Got my VIVE a couple of days ago.
Seriously, this is some powerful stuff.
First time i put it on i felt somewhat disapointed: It is clumsy, i had some issues with my glasses at first, resolution is low, there is like a fine net covering all, field of view is not complete but like wearing scuba glasses, imagen clarity is not 100% near the borders...
But all those issues are meaingless once you look around and realize you are "there".
Tracking is perfect, headset and wands, to the point you could grab them in the air, 3d effect is so perfect i could not call it 3d effect anymore but reality effect. Objects feel "corporeus" like if really were there. Several times i found myself trying to leave my wands on some virtual table. My girldfriend even tried to drink of a virtual cup of tea at job simulator. There is a demo where you use a bow and you can really feel the cord tension even knowing that is not possible. Curiosly graphic quality is not that fundamental to perceive things as real. Movement smoothness, precise tracking and real physical behaviour are way more important.
Room scale experiences where you can walk some steps around are amazing, the only way to describe it is saying it is like RL. There is a demo where you look at a skeleton scanned from a real body floating in front of you, you can stare around, cut it anywhere with a moving surface, look inside it... All i can say is i learnt more anatomy in few minutes than in my whole life. Medicine faculties NEED this. Wands allow you to interact with things like if were your hands. Tracking is so good it feels totally natural. Whole room is easily covered. Tried everything to lose tracking, only thing that worked was to hide under the table.
Also tried the sitting experience, flight and racing simulators are whole new things. I tried Live for Speed and i suddenly was making great times. The spacial perception is so much better than seeing it in a flat surface in front of you. In flight sims you have a whole new perception of the real complexity of aircraft cockpits, the sensation of being surrounded by a lot of instruments and technological expensive stuff is very real. You ARE in a plane.
I am very prone to motion sickness and havent felt slightly sick at any moment except at a specific fast turn of a specific track in Live for Speed where you turn right and then left quickly. My body was expecting some heavy G force there and of course it didnt come. My stomach didnt like that very much. My brother otoh drove along hours and was perfectly OK.
Finally tried, ejem, the mandatory porn movie. I confess. It is not a frivolous or banal thing thought. It is not like seeing your usual porn movie at all. At some point one of the girls got his face really close and whispered something dirty in the guy ear (he was wearing the rv cam on his head obviously), i felt her breath in my ear in real life! It gets so ridiculously personal it is insane. It could be not too difficult to fall in love with some random porn star.
Cant think of how powerful could this technology be applied to cinema industry in general. There is not a flat screen separating the movie and the viewer worlds anymore. Dont know about comedy but dramatic movies would get much more intense at an emotional level because you are not in two separated worlds anymore but in the same world, so they are not things in a flat screen but real people habiting the same space along you. It is the same with game NPCs and even more with other human players in multiplayer games and such who you can interact with. I shot some random guy in the face at an online game called hoverjunkers and i felt slightly bad about it. You can really feel empaty towards the other beings in the virtual world... seriously, there is some deep s### here.
Only complain is lack of content. It is too early anyway and developing software takes time. In any case there is enough stuff already to keep me busy for some months. So guys buy it if you can, be it VIVE, Rift or PSVR, we need the largest VR user base as possible. VR is here and you need it. It needs to go mainstream! (and i need loads of content for my VIVE
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Conclusion: