WEBVTT - Moving Around in VR 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.880 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.000 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:24.040 tech are You? And as the poets of Stained once said, 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.120 it's been a while since I did an episode dedicated 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.520 to virtual reality, but I thought it would do one 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.040 this week because I actually saw a cool video that 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.800 showed Disney imagineer and now Inventor Hall of Famer Lanny 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.640 Smoot show off an invention called the hollow tile floor, 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.519 which could, among other things, potentially provide a solution for 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.760 folks who want to explore a virtual space while simultaneously 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.800 moving around their very real, you know, physical environments with 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.200 their actual physical bodies here in the real world, you know, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.240 without bumping into things. And that prompted me to think 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.640 of the challenges that inventors face when designing those kinds 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.200 of systems. But let's lay it out. Even though some 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.160 of this is pretty obvious stuff. As I'm sure all 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.840 of you know, virtual reality is on one end of 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.520 the spectrum of mixed reality. So with virtual reality, you 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.959 have replaced some or maybe even all, sensory input from 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.400 the real world with computer generated material instead. So it's 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.360 possible that with a VR system you could have all 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.160 visual and audio data provided by computers, but you might 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.959 also have other stuff too. A computer might control a 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.080 selection of fans to blow air at you to simulate 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.080 wind or you know, rushing air if you're flying, or 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.520 something like that. You might even have a system that 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:56.680 releases certain sense, sort of how Disney's soaring over California 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.200 will blast riders with the smell of oranges as you 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.080 appear to fly over a grove of fruit trees. You 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.480 can have haptic feedback systems. These are ones that give 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.120 you some sort of tactile feedback, so you might have 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:15.800 like a vest that vibrates when you are encountering a 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.919 dangerous situation or something like that. They're all sorts of 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.240 different ways where a computer could provide the sensory input 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.919 that your body normally would get just through navigating through 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.720 a physical space. But the thing to remember is that 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.720 the computer is providing all this input. The computer is 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:39.280 replacing whatever is actually in your real world environment with 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:44.799 computer generated alternatives to that, right, and these things can 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.760 be very convincing. People have felt scared or anxious while 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.560 walking up to a virtual cliff side, even though they 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.080 know that in reality they're standing on a solid floor 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.080 in a room. There's no chance of them plummeting off 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.840 the side of a cliff because there's no cliff there. 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.679 But the experience of seeing it in virtual reality can 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.040 still be convincing enough to prompt your body to go 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.880 into a stress response. In fact, it could be so 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:19.160 convincing that some mental health professionals actually use VR systems 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:23.639 and scenarios as part of immersion therapy with patients who 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:29.400 experienced various phobias. I remember interviewing one psychiatrist many years 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.240 ago when I was working on a piece about VR 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:37.200 in medicine, and this psychiatrist actually used an airport scenario, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.320 a virtual airport scenario, to help patients who have a 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.720 fear of flying go through a simulated process of going 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.960 to an airport, walking through the airport, making their way 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.280 to the departure gate, all the steps they would actually 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.680 have to do in real life if they were going 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.240 on an airplane trip, and it was all meant to 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:03.560 kind of gently confess front the experience, and patients would 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.400 report feeling similar sensations of anxiety and fear while they 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.520 were doing so, even though they knew deep down that 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.880 they weren't actually in an airport. But the scenarios gave 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.280 those patients the opportunity to experience these situations in a 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.039 safe and controlled space and gave them confidence to build 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.320 up their tolerance and understanding of the situation so that 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.160 they could ultimately go and do it in the real 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.719 world further down in their therapy. And it was a 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.680 really cool thing to learn about. In many ways, it 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:38.960 reminds me of how thrill seekers enjoy things like roller coasters, right, 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:44.080 because roller coasters, assuming that they are properly designed, simulate 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.279 dangerous situations. Right, That's where the thrill comes from. You're 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.279 not in control, You're going along a track at high speeds, 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.760 up and down, maybe in twists and loops, all this 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.120 sort of stuff. It simulates being in a dangerous situation, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.200 and thus it is thrilling, but at the same time, 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.320 we ultimately know, or at least we certainly hope that 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.920 the ride is safe and that we're not in any 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:14.080 real danger. It's very similar in that regard, But there 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.720 are a lot of different challenges that come along with 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.040 virtual reality, and I think That's one of the many 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:24.240 reasons that virtual reality still isn't as widely adopted as 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.040 you might expect it to be considering how long VR 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.680 has actually been around. For those of you who are 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.120 old enough to remember, you might recall that back in 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.839 the nineteen nineties, when VR was first starting to become 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.599 a big deal, that a lot of money was poured 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.880 into research and development, but ultimately it kind of petered out. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.880 Some folks even opened up VR arcades that gave the 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:54.440 general public the opportunity to experience it for themselves. In fact, 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.760 I did this. There was a mall that was, you know, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.720 not too far from where I lived called Gwinet Play Small, 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.000 and they had a little VR arcade. You could go 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.480 there and I think it was like five or ten 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:12.000 bucks for like five minutes of playtime and you would 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.760 play the game. I remember. It's one that lots of 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.960 people know about from that time period called Dactyl Nightmare, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:23.080 and you were fighting against polygonal pterodactyls as well as 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.880 other players while navigating through a very simple geometric space. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:33.320 It wasn't terribly compelling from a graphics standpoint, but it 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.520 was really neat to quote unquote inhabit a game. However, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.560 the limitations like those graphical limitations and the fact that 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.880 you really couldn't do that much in the games. The 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:48.160 games were pretty darn simple and limited because of how 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.480 much computational processing power was required for it to actually work. 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.599 It meant that people found out that we had a 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.560 really long way to go to make VR what it 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.080 had been kind of hyped up to be. The expectation 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.480 of what VR could do was at a huge gap 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.880 compared to what it could actually do. And you got 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.120 to remember, like there were a lot of limitations. The 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.320 headsets back then were huge, and they were heavy. In fact, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.960 they were so heavy that most of the time you 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.080 were talking about a headset that would be suspended from 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.960 a frame in the ceiling. The suspension would let you 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.400 turn left or right, so it's not like you were 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.640 stuck in place. You weren't like in a static position. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.560 You could turn left or right, but you couldn't really 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:42.200 move forward or backward because you had this harness essentially 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.920 that was carrying much of the weight of the headset. 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:46.760 If it weren't, then it would be far too heavy 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.240 for you to wear it comfortably, especially for like five 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.920 minutes so in order to keep you in place, you 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.320 also would end up standing on a pedestal that had 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.240 a rail around it at about waste height, and this 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.000 would keep you from toppling off the side right, so 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.800 you could turn left and right, but you couldn't actually 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.640 step forward or backward or anything like that. There were 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.720 other issues too. Some systems struggled with latency. That's the 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.960 delay between when you take in action and when you 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.640 see it reflected on the screen in front of you. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.080 That delay creates this swimmy effect that for lots of people, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.840 including me, can lead to motion sickness, and it is 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:32.640 incredibly unpleasant. So the various limitations sapped away a lot 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:36.199 of the enthusiasm around VR, and so funding dried up 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.880 not long after that. There were still folks who were 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.000 working in the field of virtual reality, but they really 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.839 had to scramble to get funding in order to push 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.360 research forward. So progress slowed way down because there just 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.680 wasn't enough financial support to keep it going at a 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.000 good pace. But some other tech fields ended up doing 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.000 quite well, and the VR industry would end up taking 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:02.360 notes essentially scavenging, in order to get things that other 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.840 tech fields had developed and repurposing them for the needs 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.640 of VR, and one of the big ones would be 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.640 home video games, specifically home video game consoles that became 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:18.480 a popular source for innovation and equipment that VR would 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:23.000 end up repurposing. And those advances were meant to enhance 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:28.200 console systems and to create competitive advantages against other console systems, 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.880 but the VR space would appropriate the technology to help 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:35.120 advance their own research, so stuff like motion controls and 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.400 camera systems and light guns and all sorts of other 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.040 peripherals and control systems and functions would find a second 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.600 life over in VR research. We're talking about things like 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.960 even the Nintendo Power Glove, which admittedly was a pretty 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.000 lack luster video game controller, even though it looked cool 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.720 and every kid I knew wanted one because I grew 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.880 up in the era of the Nintendo, and when the 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.320 Nintendo Power Glove came out, everyone thought that was the 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.120 coolest thing ever. Turned out to not be the most 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.880 practical control system, but it was something that ended up 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.760 being useful over with VR research. Now, eventually we get 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.640 up to the twenty tens, when a teenager named Palmer 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.560 Lucky It produced a prototype VR headset that would eventually 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.640 become known as the Oculus Rift. Later on Facebook, Slash 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:29.120 Meta would acquire Oculus and these days what used to 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.960 be the Oculus Quest is now the Meta Quest. So 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.040 it all dates back to the early twenty tens. Lucky 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.800 was confident that he was onto something, and he even 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.040 dropped out of college in an effort to develop a 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:47.920 mass produced VR headset that could become a consumer electronics item. 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.079 Like it wouldn't just be something that you would find 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.840 in you a VR arcade or an amusement park or something. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:56.840 It could be something that people could actually own and 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.040 use in their own homes and VR could explode. So 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.480 again into the whole Oculus story would require an episode, 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.839 at least one, probably a couple plus. Then we would 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.520 probably have to acknowledge that Palmer Lucky has said and 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.440 done some stuff that has rubbed some people the wrong 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.320 way to put it lightly. But rather than get bogged 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.520 down in all of that, let's just take a little 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.200 side step. Well, just mention that at this point in 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.800 the twenty tens we started to see a real push 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.600 to get VR to the consumer space, and that's still 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.360 where we are today. For certain elements of VR, there 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:35.040 have been tons of advancements. The headset technology has really 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.840 come a long way to the point where now you 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.679 don't even need to have a tethered headset. So for 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.400 a very long time, if you wanted to have the 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.439 performance capabilities needed to have a good VR experience, your 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.120 headset needed to have a physical connection to a very 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.880 powerful computer. That requirement has kind of faded away over 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.600 the last half a decade, where now you can have 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:04.040 an untethered headset. That's a huge, huge leap forward, and 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.040 you know, it's possible now to make a headset that 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.800 someone can wear at least for a short gaming session 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.120 without having to mount it to the ceiling right like you. 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.520 They're no longer these enormous, clunky, heavy things, although they 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.600 are still significant, like you can't just wear one all 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.480 day and not feel it. They will start to wear 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.560 on you after a while, but you can at least 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.920 play for you know, a half hour or an hour 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:38.000 typically without it being too much of a burden, so 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.800 to speak. Controllers were getting better too. Nintendo and Sony 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:46.160 had both created control systems that used cameras and gyroscopes 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.640 and sensors and other technology to let players interface with 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.360 games by using gesture controls and waving controllers around rather 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.720 than just manipulating a joystick or a direction pad or 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.880 something like that. And this was seen as an important 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.680 component for VR as well, because anything that lets you 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.400 move closer to the way you would if you were 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.960 actually doing the same sort of stuff in the real 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.760 world really supports immersion when you're in the virtual world. 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.439 If the only way you can interact with the virtual 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.200 world around you is to hold a traditional game pad 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.000 in your hands and use joysticks and buttons, that creates 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.480 a kind of layer of abstraction that interferes with immersion. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.760 It doesn't necessarily break it entirely, but it's not helpful, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.840 right because that's not how we interact with the real 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.679 world when we're going around all the time. Plus, controllers 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.680 act as a kind of barrier to entry because for 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.240 non video game players having to use a game controller, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.840 it can be an obstacle. It's an unfamiliar experience. In fact, 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.760 I would argue that one of the big reasons that 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.760 Nintendo we became so popular when it first came out 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.720 is that Nintendo created a few non traditional motion based 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.360 methods to interact with the game system, and that really 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.079 appealed to people who had never played video games before. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.320 Because it didn't have this barrier to entry. You could 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.800 move around and that was controlling the game, and I 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.280 think that was a big reason why the we took off, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.000 and it's one of the reasons why VR companies look 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:26.080 for ways to kind of reduce that barrier of entry. Well, clearly, 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.160 all those motion controls were very useful for VR, but 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.960 there's another challenge that relates to this. How do you 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:40.560 actually navigate around a virtual space while inhabiting a physical one. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.240 That's what we're really going to focus on for the 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.400 rest of this episode. Before we get into all of that, however, 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.400 we need to take a quick break to thank our 0:14:49.440 --> 0:15:02.840 sponsors and we'll be right back. Okay, so you're in 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.160 a physical space, but you want to play a virtual 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.640 experience of some sort. Maybe it's a game, maybe it's 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.800 a virtual tour, whatever it might be. How do you 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.480 move around once you're inside the virtual space? Is there 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.360 a way to make it feel like you're actually moving 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.800 through a real space even though it's all virtual? Can 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.200 you do that? Or are you stuck using video game 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.040 controllers to either virtually walk or as a lot of 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.320 games and experiences do teleport short distances as you navigate 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.360 through the environment, so that instead of physically moving, you 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.160 point a controller at a space that you can see 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.080 on your screen, and you select it and it zaps 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.160 you there, and then you can turn around and look. 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.840 Maybe you interact a little bit, and then when you 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.200 want to move, you do it again. Like that's obviously 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.200 not how we really move. I wish it were. I 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.280 would love to be able to teleport, even if it's 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.160 just line of sight. It would be super cool. That's 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.760 not how the real world works, and so it is 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.680 a bit of an immersion breaking experience. So creating an 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.920 alternative to a controller based system is a non trivial problem. 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:17.240 People are experiencing these virtual reality scenarios inside real physical spaces, 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.400 and these spaces have real obstacles in them, like furniture 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.520 or walls. Meanwhile, the person in VR can't see these 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.960 real obstacles right because everything they're seeing is coming courtesy 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.560 of a computer system. It's not reflective of the real 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.200 world at all. It's all what the computer has generated, 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.440 and the computer might not be generating the fact that 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.720 there's a coffee table in front of you or a 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.360 wall immediately to your left. So while in VR it 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.200 might seem like you're in a meadow of flowers, in reality, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:48.920 you could be a step and a half away from 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.080 a footstool that's just waiting to ruin your whole afternoon. 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:57.000 So moving physically through a space while you appear to 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:01.880 be in a virtual environment is dangerous. This danger becomes 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.920 compounded if you want more than one person moving around 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.879 within that same physical environment at the same time. So 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.359 for a VR experience involving multiple people, you have to 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.840 actually figure out how can you have all of these 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:20.200 people come together safely within that virtual environment. Now, one 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.200 option is to only allow people to join over a 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:27.000 network connection, so they're not actually in the same physical 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.040 space at all, right, like you could each be in say, 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.720 your own homes or in adjoining rooms or whatever. But 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.600 what if you actually want to have people grouped together physically, 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.639 because there are times when you might want that. Imagine 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.760 that you're doing a military training simulation and you're moving 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.919 with a squad of soldiers, or maybe you're playing a 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.760 fantasy RPG style computer game and you're with a party 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.080 of adventurers and you're all in the same space and 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.320 you're all working together. You can even reach over and 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.320 tap your friend's shoulders silently to indicate it's time for 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.320 them to move forward. That would be pretty cool, but 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.520 you would have to have a way to orient everyone 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.280 together and to keep them from running into each other. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.880 This is a non trivial problem. For one thing you'd 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.159 have to build in the orientation feature. I'll explain this 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.159 in an example. So let's say that you and I 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.160 are together and we want to play a cooperative VR game, 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.640 which sounds awesome. I would love to play a game 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.960 with you, and so we each put on our headsets. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.560 We're in the same physical space. But let's say just 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.280 because the way we're standing and putting on our headsets, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.800 we're not really paying attention. You're facing the north wall 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.000 of this physical room, and I happen to be facing 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.520 the east wall of this physical space, this physical room, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.960 and we put our headsets on, but the game just 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.520 establishes that we're both facing the same direction within the 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.119 virtual world, even though physically we're at right angles to 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.600 each other. So the game thinks that the north wall 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.800 is your current version of forward, the east wall is 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.440 my current version of forward, and unfortunately, it thinks we're 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:08.560 both facing the same forward. So within the game, if 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.720 I were to look over to my side, I would 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.439 see you and it would look like you were facing 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.879 the same direction. I am same for you. If you 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.879 were to look over, you would see me, and it 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.320 looks like we're both facing the same direction. If I 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.600 stepped toward the east wall to you, it would look 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.879 like I took a step forward. If you took a 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.040 step toward the north wall, to me, it would look 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.640 like you took a step forward, even though we're now 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.080 moving within right angles to each other in the real world. 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.639 Now you can correct for this, this is not like 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.000 an unsolvable issue. You can build in what is essentially 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:43.160 a compass within the equipment so that it knows what 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.680 physical direction you're facing, and that compass can feed the 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.960 VR system information, letting it know that the two players 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.199 are actually facing different directions in the physical world, so 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.439 the game can feed each of us a different view, 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.680 so that in the game, we would be facing different 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.680 directions and I would see, oh, I'm at a right 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.040 angle to you, I need to switch. I need to 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.200 turn ninety degrees so that we're facing the same way, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.680 and then that solves the issue. Right The hardware could 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.879 also instead of using a compass, it could use some 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.760 other method like cameras. Right, you could have a camera 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:20.000 system both externally like on the system itself, and you 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.440 could also have cameras built into the headsets, and together 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.879 these can establish which way we're facing within the real world, 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.200 and that can feed into our experience in the virtual one, 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.439 so that we don't have this issue. So it is 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.320 possible to work around it, but the point is you 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:40.359 have to build it in. It's not just naturally there. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.159 Otherwise you end up with like an mcsher kind of 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.199 situation as people are moving in different directions in the 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.560 real world in order to move in the same direction 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.320 in the virtual one. The old VR arcades had a 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.080 real elegant solution for all this because the players were 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.639 held captive on those pedestals. Right. You were standing on 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.639 a little platform and you had to rail around you, 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.160 so you couldn't go anywhere. The headsets were all tethered 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.240 to the VR system. You had these huge cables that 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.080 would descend connecting to the headsets, but that also provided 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:17.040 a solution for orientation. You physically couldn't move around the room, 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:19.359 and the headsets were wired in such a way that 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.680 they could show a specific point of view depending upon 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.680 which way your head was pointed. But that doesn't work 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.160 so well if you want a more flexible and free experience, 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.239 if you want a bunch of untethered systems that are 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:34.040 all connected together in the same physical space. Now, there 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:39.600 have been numerous attempts to translate physical movement into virtual commands, 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:41.879 and one of them relies largely on the fact that 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.879 we human beings are not terribly good at walking in 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.320 a straight line. When we're blindfolded, we have a tendency 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.800 to veer off. We don't walk in a straight line. Typically, 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.080 when we're blindfolded, we walk in a more curved path. Now, 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.240 you can overcome this with a lot of practice. I'm 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.720 not saying that there's no way to walk a straight line, 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.800 it's just not how we typically move. If we aren't 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.800 using our eyes to give virtual cues so that we 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.920 stay on track, Generally speaking, we're prone to walk in circles. 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.120 But with the right approach in VR, it's actually possible 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.640 to take advantage of this and turn it into a feature, 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.879 not a bug. By presenting subtle visual cues within the 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:29.840 virtual environment, you can influence how a person perceives their 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:34.600 surroundings and by extension, how they move through those surroundings 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.560 by changing visual distances between points by small amounts, or 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.000 by adjusting the arc of how much your point of 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.280 view changes as you turn your head. These tweaks can 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.480 be subtle enough so that they don't seem strange to us, 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.760 and yet they can affect how we move through the space. 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:55.520 So we would perceive that we're moving in a straight line, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.040 but in fact the system is very subtly moving us 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:03.119 in a curve so that we are able to continue 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:07.840 forward progression, but we're not in danger of walking so 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.640 far that we slam into the wall. And this method 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.159 is called redirected walking, which makes sense right, and it 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.760 does work, but only up to a point. You can't 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.800 design a VR experience that moves people in a really 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.040 tight curve and then convince them that they're walking on 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:29.760 a straight tightrope. That just doesn't work. So there's a 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:33.440 limit to how much you can redirect someone before they 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:35.440 no longer feel like they're walking in a straight line. 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:37.600 There's going to be a disconnect from what they see 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:41.359 and what they're feeling. So redirected walking actually requires a 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:45.560 pretty large physical space to allow for that kind of movement, right, 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.400 because you need to have enough space where a gentle 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.760 curve is still enough to keep someone from being in 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.040 a collision course with a wall. Most of us don't 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.359