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Oculus Virtual Lounge (VirtuaView)

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:26 pm
by Namielus
I have been playing around alot with Unity to see what I can do, since its going to support Oculus Rift.
What if we could throw together a mtbs/oculus themed exclusive virtual lounge/hangaround,
for everyone on the forum to hang out and trying out their Rifts in december?

Its a kind of goofy silly idea, but at the same time I could make a model of a cafeteria in no time.
If someone knows how to do either an external "avatar-creator" or implementing it ingame,
people could just make their own avatars matching their own height, eye separation and so on.

I have seen a few games that let you scan your face, and the body of the avatar is pre-rigged etc, thus no
skills needed.

If someone wants to make a more advanced avatar of themselves they can model and rig their own and upload it.

That might be a place to meet up and test full body motion tracking etc once ideas starts coming to life as well.
In other words, I could literally watch someone making gestures, look at their motion tracked virtual bodies,
and speaking to them about how it looks.

The project could be open sourced, so that one could try out different concepts etc in a mutual meeting place.

I have a ton of ideas of what activities could be fun inside something like that, but first I want to hear peoples opinions and check if theres someone out there willing to help out.
Does this idea suck? Is it a childish idea? Be honest

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:33 pm
by IGameArt
i wouldnt say it was a childish thing, but i think it could be expanded upon similar to the playstation home app on the ps3 where users can get together, lounge, play games, watch trailers and whatnot. I think ifyou add to the idea there could be some more appeal to it.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:40 pm
by Namielus
Yes, actually even a simple program like sketchup can generate pretty nice looking results imported into unity, and adding collision detection is so easy that pretty much anyone can do it.

In other words I think it could easily be madein such a way that people can make their own "rooms", that you teleport to, or even having it as a street.

My point was having a sort of lounge as the base, and letting people go crazy with their ideas by adding it themselves.

One thing I have not researched enough is how well you can do physics in Unity 3 or even better 4 when it comes out.

A very cool application is for anyone who has hand tracking being able to manipulate a big cube of "playdough" like material, to demonstrate how the rift and hand tracking can really change the way we do 3dmodelling.

Imagine someone directly sculpting , and people being able to watch it happen or even participate.
It would be a incredibly interesting art project and tech demo.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:49 pm
by cybereality
Yeah, this would be cool. Kinda too busy to help with it myself, but I like the idea.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:53 pm
by Namielus
If anybody know of any games, especially open source, on the unity platform that support creating your own avatar, please tell.
Or maybe you can buy a pre-fab resource on the unity market thing?

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:11 pm
by IGameArt
That honestly shouldnt be too hard, as simple as having swappable heads or a change in the head texture based on a photograph. Once i get my new laptop i'll play some more with unity but i cant do much here as it is until then.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:23 pm
by wuliheron
It doesn't sound childish to me at all, just a fun thing to experiment with. I'm not a programmer, but the thing that strikes me is the lag times over the internet could be a serious problem for the Oculus. You might want to see what that looks like first before investing a lot of work into avatars. Something like people just sitting around tables might work, while wandering around the room might not. In which case you can save a lot of time and effort and focus on the upper body and face for avatars.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:24 pm
by AndrewRyan
One idea that I've had regarding virtual lounges is the option to attach program functionality to objects. Imagine pressing a button on a virtual Jukebox and bringing up Pandora or Spotify. Or virtual picture frames that automatically takes images from Deviant Art and present them in a cycle. Or a blank virtual book where you just type in the title to turn the empty husk into whatever you want to read. If the world could be made open source then, potentially, you could have thousands of different applications running in your lounge all customized to fit your wants and needs to a tee.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:28 pm
by Namielus
Wuliheron, as long as your own view is not affected by lag, I dont think its such a big problem.
You dont know how far behind other peoples actions are (within reason)

In terms of object interaction, I suspect the direct result can be rendered on your local computer then sent to the server.
In other words, like when im playing fps multiplayers, it looks and feels like the response is instant, because it is rendered in realtime from your perspective. If you shoot someone in the back, you woul swear that you hit them.
But if you are 150ms behind, the other player is not really there at that time.

I think it should just be designed at a slower pace, and its going to bee smooth and fine

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:55 pm
by lnrrgb
Since we're dreaming, I've often thought about a virtual forum, where we interact, read posts, etc., with the highlight being that our avatars were spaceships. We would pilot around to examine each other, see new posts, all that stuff... and the kicker was that our ships were designed according to our PC specs. So certain motherboard makes/models would be represented as different starship classes. PSU's would show up as different thrusters. You get the idea I'm sure. If you browsed in on your laptop, others would see some speedy starfighter. If you were on a beefy gaming rig, you'd be bumping shields with a capital cruiser. Maybe a community would spring up that thought just the opposite, and the high end rigs would be sleeker, and sexier. Its a bit too ambitious, but I've always liked the PC modding community, and figured there ought to be a better way to show off your rig, than just pics/specs in a signature, etc. I guess it could be mechs too, but the correlation to our real world specs seems untapped.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:04 pm
by Namielus
Yea Ive thought about having an actual virtual forum, and the ship idea could be fun.
Mine would be the deathstar :ugeek: Just kidding. Or AM I???

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:08 pm
by brantlew
Yeah, I think a website implemented as a canvas/WebGL that only Rift users would be able to fully exploit is a slick idea. You could keep the graphics pretty basic so that browsers could render it. It seems like something that Oculus should do as part of their website or forums.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:57 pm
by lnrrgb
I think the Deathstar avatar would be reserved for someone running a quantum computer - but then if someone had one, we'd all have them. Or perhaps, if we could tally up all the old boxes of used parts (I know we all have), then perhaps we all have a Deathstar already.... ( episode 4, half built, with tons of scaffolding).

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:04 am
by wuliheron
Forget the Deathstar, I want the Mos Eisley Cantina bar complete with the alien band. And, of course, a selection of appropriate theme avatar to choose from.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 3:18 am
by EdZ
Might I suggest starting with a black sphere with a circumference of 65536km?

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:17 am
by BHawthorne
Why reinvent the wheel? Just get a MTBS3D space setup on Second Life or one of the other metaverses.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:00 am
by colocolo
@wuliheron

it would be so great if u could jump with your millenium falcon at speed of light from planet to planet.

actually it might be a very considerable idea for VR:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70JOUoyYQcI[/youtube]

being in an entire Star Wars universe where online players are dressed up as different aliens :D

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:28 am
by Okta
This is how the Snow Crash 'Metaverse' will begin i think. Start with a street and add buildings just like a remote gold rush town... Deadwood anyone?

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 9:23 am
by gray
I actually see this as a key component of AR/VR.

A central hub/hangout/room that you and your social circle and can watch tv/film/launch games from as a collective experience.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:19 am
by druidsbane
I agree. So when is Outerra going to be released? Will there be an open SDK to license the engine for free apps? I think something like the metaverse needs an open base, servers as well as UI, though they should be interchangeable much like webbrowsers and webservers. Outerra has always impressed me every time I've seen it though.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:41 pm
by cybereality
Funny, I am (re-)reading Snow Crash now and I was totally thinking about this thread.

I think its a good idea, but I also agree about not re-inventing the wheel. Probably need to find something open-source, or a game we could mod.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 9:11 pm
by Namielus
From what I know about Second Life I dont agree, but if the game being modded can implement physics and ultimately hand/body tracking I dont mind.

Unity has a lot of resources available tho, and its almost as easy to use as a map editor, based on what I've tried so far.
I will continue to play around with my current world in unity until someone has a concrete suggestion.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:17 am
by MemeBox
It would be possible to add 3d scans of objects into the shared space. Take a look at http://reconstructme.net/blog/, it scans objects using the kinect :)

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 6:44 pm
by AndrewRyan
BHawthorne wrote:Why reinvent the wheel? Just get a MTBS3D space setup on Second Life or one of the other metaverses.
No, no, no, no, no! I've played second life and I can tell you the graphics are poop, the interface is clunky and laggy, and everything costs an arm and a leg!

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:09 pm
by Fredz
Second Life may not be the panacea, but I fail to see how a single person who's never programmed massive client/server apps in 3D could implement something better with an unknown engine in less time than their team (ie. more than 10 years).

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:36 pm
by wuliheron
Intel has been investigating using their Larrabee/knights corner for cloud gaming which would be ideal for something like a virtual lounge. With the low lag requirements you could eventually have photo realistic ray cast graphics.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 10:42 am
by Namielus
Image

The first room in the virtual lounge; The theatre/conference room is starting to take shape. I designed it with the idea that people could watch the same content together.

*Watching pre made content like movies, tv, youtube etc together.
*Watching live events such a real sports, pro gaming streams etc
*Watching lessons, keynotes with a speaker in front of the audience controlling the "Projector" or turn it into a form of virtual whiteboard

*People being allowed to talk to eachother without disturbing the rest, could choose speaking to everyone (something like private chat, vs broadcast to everyone)

The other room im playing with is inspired by alice in wonderland. It has buttons you push that change your size, perspective, your physics and the worlds physics. The idea is that you can leave that room keeping those settings.

Being the fly on the wall in the cinema room for instance or watching the moviegoers from the ceiling down

PS: First one to guess the movie wins.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 10:58 am
by MrGreen
That's pretty flippin awesome Namielus!

No idea about the movie. The guy holding the thing kinda looks like Christian Bale... The Machinist? I've got nothing.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 11:08 am
by Namielus
MrGreen, thanks. I'll give some hints after I get some more guesses.
Btw, are you by any chance MrGreen, the producer?

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 11:59 am
by Gunshot
isnt that eXistenZ? its willem dafoe, not christian bale.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:03 pm
by Gunshot
Also, this whole concept reminds me so much of the book Ready Player One. real good, described as alice in wonderland meets the matrix.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:30 pm
by FingerFlinger
You know, I think this is a really good concept, Namielus! Unlike a generic virtual lounge, there is a specific purpose to it. And once you get people all in the same place, they can't help but talk to each other. I think that a virtual lounge by itself could be a bit awkward until people become used to it.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:56 pm
by Namielus
Yes I think this sort of thing needs a spesific purpose, like "we have this concept, lets go into the lounge and field test it"


Gunshot; you nailed it! Somebody give him a prize !

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 2:13 pm
by MrGreen
Namielus wrote:MrGreen, thanks. I'll give some hints after I get some more guesses.
Btw, are you by any chance MrGreen, the producer?
I can't say I am!

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:38 pm
by Zaptruder
This is of course one of the most natural extension ideas of a VR interface. Creating virtual environments for social interaction.

And it's going to be big money as well - I can forsee in the future that many businesses will create virtual offices with this sort of interaction over physical offices - with the benefits been reduced cost, allows them to cater to larger geographical area, and more office design variety and flexibility (I mean, it really doesn't even have to be tied to the normal notion of a physical office).

Some ideas that you'd want in either scenario - as a virtual lounge and or office.

Full body camera emote - cheap motion capture tech at its best. I think this one factor will change the viability of avatar communication immensely.

Software pass through - some sort of system that is able to emulate (or capture the video frames of) any program that can run on your computer normally. Allows you to use legacy software easily - but also means you don't have to reinvent the wheel for every function out there.

Of course this means you can move and drag the virtual windows and resize them all around your body in a manner that isn't possible on the real desktop - providing the application with a pretty compelling user feature right off the bat.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 1:27 am
by Gunshot
I can imagine multiple people viewing the same movie online in such a fassion would piss off the mpaa. "did they all pay for this movie!? Pirates!!" regardless I hope this works.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 1:41 am
by Okta
So.... if everyone is watching a video stream, does it halt for everyone every time the weakest link buffers?

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 6:27 am
by Namielus
Okta, I guess that depends on how important it is for it to be completely synced.
It is hard to discuss/comment if people are viewing the video stream at different points in time.
For live events, i guess the person buffering would have to skip forward.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 11:58 am
by BHawthorne
MemeBox wrote:It would be possible to add 3d scans of objects into the shared space. Take a look at http://reconstructme.net/blog/, it scans objects using the kinect :)
What you are talking about is called photogrammetry. There is a forum that is focused on the technology at http://www.pgrammetry.com/forum/

Lots of information to digest there for recreating point clouds of real objects and locations. Also some talk about AR. Most of their stuff isn't realitime. TO go realitime you need to focus down on recent Kinfu development using the microsift Kinect and PCL. http://pointclouds.org/

Personally, I just installed Autodesk's 123D Catch on my iPhone 4S. That'll allow you to capture objects and mesh them using just your iPhone. Handy when you want to be mobile.

Would be very cool to see someone combine a Kinect and a Rift and see a true AR appliance.

Re: Oculus Virtual Lounge

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:28 pm
by FingerFlinger
@BHawthorne I just saw that they released the iPhone version; how has your experience been with it so far? I'm going to play with it after work today.