Why one day Virtual Reality will be in every home.

Tags

"second life", 360 degree camera, oculus rift, virtual cinema, virtual reality, virtual worlds, vr technology

Although most people by now seem to realise the huge potential the new VR technology (in the shape of the Oculus Rift) could have for virtual worlds like Second Life, some still think that it will be a niche thing.
That only a few people will actually end up owning this gadget and that eventually it will end up in the cupboard, dusty and forgotten or only used by a few nerds.

I think that the Oculus Rift (or any other kind of virtual headset) will actually end up in almost every household.

People don’t always see that virtual reality can and will be used for much more than just playing games and having fun in virtual worlds.
I think that this technology will be used to watch movies/tv, to go shopping, for education, as social media, for exercise, to work, etc, etc.

I will try and explain why I think this.

Virtual reality & film/tv;

This video shows people enjoying short clips shot with a 360 degree camera, the camera is stationary, it does not move, the person watching moves his head to look around “inside” the film.
Walking around in something that was filmed in this way is at this moment not yet possible but I don’t doubt that this will be possible soon.

And yes, many of us would probably prefer to enjoy our movies in the old fashioned way but imagine watching the last episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ while actually being inside it, watching an exciting scene… and then suddenly realising someone is standing behind you…
It may not be your cup of tea, you may prefer to watch a movie the traditional way, but it is obvious that many people will enjoy this new possibility as well.
That makes this video so interesting, it is a big step in that direction.

Another option is to watch a movie together with friends in a virtual cinema;

I think that this is another interesting and fun way to watch a movie, it brings the magic of the cinema to your home without the noisy people, mobile phones or sticky floors.
And you can perhaps also pick a certain type of cinema, such as a lovely 1930s art deco one for that vintage movie, complete with an audience of 1930s people, smoking all trough the movie.
And of course you will be able to share the cinema with friends and family even if they live on the other side of the world.

Virtual Reality & Shopping;

I personally hate shopping and would love to avoid it completely but other people love it.
Either way, many of us already use the internet to shop and VR will make this experience more fun or less of a hassle.
For instance, imagine you need a new tv, you visit a few websites but the most they can offer you is a picture that perhaps, if you’re lucky, you can turn around a bit.
Whoohoo, I can see the backside of a tv.
In a virtual shop you can see 3d models of each television set but you will eventually also be able to get a free virtual copy that you can ‘rez’ in a virtual facsimile of your living room, make sure it fits in that corner, if you need a new table to go with it, etc, etc.
The tv will of course work!
And as always, this can be a shared experience.
You can invite your mother to come see you fit a wedding dress even though she lives far away.

It will probably never replace normal shopping, but I bet it will be the end of the regular online shopping experience.
Because those online shops are dull as dishwater.

Virtual Reality & education;

Now here is a big one, especially for me personally.
I am not a teacher but I work a lot with schools, museums and educational tv shows and as someone with a huge passion for history, sharing that interest and making people understand how amazing and interesting history is, education is hugely important to me.

But in the world of Virtual Reality this is also a big one to use as a way to promote this technology and it is quite simple to convince people about how well this technique could be used for this purpose.

For instance, sorry about using history again and blatantly promoting my own sim in the following bit, imagine a class room discussing 1920s Berlin as part of their curriculum.
Learning about the chaos of post WW1 Germany, the rise of Nazism, etc.
As the class begins, everyone puts on their VR set and soon find themselves wandering the streets of 1920s Berlin.
Perhaps they will use something like my crude creation in Second Life or  a much smoother and more realistic version made especially for schools.
Teacher shows them some of the spots, their avatars in 1920s clothing makes them realise what they might have looked like had they actually lived back then, the place is filled with NPCs (non–playable characters) and feels alive, real.
But after after the lesson, after school, children will go home and do their homework also by using the VR set to go back to 1920s Berlin, take their time to visit more places, to investigate or perhaps just to have some fun as well.
One day perhaps the whole school will take place in a virtual reality, a scary idea perhaps  but a huge solution to those children living far away from school.
Anyway, I think it is quite obvious that Virtual Reality can be an amazing tool for education, both in school and at home.

I couldn’t find a nice video about the future of virtual education, so I’ll share this old one of me giving a tour in 1920s Berlin;

Virtual reality & Social Media;

Many of us spend a lot of time on facebook, keeping in touch with friends, family and work colleagues.
How this will develop in the near virtual future is very hard to predict.
Will it become a quick sort of virtual world where everyone has their own “page” that they can design?
Will checking how someone is doing be like visiting their tropical island, villa or castle in the sky?
Will it be something like Second Life… will it be Second Life?
Or will it be a bunch of pictures and notifications that just float in the air while you’re busy working or playing in your virtual office?
In the novel “Ready Player One” our hero has a virtual basement where he hangs out with his friends, will social media evolve into something like that?
Will facebook of the future look and feel like a virtual neighbourhood where all your friends have a home they designed themselves, with sign floating above it when something important has happened,  where their latest snapshot is projected onto the lawn and where above the roof their current status is shown?
Where you can enter their home, look at their stuff and hear their music?

I couldn’t find a video about this but I did find this interesting interview;
Inventor Of Oculus Rift: The Future Of Virtual Reality Is Social Networking

Virtual Reality & Exercise;

Exercise is big business but generally it is a rather boring activity, unless you’re able to spend a fortune to buy cool toys or travel to exciting places.
But virtual reality will make exercise a lot more fun for many people, regardless of budget.
Thanks to omnidirectional treadmills you will be able to walk and run in a virtual reality, you can choose to get your exercise just walking around some virtual world, running for your life in a computer game but you can also burn calories in surroundings specially created for this purpose.
After all, where would you rather do your morning jogging?
In the street outside your home that you see every single day already or some exotic beach, stunning dessert, the rainforest, across the moon or perhaps in a world you created yourself?
Virtual reality will make this possible and this will be interesting for people who might usually not be interested in gaming, virtual reality or even computers.
For instance, I can see my mum use VR for this purpose.
This is a big market.
The Wii Fit for instance, a computer “game” that allows people to do real exercise, has sold nearly 23 million copies.

This video shows some of the options, but here of course all they do is watch a screen.
Imagine doing these sports in a virtual reality.

Virtual Reality & work;

It is obvious that working from home (AKA teleworking) is going to be big in the future.
Renting expensive offices, travel costs (both in money, time and pollution), etc.
Virtual reality will make this a lot easier, you will actually be able to feel part of a team, be present at a meeting, do a presentation and even feel like you’re chatting at the watercooler, while never leaving your chair at home, or perhaps even without getting dressed…

Either way, I reckon it will beat this alternative…

Conclusion;

I am trying to explain that Virtual Reality will not just be a niche gadget for extreme gamers with more money than wisdom.
I hope to have shown that in the very recent future Virtual Reality will be something you’ll find in almost every home, the VR set will be as common as tv sets are today.

And when everyone has access to Virtual Reality and when Linden Lab manages to keep up and make it work very very well in Second Life… our virtual world may become bigger than it has ever been.
The minute people get their hands on a VR set for the first time they will want more than the demos and games.
And then they may remember Second Life, see that advertisement, hear that story, see that youtube video and realise that it still is the biggest online virtual world there is.
And that it can be more fun to explore something you have build yourself than some place build by some game designer, some place everyone has seen a million times before.
And maybe you will realise that some of the VR experiences you’re about to pay for… can already be found in SL, for free.

In short, we’re at the dawn of a Virtual Reality renaissance and I think that this could also be Second Life’s renaissance.

There WILL be a Second Life for Second Life… as long as Linden Lab plays its cards right… and fixes its Terms Of Service!

The Oculus Buzz caused by Linden Lab

Tags

"second life", oculus rift, virtual reality

It looks like Linden Labs latest PR video is causing a little bit of a buzz.

And most of that seems to be because at the very end they mention the Oculus Rift.

A lot of people appear to be interested in the Rift and the combination with Second Life is interesting to many of them, even the skeptical ones and those who don’t seem to like SL much.

For instance, ‘The Verge’ did an article about SL on the 24th and now on the 27th they did another one because of the video.

That is good publicity, well done LL.

But they are not the only one.

It is (becoming) a hot topic of discussion, sadly this also reminds us of the bad reputation SL has.

Everywhere you hear the old comments of “Does that still exist?!” to “Oh where the pervy furries do the naughty things” and “Oh where they have graphics from 2007?”.

However, I think the video LL just made gets is a step in the right direction to change peoples opinions of SL and I hope that their next PR step will be showing how pretty SL can be.

I am a gamer and have played some very recent games and although of course, SL’s graphics can’t quite reach the level of many of those games, I’ve also been in some sims where at least visually things get pretty close.

I think that it would be a great idea if LL started some sort of photo contest, picked the most stunning pictures made in SL and shared those with the world.

Or perhaps invite some of the best Machinima makers and ask them to shoot some stunning footage for a PR video purely made to let people know SL moved on.

I can see it now… Second Life… has such bad graphics… and then a amazing montage of some of SL’s most amazing places with superb windlight settings, shadows, the works…

Fade to black; This is how Second Life can look, we moved on, come along with us.

Come to think of it, one video per cliche might be fun.

One video about how Second Life is all virtual hanky panky (by showing all the other things also happening in SL), one about that it is only for people who like to dress up and pretend to be barbie (by showing the enormous diversity in avatars), one about that it is only for losers (by showing smart, educated, funny SL users as they are in RL), that it is laggy (by showing what SL looks like on a up to date computer), one about that it is only a virtual chatroom (by showing roleplaying, education, art), etc.

Sure, SL can be bad, but do you think that Rockstar games shows the lowest quality GTA 5 footage in its advertisements?

We need to let people know that Second Life is still here, is not what many people seem to think it is, that it has improved and that it will improve even more.

So more videos, more up to date pictures (contact those journalists that keep using 2007 screenshots!!) and keep the buzz going.

Anyway, I am getting distracted, back to the subject.

If you search the internet for Second Life and Oculus Rift, you’re getting quite a few hits, many of them quite recent.

And no, I promise, I’m not responsible for all of them… although you probably will bump into me at some of those sites 😉

Anyway, all of this makes it clear that no matter how it ends up, a lot of people are now watching this and are keeping an eye on how Second Life and the Oculus Rift will work together… or not.

Just as I predicted and expected.

So I am glad that LL seems to take this very serious as well.

I may be a bit too optimistic, but I still think that the Virtual reality renaissance that is about to happen could also mean a renaissance for Second Life.

Linden Lab update on Oculus Rift Progress

Tags

"oculus rift", "second life"

Today I send an email to Linden Lab asking them how things were going on the Oculus Rift front as I wanted to know if some of the rumours flying around were true.
Especially a comment on my blog by Inara Pey recently made me want to find out a few things for sure.
I mostly wanted to know about the User Interface (UI), as that is where most of the problems are expected and it will be interesting to see how Linden Lab (LL) is going to solve these.

I mentioned that I heard that LL was working on floating menus, so they would be where you would normally not look but by simply looking up these menus could appear.

LL:You’ve heard correctly. In our current design, the menus float just outside the user’s field of view, and it works quite well. The UI also provides an anchor / point of reference that helps to mitigate some of the nausea that people sometimes experience when using the Oculus Rift.

I had something like this in mind, I think I mentioned it in my blog before.
By having the menus inworld as 3d floating objects, you could access them quite easily.
I also thought further into the future and mentioned that you could then perhaps operate the menus with your virtual hand, bypassing the keyboard completely.
I am not sure how it works now but I assume that you simply look up, the menu appears and you then choose with your mouse.
Either way it is good to hear that it works quite well although it is still a bit difficult to imagine.
When I am looking up at the 1:1 scale Zeppelin in 1920s Berlin, will menus pop down all the time?

I also asked about how they will implement chatting, this is of course extremely important for us and hard to imagine how it will work.

LL:As for chatting, text chat still works as well as voice. We suspect that voice will become the preferred method for Rift users to communicate in SL, due to the fact that they won’t be able to see their keyboards (for obvious reasons).

Unfortunately that doesn’t really tell us how it will work, but as expected they think voice will become used by more people.
I hope they improve it a bit first, because every time I use it (almost never) I hear people with cheap headsets, a tv and barking dogs in the background.
Of course that is mostly a problem users are causing themselves, but it isn’t always very realistic to hear that coming from a person who is not that near.
But it could be that I just need to adjust my settings a bit better, as I said, I never use voice.
I don’t mind using it but I know many do.
And some of us can’t type blind (although you should learn!), so it remains an issue to allow SL users to type on their keyboard while wearing the Oculus Rift.
I wonder if my idea of a floating inworld virtual keyboard could work, I think it could.

LL:So far, the results are incredibly encouraging. Even the most mundane content inworld springs to life through the Rift.

That sounds very exciting and this makes it even harder for us to wait even longer.
And of course, that brings us to Rod Humble’s comment recently that the Oculus Rift enabled viewer would come at the end of the summer.

LL:We can’t share a target release date just yet, but the project is coming along nicely, and we’ll certainly keep you posted.
I don’t think anyone is surprised that the ‘end of summer’ date was a bit optimistic, but to be honest, Rod never mentioned which summer…
Either way, it is moving along and all seems to be going well.

So, although I promised not to harass LL too often, it might be a good idea to start gathering some questions on the Oculus Rift subject that I can perhaps ask them next time.
If you have a question about the Oculus Rift in Second Life, the progress, the viewer, the UI, or anything related, post it in the comment section!

And just in case, check this out if you want to read some of my ideas on how to make the SL UI work in the Oculus Rift.

And remember, to stay up to date on all Oculus Rift, Second Life and general Virtual reality progress you can join us at the Unofficial but approved Oculus Rift and Second Life facebook page.

Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab, trying the Oculus Rift.

Solving virtual User Interface problems

Tags

"second life", hydra, oculus rift, omni, razor, sixense, virtual reality

One of the problems Linden Lab is probably working on as we speak, is making the User Interface (UI) work for people who are exploring their virtual world called Second Life with a Virtual reality system, such as the Oculus Rift.

After all, in Second Life we want to do more than just walking and looking around us.

The current viewer is based on a 2D system and it isn’t very practical.

To simply walk around, interact and communicate, you have to use all sorts of buttons, keep windows open, etc.

For this reason the mouse view option in Second Life is pretty useless, even when you’re using voice chat.

Changing this might be quite a challenge, because when you’re inside a game or virtual world with your VR setup, you can’t see your keyboard.

In my view the solution is to take everything ‘inworld’, put everything you need inside the game.

Need to type something in chat, make a hand gesture and a keyboard will appear in your view, on the screen and with your virtual hands you can type your message on that keyboard.

Need to select something from a menu?

Touch an object and right there, floating in mid air, a menu appears that you again can click with your hands.

Recently I found a video that uses that very idea, but it also shows a few other things that I am sure the people of Second Life will find very interesting.

Watch it with me and then I’ll continue my story;

The VR setup used here is far from perfect, they use the Sixense STEM System which is really cool, you add sensors to your body and they tell the computer where those parts of your body are and how they are moving.

But before we go into that, let’s look at the part I am interested most;

As you can see, the inworld floating menu idea is used here quite effectively.

Of course this is a simple menu and the hand isn’t very exact, but I bet that this could be improved and also work with more complicated menus, such as the SL pie menu that allows us to interact with things.

Many of us already use tiny keyboards that are projected onto our tablets or smartphone screens, I reckon we can get used to a floating one as well.

I don’t think we need a huge one that fills the entire screen (although that should be an option for people with bad eyesight for instance), it could be a smaller keyboard that perhaps even looks like a real keyboard, or perhaps just floating letters, etc.

There are many options, but we’ll no longer need the RL keyboard of our computer.

Anyway, let’s get back to the video because it shows a lot more exciting things.

First the bit I don’t like; they controllers.

What is it with controllers?!

We’ve been using those since the 1970s (yes I am that old) and just like the VR headset has just made a huge comeback, I think it is time that the virtual glove should make a comeback.

As you can see in this video, he use two of the five trackers to tell the computer where his hands are, this works very well but it also means the hands don’t come with many options.

For the feet, this is fine, it is very exciting to see him play around with them and even kick a football.

Will we finally be able to really dance in Second Life… and will that be a good thing? 😉

But with your hands, you want to do more than slap, push and make a fist.

Perhaps you want to play a virtual piano, poke someone in the eye, point in a direction, pick your nose or use all ten fingers to type on that virtual keyboard I just talked about.

The Stem system but also the Hydra, have lots of buttons on their controllers to give you more options but in the end that means that you’re still just walking around with some updated joysticks.

I don’t want to feel like I’m holding controllers, I want to feel like my hands are in the game, just like my feet and body.

So I hope that someone will start developing a new VR glove, perhaps with a few buttons on the top of the glove so you can still have a few action keys there, but one that will allow us to use all our fingers naturally inworld.

Besides, if you need action keys, something inworld could perhaps designed better.

After all, we don’t need action keys in RL do we?

Nevertheless, I think that this video again shows another huge step forward towards a whole new kind of experiencing Virtual Reality.

We’re still waiting for someone to combine the Oculus Rift, the Hydra Razor, the Sixense, the Omni AND THOSE VR GLOVES into one complete setup.

And of course we’re still waiting for Linden Lab to finish their Oculus Rift friendly viewer that was supposed to come at the end of the summer…

But try and imagine the amazing potential all this have.

In less then a year SL could have changed beyond all recognition and our VR experience more real than we can even imagine at this very moment.

Exciting times to live in, twice.

Starting your Second Life is still not easy

Tags

"second life", beginner, beginning, improve, lag, newbies, noobs, start

I keep coming back to the experience of new Second Life.

Beginning is not easy, the learning curve is steep and it can take quite a while before you actually ‘get’ what SL is all about and realise its huge potential.

I think that LL still has not figured out a good way to introduce “Le Noob” to their virtual online world, Rod Humble says something like that himself now and then;

…about 20 percent are going to be around a month afterward. That’s a massive drop-off, but it’s still not too bad compared to other services.

However I do see 20% retention as a big problem, because I know some of the people who come to Second Life to try it (often because of what I tell them) and they then get stuck and give up.

Most of the people who give up on Second Life after a few hours or days of trying it first, probably don’t get what it is about, find the learning curve too steep or don’t see SL’s huge potential.

And I think that we can solve these problems.

I have written about this before and my suggestions and ideas haven’t changed much but recently I found a video on youtube that shows some people trying Second Life for the very first time.

A very educational video that shows us a lot of what is wrong with that very important first phase of Second Life.

After all, for those of us who have spend countless hours in SL over the last couple of years it is difficult to imagine what it is like for those who’ve only just joined.

So, let’s watch this video and then I’ll try and explain how I think we can solve some of the problems these kids are having.

They start out good, they are excited, love The Sims and are keen.

But the second they arrive, they don’t know what to do.

It is clear that their settings are not good for their computer, they should be able to handle SL pretty well but either there is a lot of lag or something is not quite right.

To me that means that perhaps the basic settings for new people entering SL should be set as low as possible at first, so that at least everything loads fast.

Our user realises this and tries to change his graphical options, but these are not easy to find if you don’t know where to look.

Still they experience a lot of lag and everything is grey.
They both have this and they are not on the same computer.
But to be fair, I’ve not experienced lag this bad in a long time.

But for some reason Linden Lab choose to have cartoonish trees at the landing spot, new users may think that this is what SL looks like and won’t be very impressed.

They discover destinations, it is good that they find that so quickly but only because the girl already knows about that.

Besides, I think that finding ‘Search’ is better, because then you can try and find something you are really interested in.
They also seem to think that Destinations is the only way to find a new place to go to.
How many new users will get bored with SL because they think only the few destination guide suggestions are the only places they can visit?

Either way, in this case (and I think in MANY cases), the starting place does not work.

They don’t get the portals, don’t even look at those, all they do is notice the silly looking trees.

It is very interesting that voice chat on SL actually works better then skype!
Eventhough they soon give up on using it because it causes even more lag.

It is really painful to see these new users wander around and generally just seeing things that won’t rez, things they don’t understand and basically a world that looks rather bad.

Within 15 minutes they start to think that SL is extremely uninteresting and wonder why they are even playing it.

The first thing they actually like is getting a free drink from an object and listening to some modern music.
But then these items end up in their inventory and they have no idea how to ‘drink’ these.

After a while they accidentally discover how to change their avatar and their outfit.

Then they meet someone and don’t realise that chatting with them only works via adding them as a friend.

Their viewer does not show the very handy chat bar!

At one time lag is so bad the young man says; “It is at times like these that I love Minecraft.”
He has a point.

By accident he then manages to sit down, he is surprised, excited and impressed.
Isn’t it sad that one of the easiest and most important actions is one they need to learn by accident.
And of course then he gets stuck, doesn’t know how to get up.

Then their teleports take for ever, some teleports fail and finally they end the video after less than half an hour with “I’m never playing Second Life again.”

That makes me sad, because I feel they have not experienced SL enough to make a judgement but I fear that their experience might be very similar to that of the many who only try SL for a little bit and then never return.

So, how can we fix this?

I think that it is important that we make new users their first experience as easy and enjoyable as possible.

For starters the basic settings on viewers for noobs should be very low, set to such a level that lag will be minimal.
If they have good computers they can always turn the settings up later.

I also feel that it is important that we send them to a nice easy place to begin with.

I know I have written about this before but I feel strongly about it and I would really like some feedback to see if any of the ideas make any sense.

When people join SL first they should get an avatar creation screen on the SL website, one that is similar to that of the Sims so that they can personalise and change their avatar as much as they want before even starting up the viewer.
This will be a fun thing to do and it makes them bond with the avatar right away, making it harder for them to give up on their Second Life, being more attached to the pile of pixels that they created.

Then, still before they even enter Second Life, they should go trough a tutorial, even the most basic action games usually have this option that allows you to run around, try out a few things, before actually starting.
Having such a steep learning curve as SL has, I think it is important that we teach the new people at least the very basics.
As we can see in the video, not understanding how some things work is very frustrating.
My idea would be to let them play a little basic game on the SL website with the avatar they just created.
No lag, no grey stuff, just a place where they can learn the important basics of SL: how to walk, look around, touch stuff, wear or use stuff, etc.
Perhaps they can earn things by doing things, for instance, a free hat if you manage to open a box, a bicycle if you open a door, etc.

But most importantly, new people have to learn how to use the destination guide AND search before the even fire up the viewer.

Because we can see the new users in this video get lost and give up after visiting just a couple of places in the destination guide, not very impressive ones either.
I myself nearly gave up on Second Life when I assumed that there just were no nice places for someone like me.
And learning how to use ‘Search’ is the only reason I didn’t leave SL.

So, by the time our new user starts up the viewer and actually teleports into SL, they have an avatar they build and dressed themselves, they know the basics and they have handpicked their first destination!

Another option might be a very basic help guide to finding a place you like.
For instance, by answering a few questions, SL could suggest a place for you to go to.

With my ideas you start your Second Life with an avatar you care about, knowing the important basics and in a sim you are interested in.
I think all that will make life easier for newbies and increate the change of them sticking around.

It will also make things easier for Linden Lab because they no longer have to build and host the regions now used to welcome noobs.

Virtual Reality progress

Tags

"second life", leap motion, oculus rift, virtual reality

Thanks to the hype surrounding the Oculus Rift, a lot of people are experimenting with new options, inventing new gadgets and are looking into new ways of using Virtual Reality.

It seems that I am not the only one who believes that the VR Renaissance is around the corner.

The ultimate goal is of course to be able to completely control an avatar in a virtual surroundings, walk, run, use your hands, look around, etc.

And it has to feel natural and be practical.

For instance, we now have the Virtuix Omni that allows you to make your avatar walk while walking on an omnidirectional treadmill  in real life.

But for the moving of hands so far all we’ve depended on the Razer Hydra, two handheld controllers that track the user’s hands in RL and translate that into movement in the virtual world.

More recently the Sixense Stem system got quite a bit of attention with its system, but that still involves having to use controllers.

To me having to hold something that steers your hands isn’t a very good solution.

I’ve been wondering why nobody brought back the VR gloves or why someone didn’t combine the Oculus Rift with the ‘Leap motion‘.

Well now somebody has done something similar and I think that this is a leap (get it?) forward.

Only yesterday this kickstarter began (and it already reached its goal of course);

Structure Sensor: Capture the World in 3D

Have a look and if you can, help fund it even more then it has already been funded.

Originally designed by a company called Occipital to be the world’s first 3D sensor for mobile devices, it also seems to work rather well for virtual worlds.

Imagine no longer needing a mouse or even a keyboard for your SL adventures!

You simply use your hands like you would in RL to interact with everything.

Perhaps this even solves our communication problem, in stead of taking off your VR headset to see your keyboard, you simply make a gesture and a virtual keyboard will appear on your screen that you can use just like a RL keyboard.

Imagine building that way, actually holding a prim, rotating it with your hands!

Anyway, have a look at this video, it is of course just a bit of experimenting and there is still a long way to go, but it is enough to get excited about.

I think that this is much more interesting than any handheld device.

First Oculus Rift user visits Berlin

Tags

"second life", oculus rift

Re-blogged from The 1920s Berlin Project blog.

Björn-Christian Bönkost decided to try his Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in our 1920s Berlin Project sim!

I am of course very jealous because I can’t wait to try this myself, but I’ve decided to wait till the commercial version is ready to go public.

Björn-Christian was able to visit Second Life with the Oculus Rift thanks to the latest upgrade of the CtrlAltStudio Viewer which recently had this option added.

You can read more about this in this blog;
An Initial Foray into Second Life with the Oculus Rift

I asked Björn-Christian to write about his experiences as an Oculus Rift visitor in 1920s Berlin;

I visited Berlin in 1920 today in second life, with my Rift Dev Kit.
The new prototype viewer from ctrlaltdel made this possible.
I was impressed, amazed and stunned.
The city is bigger than anything you can find as a demo for the rift.

The client is still in it´s infancy so after some trials, I decided to go to places in the standard mode and only take a look around in the rift once I got there.The presence and immersion in the environment is one of the strengths.

You sit on the bench in the Biergarten,you feel the narrow walls in the back alley.
The height of the ceiling in the asta cinema.
I was surprised by the size of the cars. I am not exactly small and my feeling was, I could not drive some of these because I instinctively know, I would not fit behind the steering wheel.
I visited a library, a gallery and the Volksbad bath house, admiring the design.
This is another plus point for this virtual world, Berlin has a constant scale, houses are big and the newspapers and glasses, tables and chair all have the right size.
And this is present in every corner I saw, nothing stands out or  breaks the suspension of disbelief.
I made a video of a rat, I saw on my way, movement certainly adds another layer of realism.

I also saw another person on my travel through the city, she walked just behind me and I was a little surprised, when I first saw her eye to eye, so to speak. But it reveals one of the main missing pieces, you have no interface in the client in Oculus mode.
So you can not see her chat message and cannot really answer, I switched back and answered her question: “taking a look around ?” with “Just a little” 😉

Another thing is a certain lag in motions, only after setting pre-rendered frames to 1 in the Nvidia control panel it was bearable.
I had to leave after I got really sick after 15-20 minutes in the rift.
I am very new to second life, I started in 2004, to try this new thing but I logged out right after I saw the first graphics, tried to move and got the feeling this wasn’t for me.
I tried again in 2008, just looking around, for maybe an hour to forget about it again.
I just started this with the oculus and had for the first time the feeling this will be interesting and was realy excited.

About myself:
I am Björn-Christian Bönkost, I live in Koblenz Germany.
I bought the rift for a simulation project I am working on in unity.
I got hooked by the dream of virtual reality and read “Ready Player One” and “Snowcrash” in a hurry.
In my free time I go rambling with my fiancee and am into photography.

Björn-Christian made a few videos of his visit, it is very exciting to see SL trough Oculus Rift eyes.

If you own a Rift, you can use it to view these videos and experience a visit to 1920s Berlin yourself.

To see more of the Oculus Rift videos in Berlin, visit this link;

http://www.youtube.com/user/yassokhuul/videos

Oculus Rift in Second Life goes public late summer!

Tags

"rod humble", "second life", oculus rift

In a very interesting interview with www.allthingsd.com Rod Humble talks about the Oculus Rift.

He says amongst other things;

I’m traditionally very skeptical of peripherals or hardware, but we’re integrating Oculus Rift support, which turned out to be really cool. Surprisingly cool.

It is great to hear that Rod is very excited about the Oculus, because I am too and I truly believe that it will not only change gaming and interaction with computers for ever and for more people then just gamers, I also think it can be a ‘game changer’ for Second Life.

We already know Linden Lab has the Oculus Rift up and running and is working on its usability, thanks to the interview with Draxtor Despres a few weeks ago.

But that Rod himself is also keeping an eye on it and doing some of the ‘testing’, is fun to read, he says;

I’ve ridden on a train within Second Life with the Oculus Rift on, and it’s very cool.

But most interesting is what he says on how far Linden Lab is with working on it;

We have it up and running, and right now we’re working on usability. You need to integrate it with the Rift so you can look around and touch things. I think it’s late summer when it’ll be public.

The official commercial Oculus Rift model is not out yet of course, so only people with a developer’s kit will be able to use it but nevertheless it is very exciting that, if all goes well, people will probably be able to start using their Rifts in Second Life within a few months!

There are a few more interesting things Rod says in this interview;

It’s coming in and out. When I arrived (in 2010, coming from EA), I thought it would be a core group. But well over half of our user base has been here 18 months or less, with about 400,000 new registrations a month. With the world I’m used to, video and computer games, usually you get a core and it’s the new users who stop coming. And we’ve maintained this incredibly healthy user acquisition. It may be that we don’t have a large competitor that’s well funded. If you want a user-made virtual world, we’re kind of it.

He also mentions one of SL’s biggest problems, the fact that so few people stick around, this is something I will write about (again) in my next blog.

It’s usually about 20 percent are going to be around a month afterward. That’s a massive drop-off, but it’s still not too bad compared to other services.

You can read the full interview by clicking here.

Only negative thing I can say about this interview is that once more… they used a picture from 2007!
I wrote about that typical problem we have with the media in a blog you can read about by clicking here.
That is sloppy journalism (let’s use google images to find a copyright free picture of Second Life and use the first one we find) and I think Linden Lab should make sure that every time they get a request for an interview or some background info, that the journalists use the pictures Linden Lab provides.
One of the things people complain about is the level of graphics in Second Life, by showing them six year old screenshots, it will be hard to convince people things look a lot better these days…

Oh, one final thing, Rod needs a haircut.
But I say that about all men 😉

Oculus Rift and Second Life

Tags

"second life", oculus rift, virtual reality

The Oculus Rift and Second Life can become a marriage made in heaven.
What is more fun then exploring and immersing yourself in a world created by some game designer… exactly, immersing yourself in a world created by YOU.
Second Life offers that.

Recently I got a chance to try the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset at a Virtual Reality meetup here in the Netherlands.

As a 40 year old woman who wears 1940s clothing I stood out a bit amongst all the hip young nerdy geeky guys and as I never go to such events, I found it quite an entertaining experience.

I was the very last person to arrive at this place and was given number 63, given that everyone there would be allowed about 5 minutes on one of the two Oculus Rift sets, you can imagine how long it would take before it was my turn.

Luckily they also had a third setup where you could try the rollercoaster demo and as all the waiting people had a go on that before they got to try the official ones, eventually they had all had had their turn and I could try it.

I have to say that at first I was a little disappointed, simply because I had expected so much of it and we’re spoiled with amazing graphics in other games.
And to me the Oculus Rift is only interesting for certain purposes so sitting on a roller-coaster racing around with very low resolution made it a bit hard to see past that and imagine what it would be like in Second Life and with better quality.

Luckily I was eventually able to look beyond that when I remembered that I was just using one the first devkits, a very basic version.

I already knew that a sharper, better version had came out that very day, MUCH improved from the previous one.

Being a bit of a (polite) rebel I decided to convince the organisors to run the Tuscan villa demo on the third Oculus set in stead of that Roller-coaster.

This demo made me a lot more enthousiastic, because it was very easy to try and imagine this as being a place in Second Life.

And again, it made me realise that the Oculus Rift and Second Life can become a marriage made in heaven, that they are perfect together and that Second Life could be the Oasis as mentioned in the book ‘Ready player one‘ by Ernest Cline.

Once I made myself look past the low level graphics and the rather dodgy steering, I realised how this could, would and should change Second Life, gaming and even Real Life for ever.
THIS was immersion like I’ve never experienced it before, and I have been one of the lucky people who got to try Virtual Reality over 20 years ago.

You FEEL depth, when you look down you actually feel like you’re looking down, when you stand on something, you will experience that as standing on something.
Looking over the edge of a cliff will make you want to step back and perhaps a bit dizzy, being inside a little room will make you feel claustrophobic, in short; you are INSIDE the 3D environment.
Experiencing such strong feelings while the headset is still at such an early stage of its development, and with rather bad steering, makes it clear how awesome it will be once we get a little further down the line.

Of course the steering is not up to the Oculus Rift developers, they just make the screens we look at.
So racing like mad trough a Tuscan villa, almost as if I’m floating and with no body, felt very odd.
It took a lot away from the experience and made it clear that game designers (including Linden Lab) need to take a really good look at this.
To make it work in SL we will not just need a much better mouse-view display but someone needs to go and experience what it is like to walk trough a sim while using your head to look around in stead of your mouse and how it feels and looks to walk, how we show our body, etc, etc.

But even with the way it is today and before having tried the new improved version (already twice the resolution compared to the one I tried and that is not even the commercial version) it already gave me a glimpse of how amazing all this is going to be and how big the role Second Life can play in it could be.

At the very base of it lies one very simple fact; the headset creates the illusion of 3D and it does this very well.
It is based on the century old idea of Stereoscopy and simply puts two pictures in front of your eyes and gives you the idea of depth.
It works much better then wearing 3D glasses and staring at a tv screen, the headset blocks out the rest of the real world and the head tracking is superb.

At this moment it is not perfect, it still needs lots of work both from hard- and software designers.
But you have to be blind not to see its enormous potential.

Unfortunately at the moment the people at Oculus Rift and others in the technical business are only looking at its possibilities in the world of games, mostly shoot-em-up games.
But the BEST thing about the Oculus Rift and virtual reality in general is the magic word; IMMERSION.

A good headset like the Oculus Rift will give you the idea of being inside the virtual surroundings.
And even with all its shortcomings, Second Life DOES give you the ability to immerse yourself in a more diverse virtual location then any other game or software out there.
Furthermore, it ads social interaction that you won’t find in any game.

And what is more fun then exploring and immersing yourself in a world created by some game designer… exactly, immersing yourself in a world created by YOU.
Second Life offers that.

I have seen a few kickstarters and demos out there that offer certain experiences for the Oculus Rift… game designers want money to develop software for you to experience virtual diving, visiting museums, going to the cinema…
But all these things are already possible in Second Life!

If Linden Lab realises the potential of their virtual world and manages to convince Oculus Rift and its users that they can offer all what they want and more, they will reach a huge potential market.
Yes the SL-viewer does need some work before they reach that point, but once they do, they should do whatever it takes to let the world know that Second Life could be THE place where virtually everything is possible.

Forget about just using the Oculus Rift for running about shooting at each other, virtual reality is suitable for so much more.
Let me sketch you my vision of the future;

I predict a time when most households will own a virtual reality headset and use it regularly.
It will be a very normal thing to use for all kinds of things.
We will visit the cinema together with friends living in another part of the world or just with our own family, watching something together again in stead of each doing something different on our own screen in another part of the home… something already possible in Second Life!
We will go shopping on the internet, being able to see something in 3d, examining it from all sides, try clothes on our avatar or simply visit a 3d supermarket for the daily shopping we’ll have delivered, just because it is more fun and less scary for some, then ordering via a regular website.
Schools will use it for education, imagine a history lesson about… oh I don’t know, 1920s Berlin… everyone put on their VR headset and woosh, here we go to virtual 1920s Berlin, the entire class together, no train tickets needed, no permission from the parents, no risks, no costs.
Police, medics, firemen and the army can use it to train people all time time without having to set up expensive real world exercises.
And combined with perhaps an Omnidirectional treadmill such as the Virtuix Omni people will use it for something many of us are obsessed with; exercise!
Imagine going jogging on a treadmill in a 3d created reality, in stead of seeing the boring neighbourhood you see every day in reality… you get to jog underwater, trough the streets of 14th century Venice, all over 1940s New York, on the moon, etc, etc.
The market for ‘Exergaming’ is huge, in 2009 such games were generating revenues of $2 billion.
And I’m not even talking about all the medical possibilities such as Physical rehabilitation, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment, or simply making your stay at the hospital ward as a patient a little less boring.

Most of the options mentioned above could work in Second Life and would bring a LOT of new people to our virtual world.
Many people who are not at all interested in what Second Life has to offer at the moment, would flock to it if it had the added option of exploring virtual reality with a VR headset.

Of course, we’re not there yet.
But it is just around the corner, I can almost taste it and after trying the Oculus Rift myself I know that gaming, computers, virtual reality and even our day to day real lives are about to change drastically.

I just hope that the people behind Oculus Rift see that they can sell it just as well and as a tool for immersion and all kinds of virtual experiences, not just for gaming.
I know and understand that gaming is a big market, full of people ready to throw their money at the screen, but I think that the market for other kinds of uses may be even bigger.

And more importantly to us people who live in the Second Life world, I hope that Linden Lab realises the huge potential here and makes sure it gets in on the action as soon as possible.
Get in contact with the Oculus Rift people, stay in contact, invite them over to come and try Second Life and discuss some of the options.
And work on a viewer that will work with the Oculus Rift.
This will make mouseview properly functional for everyone, even without virtual headsets, but when the Oculus Rift launches its first proper public version and goes global (and it will), it is the duty of Linden Lab AND us, the users, to try and make the world realise how amazing it will be together with Second Life.

I know, there will be people out there who are sceptical of all this, I want to ask them to wait till they can actually try it, then sit down for a few minutes and imagine it working with Second Life.
Without actually trying it, it is very hard to judge.

Finally I want to end by sharing a video with you, it is an old one but to me this is what one day Second Life could be like and with the Oculus Rift, this virtual reality has gotten a lot closer;

Starting your Second Life

Tags

"destination island", "second life", avatar, begin, create, portal, start

Changing the way people start their Second Life by letting them create their avatar and learn the basics on a website before they enter the virtual world.

I’ve always disliked how new people are introduced to Second Life.
You are thrown in at the deep end, not a good thing to do with something that already has a rather steep learning curve.
Not only is a lot expected from new people, they are also almost immediately surrounded by experienced users and griefers.

Nothing is as off putting as standing somewhere, all new, and hearing people swear, argue, make fun of you or have people harass you and even attack you.
Not to mention that you will find yourself amongst scary, freakish, half naked and disturbing looking avatars.

This nearly turned me away from Second Life permanently after I first tried it in 2007, everything was rather horrible and only supported the rather negative preconceptions I had about this virtual world.
I left and only returned a few years later.

I’ve always felt that the best way to figure out how SL works is by trying it all out in a peaceful quiet area.
Ideally every new person would be teleported into a private place, lets say a tiny skybox.
Here they see some tutorials, basic instructions, etc.
They have to learn to walk, navigate, communicate, click, use and finally use search and teleport to get off the island.
But I realise that with thousands of new daily users, this may be impossible.

Recently this all changed with the creation of new Destination Islands.
Interesting stuff.
They found a way to keep out the experienced users and trouble makers (sort of) and send you on your way to a sim that is connected to a theme you find interesting.
This new system is not quite ready yet, but an improvement in some way.

Nevertheless, you no longer get any instructions.
SL is complicated, you need help when you first get here!

Recently I thought of another way of welcoming new people into SL that will help them a lot better, avoid giving them the idea SL is for kids or full of weirdos, before they even enter the virtual world.
I have no idea if this is even possible, but let me explain how I imagine it.

Currently, when you first join SL , you sign up on the website, download the software and enter the online world without knowing much about anything.
I suggest that we take care of a lot of stuff before we send these new freshly baked avatars into Second Life.

You sign up on the website, download the software and then you stay on the website…
You create your first avatar right there and then, online, on secondlife.com.
If you have played ‘The Sims’, you will remember how this works, as soon as you start a game you first enter a dressing booth where you get toe customise your avatar.
Shape, character and even your first set of clothes are put together here.

Imagine starting your Second Life just like that.
In stead of having to choose from a few pre-created avatars that identify you as a noob, that you may seriously dislike, that you may find very hard to change, you first find yourself in a dressing room with a basic avatar that you get to change and make like you want it to be.

SL creators  could offer free clothes, bodies, skins and other stuff for this part of the tutorial, so you should have plenty of stuff to chose from.
It may even work trough some sort of connection to marketplace.

Not only is creating an avatar a fun way to start your SL, it also gives you the freedom to start SL looking like you want to look in stead of having to choose one of the starter avatars.
No matter how well the current starter avatars are made, they will give some people second thoughts about joining up.
When people see a cute little Airship avatar or a giant bunny avatar as one of their choices they may think SL is a kid’s game  and may decide not to join.

More importantly, we take away freedom and creativity from new users before they sign up to a world that is all about freedom and creativity.

Is it really that difficult to give people access to the SL avatar creation tools outside of SL?
Let them play about a bit, give them basic (realistic scale please!!) avatars to experiment on.
But make some of the options fun, weird, unusual, so they know that being a bunny or a airship is one of the options, so they know it is possible to have a unusual avatar without it being one of the few forced choices.

Another bonus of this would be that new people enter SL with an avatar they already care about.
They have spend time creating it and have bonded with it, maybe not much, but more then just one of the random avatars they get to pick now.
Like many people who play ‘The Sims’ they may have made the avatar look like themselves or like someone they admire.
Joining SL with an avatar you already like increases the chances of you hanging around.

But perhaps there is more we can do before we actually travel into virtual reality.

How about the first basic steps?
Can we not give new avatars a chance to learn those things you really can’t do without before they run the SL software?

Imagine…

After you have created your avatar on the SL website (we’re still not inworld) you are transported to an deserted Island…
Yes still on the SL website.
It could be a flash game with the look and feel of SL.

I can imagine that after you have created your avatar, a screen loads showing your new you falling with a parachute and landing on an very small island in the middle of the big SL seas.
You will be there all alone, it can be very basic, no need for super graphics.

But this game will allow you to take your time to learn the important tutorials.
Walk, talk, use, click, sit, etc.
This can me made fun and entertaining by creating a little story around it.
After all, you are on a deserted Island and you need to get off.
So first use your inventory to find a machete to cut trough the vegetation,  walk across a improvised bridge, left click on a big branch to push it aside, etc, etc.
Every new step you learn brings you closer to escaping this island and learning how to navigate trough SL at the same time.
Eventually you arrive at the other side of the island and there is a boat, once you get on it, you go to the SL Search page.
You look for something you find interesting (or are given a few questions that help you in the right direction) and will get you some suggestions of sims you could visit.

And then, only then, the actual Second Life software will load.

You will set your first steps in this wonderful virtual world in a sim you’ve chosen, with an avatar you’ve created, arriving at a sim you have picked from search, with basic skills to get around, without being confronted by a bunch of scary people and with a better grasp of how you can modify your avatar, find other sims, etc.

Most of the work is done before you even set foot on virtual land and many of the old problems can be avoided.

Not to mention that all the portals, starter islands and stuff Linden Labs has been creating, replacing, redesigning and having lots of meetings about can be deleted and the land and servers used for something else.

My idea was discussed by the Metareality Podcast crowd.
You can hear it here; http://metarealitypodcast.com/the-sum-of-all-dreams