Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fearless Leader on October 01, 2005, 08:51:35 pm
-
I was just thinking about all the cool things that we were supose to have by now. And what happened to Virtual Reality simulaters? The ones that you step inside and put the helmet and the gloves. Does any body know where those went?
-
Obsolete technology, yet expensive as hell. I think it's fairly obvious where those went.
-
I gues so, thanks.
-
..or maybe just back on the drawing tables. Sort of belongs to the same category as fusion reactors..
-
the "wont work right but looks and sounds cool" one?
-
no, the "works right but turns out to be totaly lame once implemented" one
-
:wakka:
-
The problem with VR helms is that extended use screws with your ability to physically function in the real world. So yeah, consumer tech that runs a chance of getting someone killed tends not to be pushed so much.
-
Originally posted by ZylonBane
The problem with VR helms is that extended use screws with your ability to physically function in the real world. So yeah, consumer tech that runs a chance of getting someone killed tends not to be pushed so much.
*sniff, sniff*
LAWSUITS!:shaking:
-
Research is still going on in force. I'm hoping to publish a paper myself next year, deadline is in november and we're almost done with it. Tons of cool new stuff going on if you look at prototype-stage technology, but still too expensive for proper marketability. Still, there's a company that's about to release to the market a decent HMD with orientation tracking for a good price (around 300 US, I think) targeted to gamers.
-
I remember there was talking of linking something like 1 simple processor for every 4 pixels on the headset or the like, the biggest problem with VR was 'real life lag', as in you could turn your head, but the helmet took a few moments to catch up with you. I seem to recall that using massively multipro tech would do a great deal to erase that. The downside, of course, would be in size and costs.
-
That's mostly the LCDs refresh rate (or response time - mostly solved today, apparently) and lag on the return from the orientation/position sensors, which is minimal on good quality HMDs, even the relatively simple ones we have at our lab don't have much of a lag if you use a decent sampling rate.
-
Yeah, fundamentally VR (or at least the simplest form of VR which involves only one interleved or two physical screens normal to the user's field of vision) is really not that different from any 3d game or really any other 3d application. The only real difference is that it uses two POVs, one for each eye. I'd point out that motion tracking isn't even necessary for VR (though extremely useful) and that most of the systems that we learned what VR was had roughly the computing power of the old-school Atari. The positional lag has always been due to the fidelity of the motion sensors and the functional limitations of the graphics processors at the time. Sensor fidelity has improved considerably and is even better with high-end equipment, and graphics, well, we're on a game board. The capabilities of graphics processing has obviously increased. Of course there are more advanced VR setups (the CAVE system is pretty cool, though only practical for a limited subset of applications) but the concept is still the same. I'm not sure massively multiprocessor is necessary at all, though I could see the advantage of, say, dual graphics processors, one for each eye, and in independant CPU to handle the actual mechanics and positional data.
-
Speaking of seperate eyes, since I have a nice widescreen monitor, are there no custom drivers that can split the screen vertically in two, with each side displaying the same image from a slightly seperate angle? I could then play games cross-eyed, in full 3D! :p
-
Sandwich is right, it would be awesome if we could play a VR version of FS2!
Styxx, StratComm you two seem to know more about VR than I do, is there some way that FS2 could hook up a VR version? Or some sort of 3D? :nod: ;7
-
no that would requier specal codeing and isn't something you could just pack into a driv..er... your jokeing... never mind.
-
Maybe for Ferrium? If not then Ferrium Next?
By the time another rebuild is required, we might have forgotton all about it....
OOh!! I've got it!!
I start a project for the future build of FS... something called... hmmm.... " FreeSpace 3Derek"!! I'll start on it now and be finished some time before the ice caps melt. :drevil:
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
no that would requier specal codeing and isn't something you could just pack into a driv..er... your jokeing... never mind.
Well half jokeing, there hase got to be an easier way, like how they do it in movies?
-
Actually from my understanding of it, OGL in theory has some limited stereo support built in. I don't know what's involved in getting it working in a given environment, and it plays hell with pretty much everything if framerates aren't consistant, but it may not be as hard to impliment as most people think. :nervous:
Doesn't need anyone to waste time on it though as the need for constant 120+ FPS speeds sort of rules that out as far as a real game is concerned. Unless you're running it on a supercomputer.
EDIT: And there's supposed to be a postfilter or something that gives you the red-blue glasses support. It's been implimented with Freespace before and shown off here, though I've forgotten who did it. Search for it and see if anything comes up.
-
there are stereoscopic flat panel displays out there. it splits the colums of pixels up into 2 screens and vectors th light to one eye or the other. half the pixels for left and half the pixels for right. it does it all without glasses and the effect is toggleable, so it works as a 2d display as well. it also works wth most any dual output video card under both d3d and ogl. the problem is the idiots filed a patent, and now the technology wont be developed untill that patent expires in 20 years (infernal patent office, protects inventors, by screwing everyone else). i want a stereo system just to make wireframe modeling easyer. vr wold be cool on flight sims, give you better situational awareness and make the whole game more realistic.
-
Descent 2 had some kind of VR headset support built in IIRC. It would have been cool to be able to use that.
-
Originally posted by Nuke
there are stereoscopic flat panel displays out there. it splits the colums of pixels up into 2 screens and vectors th light to one eye or the other. half the pixels for left and half the pixels for right. it does it all without glasses and the effect is toggleable, so it works as a 2d display as well. it also works wth most any dual output video card under both d3d and ogl. the problem is the idiots filed a patent, and now the technology wont be developed untill that patent expires in 20 years (infernal patent office, protects inventors, by screwing everyone else). i want a stereo system just to make wireframe modeling easyer. vr wold be cool on flight sims, give you better situational awareness and make the whole game more realistic.
Yeah, I'm pretty well aware of all the 3D display technologies out there. They cost $$$. Crossing eyes doesn't. :p
But I'm not speaking specifically about something for FS2... more like something like the ATi Omega driverset.
-
So who wants to join my project?
-
Huh, the VFX3D, a relatively old HMD, comes with presets for Freespace 2 on its launcher. Don't know if the game actually supports free view when using it, but the driver does a neat trick to simulate stereo images by alternating a slight rotation to each side. If you watch the screen without the HMD it's a mess, but using it you barely feel the rotation and the depth sensation is much better.
-
Originally posted by Bobboau
no that would requier specal codeing and isn't something you could just pack into a driv..er... your jokeing... never mind.
It is, in fact, exactly something you can pack into a driver. And has been for about four years now.
http://www.stereo3d.com/nvidia.htm
-
ZylonBane!!!! Whare did you find this? You should post that on the upgrade project forum!!
-
Uh, why? The stereoscopic support in nVidia drivers is common knowledge, and old news.
-
One of the very recent drivers broke it. I'm not sure if they have fixed it yet.
-
Well its new to me
-
Yeah I heard there's a problem with SLI configuration. Like, only one card runs in stereo mode.
-
nvidia doesnt udate there stereo drivers nearly as much as there standard drivers. probibly cause not many people use stereo. i know theres a way to set up stereo with a pair of video projectors with cross-polorized filters, and view it with cross-polarized glasses. another cool setup is a 360 setup that has a projector pointing at each wall, allowing you to look in any direction without needing head tracking or a headset. id like to combine the two, it would require an 8 projector minimum and a 4 sli card array. but it would be really cool.
-
Originally posted by Nuke
another cool setup is a 360 setup that has a projector pointing at each wall, allowing you to look in any direction without needing head tracking or a headset. id like to combine the two, it would require an 8 projector minimum and a 4 sli card array. but it would be really cool.
That's called a CAVE system, though the stereo is provided by frame interleving instead of polarization. Look it up. My school has one and I've had the privelidge to play around in one once (played a little CAVE Quake... that was interesting to say the least); it's really a very cool setup.
-
We should make a FS2 arcade style simulater.
-
Originally posted by StratComm
That's called a CAVE system, though the stereo is provided by frame interleving instead of polarization. Look it up. My school has one and I've had the privelidge to play around in one once (played a little CAVE Quake... that was interesting to say the least); it's really a very cool setup.
well the polarized system i saw was set up for higher resolution 3d presentations. interleave essentially halves your resolution, is less natural, and tends to cause more nausea. going polarized is twice es axpensive, and then you need filters, glasses, and a dual out video card. i saw a 6 projector "cave" system as part of a conrtol tower simulator for aspiring air traffic controllers. none of the screens were stereoscopic though. are the cave systems driver supported like stereo, or do they require your games be codeed specifically for them?
-
That's not a CAVE system. A proper cave is full stereo across a minimum of four screens with frame interleving and shutter glasses. User position is tracked within the cube and the perspective on each screen adjusted accordingly, so you don't actually see the corners of the screen when you're inside. It's a much more advanced system than any of the simulators you're refering to. And resolution isn't compromised at all with frame interleving, for the record.
The processing unit on the one I got to mess with was a Silicon Graphics mainframe of some kind. You've got to write applications specific to the environment as there's a lot more going on than just setting a second POV.
-
i thought you meant scanline interleave, by bad, none the less frame interleave can be quite nausiating if the refresh rate is too slow. so its more of a proprietary thing then. sounds rather cool.
-
It's not "proprietary" in the strictest sense of the word, but yes. It's a custom setup from the CPU to the apps it's running to the environment it's running in. A multimillion-dollar ordeal given all of the equipment involved. The high-refresh rate projectors alone have to be rediculously expensive, if not custom-built.
-
Is it so hard to render a screen split vertically in two, with each POV coming from either side of the game's POV?
-
i think he means the current equivelant of a holodeck, it tracks the person inside and adjusts teh view accordingly. the stereocopy and tracking is probibly what makes cave so expensive. i wish they had a scaled down desktop version that wasnt so expensive. the projectors in the control tower simulator i saw had 6 of what looked like $8000 units, mind you this was a long time ago that i saw this thing. the screens each had a 60 degree feild of view in a full 360 environment. i also like the systems that flight simulators use having a screen in every window. my favorite sim was the space ship one simulator with 13 independant screens each with its own rendering computer. i was reading about it on the scaled composites web page.