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by gpm 1849 days ago
> Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps.

What do you think it's a matter of then? I guess I would add latency to the list, but those 3 metrics seem to capture the difference in visual perception between vr and the real world?

2 comments

There are a lot of differences, some of which cause more discomfort than others. Color and contrast are two smaller ones; VR headsets aren't HDR yet and it really shows when trying for realism.

There is also focal length, which is fixed (generally at 2 meters) in VR and creates discomfort, especially when reading. Facebook has eye tracking and motorized varifocal lenses to deal with this, but they're too big and loud and they haven't been able to put them in commercial headsets.

I'm someone who's used a fair bit of VR. I never really got motion sick, but initially (a few weeks) I did feel somewhat disoriented and at one point almost lost my balance. For me what caused it was the dissonance between what my eyes and my inner ear were telling me regarding my movement and orientation.

However, I've noticed that with time my brain seems to have learned that VR is a different mode. I no longer get dizzy from it, but I feel a strange numb feeling in the back of my head. It's like my mind knows not to trust my eyes anymore for balance when in VR.

I've tried to use VR on a treadmill and immediately regretted it every time.

It's too bad, because I would really like to be able to do virtual walking tours of places while on the treadmill, but as soon as the camera moves anywhere but where I'm looking at the time, I want to vomit.

That strikes me as a software design problem, you can make movement in VR 1-1 with the real world, for many non-game's it makes a lot of sense to do that.

Maybe also a latency problem (a big part of why it's in the list above).

To be clear, this wasn't a matter of walking around or turning my head and it not matching. It's mainly been when using a joystick for locomotion and turning.

When I almost fell was a situation where in the VR simulation I was swinging on a rope >360 degrees around a horizontal ledge while spinning around 180 degrees with the stick and trying to aim a bow with my hands.

( Windlands 2 )