Oculus Virtual Lounge (VirtuaView)

Post by **CaptnYesterday** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 9:36 pm

BACKED HARD! Very excited for this.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but this is really the first I have seen of true shared space using the Rift.

What about integrated voice chat? Something that utilizes basic directional voice.
If you use a 3rd party app like skype, all voices will be static in volume and direction. Everyone will sound like they are in your head and at a constant volume regardless of proximity or direction).

I discussed it here, but I think I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe now is the time? I hope you implement some form of this into your Virtual Lounge.

Post by **pizzy00** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 10:12 pm

Backed!!!

Post by **ElectroPulse** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 10:19 pm

Sweet! I can has cat! (Backed

)

Looking forward to trying it out!

One quick question that I'm curious about: When you say "Early access to Virtua View [and Virtual Lounge]", do you happen to have a timeframe in mind for that? Like, would you send out a current build to backers once the campaign completed, or wait a while to polish it a bit more? (I can completely understand if you'd be hesitant to give us even an estimate, so it's fine if you don't know yet).

Anyway, as others have stated, the announcement needs its own thread (or at least change this thread's title). I just noticed it this evening, and only because people were saying "Backed!" on the last page of this thread.

Post by **geekmaster** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 7:20 am

Somebody pointed out that this signature image is not visible when not logged in, so here is a new "imgur" version to solve that problem:

Code: Select all

Namielus' Oculus Virtual Lounge:
[url=http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/virtuaview/x/3696649][img]http://i.imgur.com/8UbjhOw.jpg[/img][/url]

And the old image is still attached in case somebody linked to it.

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 8:58 am

CaptnYesterday wrote:BACKED HARD! Very excited for this.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but this is really the first I have seen of true shared space using the Rift.

What about integrated voice chat? Something that utilizes basic directional voice.
If you use a 3rd party app like skype, all voices will be static in volume and direction. Everyone will sound like they are in your head and at a constant volume regardless of proximity or direction).

I discussed it here, but I think I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe now is the time? I hope you implement some form of this into your Virtual Lounge.

Directional Voice confirmed!

Post by **Vamplifire** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 9:30 am

Sorry It took so long...
Backed!

Post by **Ziggurat** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:37 am

Namielus wrote:
Ziggurat wrote:http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20 ... -Your-Perk

Namielus, please allow me to upgrade my contribution like described in this support article.
I'm on $30, and the golden ticket seems awesome so I would like to upgrade to $50 (plus you need all the money you can get).
This is almost like charlie and the chocolate factory :3

Edit:
It was golden in my head... lets just keep it golden in my head ^_^
I will look into it and make sure you get it, you can increase your pledge on your own right? I promise you will have a golden ticket.

Now I have contributed an extra $20

Altså hadde orginalt backet for $30 med det perk nivået. Og siden man ikke kan endre sin pledge så la jeg til en pledge for $20 uten perk, som anvist på den support artikkelen. Takk!!

Namielus wrote:
CaptnYesterday wrote:BACKED HARD! Very excited for this.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but this is really the first I have seen of true shared space using the Rift.

What about integrated voice chat? Something that utilizes basic directional voice.
If you use a 3rd party app like skype, all voices will be static in volume and direction. Everyone will sound like they are in your head and at a constant volume regardless of proximity or direction).

I discussed it here, but I think I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe now is the time? I hope you implement some form of this into your Virtual Lounge.
Directional Voice confirmed!

Are you using something like this?
http://www.actionreactionlabs.com/ghost.php

Post by **geekmaster** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:45 am

Signature code block above now updated to use offsite "imgur" image, so it can be seen when not logged in:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 14#p134314

Sadly, even after the size reduction, there are now complaints about it still being too tall, and too "visible" too. Somebody wants it half as tall (again) and far lower contrast (white and light gray at the "white background" OculusVR site). Maybe they are working on a competing product?

I never saw such complaints on much larger kickstarter banners.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
--Bill Cosby

Post by **CaptnYesterday** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:59 am

Namielus wrote:
CaptnYesterday wrote:BACKED HARD! Very excited for this.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but this is really the first I have seen of true shared space using the Rift.

What about integrated voice chat? Something that utilizes basic directional voice.
If you use a 3rd party app like skype, all voices will be static in volume and direction. Everyone will sound like they are in your head and at a constant volume regardless of proximity or direction).

I discussed it here, but I think I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe now is the time? I hope you implement some form of this into your Virtual Lounge.
Directional Voice confirmed!

You are the man! It has been a nagging interest of mine ever since I started reading MTBS back in March (yeah, I'm a noob)

.

Hey, just a thought (although I'm sure that you are already ontop of it), audio integrated into many games often has very poor quality and high compression to keep overhead and latency low between the systems. I am guessing that your audio quality can be much higher as this is a social app rather than a twich shooter.

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 11:52 am

the audio bandwidth is a challenge when theres more than 30 users at the same time, but I am going to do my best to find tricks for solving that.
If there are 100 players, you don't want to be hearing them all at once anyway

Post by **zalo** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:00 pm

If you had a lot of computing power server side, you could lump all of the feeds into one signal, and then send that to all the players as a kind of quiet background noise, and then when any player gets close, you send the players eachothers feeds at a louder volume. You could do that for each floor, and change the hearing radius based on how many players are in the room.

Post by **Ziggurat** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:55 pm

zalo wrote:If you had a lot of computing power server side, you could lump all of the feeds into one signal, and then send that to all the players as a kind of quiet background noise, and then when any player gets close, you send the players eachothers feeds at a louder volume. You could do that for each floor, and change the hearing radius based on how many players are in the room.

I think that would be impractical to do if he is going to manage directional voice.

Post by **CaptnYesterday** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:56 pm

-Once a player's avatar drops from an audible proximity(too far away to hear), I wonder if that stream could be dropped.
-Audible proximity could be altered based on the speaker's intensity (Shouting or whispering)

I never thought that there may be 100+ people using the same lounge room at the same time. If there were 100 people jammed all up on the stage behind the movie chairs... then that would be alot of audio streams, but it would at least be realistic. I can't hear sh*t in a crowded bar.

To be honest though, in a real life situation, I do not often find myself within an audible distance of more than 20 people at any given time. In a 'bar' I won't hear what that hot chick and her friend are talking about in a corner unless I walk close enough to them to use my corny pick-up lines

or drunkenly shout from across the room(increasing my audible proximity). Both of which resulting in my being 'shut down'. awe... in explaining this I made myself sad

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:59 pm

I think its going to be a magic moment the day we hear inaudible chatter and murmur from a large audience, and the silence that ensues when a speaker begins talking.

Post by **DarkLoG** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:01 pm

Hi I read most of your postings on this thread and liked the ideas of this project very much, but I am afraid your project is getting to big for you to handle it. The video on indiegogo shows many good ideas, but I am pretty sure you cannot implement all those features in an adequate amount of time and soo please focus on some main features and your project will be successful. I work as head of development in a mainly software company, so I know what I am talking about. If you like to deliver a really high quality product and an really immersive experience you will need much time to work on some small details. Those details are the key features of most products, but that will only be possible, if you skip some of the ideas and pick only the best 5 or so. I wish you all the best for your project.

Post by **Pingles** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:03 pm

Yes, giving a proximity cut-off would be great. Otherwise it will be like in those movies when somebody can hear everyone's thoughts and there's too many people.

Might also be nice if someone could request a Global voice to address a room. Then you could accept/deny the request. Maybe it could have a small text snippet with the request:

Pingles is requesting global chat: Announcing meetup in another room

This is really neat stuff. Can't wait for my IndieGoGo rewards!

Post by **Lookforyourhands** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:21 pm

I have a dumb question. If you back min of $18 it says you get instant access to the current alpha version.

Anyone know where we go to get this ?

Cheers.

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:32 pm

First I was thinking instantly after the campaign ends, but I have been working to release it asap and trying to have a meeting with everyone.
Theres just a few little things I need to fix for privacy concerns of each person.
(ability to password a party you create)

Right now anybody can join, and it can be intrusive if you want to try it out alone.

Post by **ElectroPulse** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 2:00 pm

(I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere, I haven't seen it yet) I'm curious... How will hosting work? Are we going to be able to host our own servers? Or will it just be one central server? (I'd imagine that if we hosted our own, password protection wouldn't be entirely essential right off the bat, unless you are planning on hosting a master server type thing that lists all the ongoing meet-ups, rather than connecting directly via IP address).

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:27 pm

You cant host yourself at the moment, thats beneficial in terms of how much bandwidth the multiplayer data requires, since you don't have to upload your tracking information to every person, just the server.

You are essentially a host when you create a party/room, and you are the one who controls lighting and video playback + what
scenario to warp to, but all the data does not go through you.

Post by **ElectroPulse** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:46 pm

Namielus wrote:You cant host yourself at the moment, thats beneficial in terms of how much bandwidth the multiplayer data requires, since you don't have to upload your tracking information to every person, just the server.

You are essentially a host when you create a party/room, and you are the one who controls lighting and video playback + what
scenario to warp to, but all the data does not go through you.

Ah, ok. So you are intending on hosting some servers for this then? Any ideas whether it will be a free service? Or will there be some sort of subscription?

Post by **Namielus** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:50 pm

I do not want VirtuaView to be subscription based, but then again dedicated servers have to be paid somehow.
If I cannot find a clever solution I will have to go back to one player being the host, and maybe have a subscription if you need hundreds of player capability.
After all thats not going to be something that everyone needs.

Post by **Ziggurat** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 1:58 am

To much coffee at the office now. Got restless, had to post your indiegogo to 4chan.
Well had to try, 4chan is hit or miss, either you get 2-3 contributions, or enough people to change the outcome of a NY Times yearly top 100 list.

Post by **Hornet** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:03 am

Hi look to servers of Condor soaring simulator here:
http://www.condorsoaring.com/serverlist.php

the servers are created and hosted on PC own by players, there are transmitted to 32 players data, transmitted are parameters of flight of each player as stream of parameters - no so much data. Sound is transmitted by teamspeak.

Post by **LordJuanlo** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:35 am

My vote goes for both private servers (if I want to create one for me and my friends I should be able to do it) and dedicated hosting for larger audiences.

Post by **geekmaster** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 11:35 am

LordJuanlo wrote:My vote goes for both private servers (if I want to create one for me and my friends I should be able to do it) and dedicated hosting for larger audiences.

Perhaps you could switch between private and public servers by going though locked doors in the VR building? You only enter private servers if you have the right key. No need to exit VR to switch servers.

Post by **Drambles** » Wed Jun 26, 2013 1:06 pm

Backed! I am particularly excited about playing multiplayer arcade games!

Post by **hast** » Thu Jun 27, 2013 10:47 am

Namielus wrote:I do not want VirtuaView to be subscription based, but then again dedicated servers have to be paid somehow.
If I cannot find a clever solution I will have to go back to one player being the host, and maybe have a subscription if you need hundreds of player capability.
After all thats not going to be something that everyone needs.

I have been thinking about hosted servers for other projects and one possible solution I've thought of is to have servers hosted on Amazon EC2 (or some other cloud provider). The case I was thinking for was mobile based so I was considering making "in app purchases" where you pay tokens or something to keep the server up and running. It has the bonus of making it fairly easy for you to budget things so it at least covers itself. And you could have some built in ads which could give players "free" tokens of the same value as the ads.

But I'm not sure if there is any feasible way of doing this on generic PC applications.

You could make server images available for people. Then anyone who wanted could run it on their own EC2 instances or on their own computer.

Post by **RoTaToR** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:59 pm

It doesnt reach the goal...

linear projection (yeah, i know its not linear, but good for quick result)

Post by **geekmaster** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:19 pm

RoTaToR wrote:It doesnt reach the goal...

linear projection (yeah, i know its not linear, but good for quick result)

As I understand it, an indiegogo flexible funding campaign does not have to reach its goal for funds to be collected. Namielus announced that more money will allow him to add more featers, but we will get something no matter what.

Post by **Bmitch1012** » Wed Jul 03, 2013 7:20 pm

Backed, shared, psyched!! Good Luck!

Post by **geekmaster** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:17 pm

Cool... I just noticed that my indiegogo "impact" is "Leet" (1337):

Code: Select all

My Impact:
Campaigns I've Shared | Clicks | Funders | Funds Contributed
VirtuaView	         |  1,337 |      31 |              $706

That indiegogo "impact" page shows referral credits (with no benefit to me).

Sadly, this campaign (and other recent campaigns I have been watching) are heading toward a fraction of what they need. Let's hope it picks up more traction in the media, so more people can find it and support it. Or, it needs a generous benefactor...

But hey, "Leet" people have clicked my indiegogo link, and that is cool...

Oh, and "bump"... This thread needs more attention!

Post by **ElectroPulse** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 10:18 pm

geekmaster wrote:Cool... I just noticed that my indiegogo "impact" is "Leet" (1337):
Code: Select all
My Impact:
Campaigns I've Shared | Clicks | Funders | Funds Contributed
VirtuaView	         |  1,337 |      31 |              $706
That indiegogo "impact" page shows referral credits (with no benefit to me).

Sadly, this campaign (and other recent campaigns I have been watching) are heading toward a fraction of what they need. Let's hope it picks up more traction in the media, so more people can find it and support it. Or, it needs a generous benefactor...

But hey, "Leet" people have clicked my indiegogo link, and that is cool...

Oh, and "bump"... This thread needs more attention!

One thing that was previously mentioned, is you might want to change the name of this thread to reflect that the Indiegogo campaign is up (I had actually started to ignore this thread a bit before you actually launched the campaign, figuring that a separate thread would be made announcing the campaign's launch. I wouldn't have known if I didn't happen to come into the thread and notice people say they had backed). For example, you could change it to something like "Oculus Virtual Lounge - Indiegogo Campaign Launched" or something along those lines. Hopefully a few more people will see it then.

Post by **defactoman** » Sat Jul 13, 2013 10:35 pm

If there was ever a time for this, it was me watching Sharknado.... I couldn't help but talk about how much i wanted to get a bunch of friends together with the rift watching Mystery Science Theater 3k style in a theater...

Post by **Namielus** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 12:30 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb7Ps3q6_yM

Here is a new and (hopefully) better video showing some more planned features,
leaking some news about YEI, showing my 3d scanner in its early form and some additional footage.

Can someone please give me a tip on where to post here to get the maximum attention?

I am just so out of ideas and energy, and I really need help. I can manage with less than 50K, but not just 4600 dollars.

Thanks for your input guys

Post by **zalo** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:49 pm

Nice video! That should have been the first video on the campaign; I fear it is too late for it to mean much.

The successful kickstarters I've seen have done some of the following:
-Drumming up support across a diverse range of social media sites (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, MTBS, Youtube etc.) BEFORE the campaign even starts with special promotions and ads
-Using a dedicated website as the HQ for all things about that project
-Having a video with:

-video of people who made the project talking
-video of people who tried the project talking/endorsing
-video of beta project in action
(watch a bunch of successful kickstarter videos to see what I mean)

-having a limited number of early bird promotions and discounts (to reward people who followed social media and to build up quick money)
-had explosive beginnings (thanks to careful building of social media)
-had rewards cost in multiples of five
-had pretty logos (I'm not fond of the current one, sorry)
-had a low goal that (when quickly met) would inspire even more confidence in the backer

When you see a new project that has raised a ton of money despite being in its infancy, that builds credibility and motivates backers to back.

Good luck if you want to go another round! This first one didn't seem to get much publicity so it's probably not out of the question.
As far as development for the next round, I'd just get full-body avatars in since that seems to have put a whole bunch of people off.

Also change the title of the thread to reflect the updates that have been taking place. I usually avoid checking these long threads unless I know there's been an update (I found out about this update since I'm subscribed to you on youtube).

Lastly and leastly: Tier is pronounced "Teer" as in "Teardrop".

Post by **mahler** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 4:03 pm

zalo wrote:Nice video! ...
Lastly and leastly: Tier is pronounced "Teer" as in "Teardrop".

Thanks for clearing up the confusion!

Post by **Xemakon** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 4:58 pm

You could get some friends to pimp links to your campaign in the comments section of every single oculus rift article you can find on Google news. I saw tons of discus comments for people trying to support the gallery during their campaign in articles from various internet websites. There are a ton out there, each with their own following of readers. kotaku, ign, penny arcade, roadtovr, the verge, pc mag, pc world, toms hardware, joystik. Don't limit yourself to only MTBS3D and the OR Forums.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl= ... Pc6vDwvEKM

Post by **Zoide** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 8:00 am

Namielus wrote:I do not want VirtuaView to be subscription based, but then again dedicated servers have to be paid somehow.

You could always have ads in the form of posters in some of the hallways or rooms, etc.

Post by **Zoide** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 8:08 am

VirtuaView has 187 funders, but only 97 Facebook likes, 2 tweets, and 16 +1's. Perhaps the project would get more money if every funder where to share it with their social network contacts.

Also, I think the reward tiers are a bit confusing. The $18 tier says you get early access to the "Virtual Cinema + the finished product". Does that mean that the Virtual Cinema is not part of the regular VirtuaView? I don't quite understand the distinction between them.