s what they need to do.”

McCauley has different priorities than many when it comes to VR systems, having previously advised that “high refresh rates and high render rates do not relieve motion sickness, they only add unnecessary cost to VR systems.”

McCauley went on to discuss Samsung's recent success with its mobile VR system. "its the thing that' has sold”.They announced their sales figures on Wednesday, and they sold 5,000,000 Gear VR units. That’s very impressive. That’s a smash hit in the game world, that's knocking it out of the park... So it’s kind of looking like it’s mobile that's selling VR. The PC side is too expensive.”

Samsung's VR system is designed to work in conjunction with Samsung's high end smartphones. They run on Samsung's adaption of the Android operating system. Something N3V needs to consider in in any plans it has for VR.

Bill

wholbr · Mar 29, 2017

Hi everybody.
Apologies for bumping this thread once again but there have been several large developments in virtual reality and augmented reality over the last few weeks. In the first of these, Microsoft seems to have given up on the Oculus headset. The time in development, expense and problems of the weight and nausea caused in its use have undoubtedly now brought the Redmond corporation to “pull up the drawbridge” in regards to its own involvement.

In the above, a Microsoft executive has stated that the corporation's major interest in virtual reality and augmented reality will now be switched to Hololens in which the corporation feel they have a two year development lead over all rivals. Undoubtedly Hololens will be a huge move forward in regard to the foregoing technology.

However, only a developer's version of the headset is available at the present time, with a retail version launch possibly as far as two years away. That stated,the technology is “staggering” to anyone who has viewed the many YouTube videos that are available on that media channel. In that, many analysts feel in this development Microsoft may have a system that will place them in a position of dominance in the field of VR and AR in the future.

In the above, with N3V advising in the recent newsletter of their renewed interest in the Android platform, then without doubt the progress of the Google Tango project may well be of interest to them and Trainzers in general. The project has been brought forward in conjunction with hardware developers/manufacturers with the first smartphone specifically designed for the technology entering the market in the last few weeks.
The smartphone on which the technology is built around is the Lenovo Phab Pro 2. A review of the phone and Tango technology can be seen here:-

https://youtu.be/AU02gP1etgU

The Google Tango project is still in its infancy (what would be known as public beta to pc users). However, again many analysts feel that the Tango project has the potential to completely change the future of mobile in Augmented Reality and VIrtual Reality plus much more.

So, Microsoft and Google going head to head in VR and AR, the future is to be interesting indeed.
Bill

bestellen · Apr 6, 2017

I predict this VR will not be so far into the feature

cascaderailroad · Apr 6, 2017

Did you mean: Future ???

Maybe, that feature may not actually in Trainz, this decade

Off topic: Oculus

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