What is virtual reality: properties, classification, equipment - a detailed overview of the field. A virtual reality
United 3D Labs Interactive Graphics Lab develops virtual reality solutions, including:
- industrial VR simulators;
- simulators in virtual reality;
- museum expositions and interactive VR installations;
- virtual tours;
- games.
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A virtual reality developed by United 3D Labs for the MIREA Branch in Fryazino.
Mystery of virtual reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is perhaps the most mysterious and popular part of computer graphics. Many fantastic books and films extol its benefits and scare possible consequences use. Virtual reality takes the user into an artificial world created by developers. Unlike augmented reality, where the basis is a real image transmitted by a video camera, in virtual reality all objects are created in computer graphics development programs.
Various applications of virtual reality technologies have been known for several decades, they are actively used in the military, space industry, and medicine. Ordinary users have really encountered virtual reality quite recently - with the appearance in wide sale in 2016 of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality glasses, as well as all kinds of VR helmets for mobile phones.
Not only VR glasses
It should be noted that virtual reality is not only glasses and helmets. Multi-screen configurations, CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) rooms, Virtual Reality Video Wall with a viewing angle of more than 180 degrees, etc., all these solutions are also designed to take the user into the virtual world. These systems are very expensive and extremely complex from a technical point of view, but at the same time, they have a number of advantages, starting with the main one - no need to wear rather uncomfortable virtual reality glasses.
Application of virtual reality
Of course, first of all, the creators of computer games seized on the opportunities offered by affordable VR glasses - transferring the user to the virtual world of the game is, of course, much more interesting (and promises much greater profits) than showing this very world on the monitor screen. But relatively cheap consumer VR glasses have more serious uses. What used to be available only to the military, who bought a pair of glasses for 50 thousand dollars, is now available to museums, schools and institutes. All kinds of realistic virtual tours, reconstructions of objects and events, virtual experiments, the ability to see with your own eyes what cannot be seen in real life- that's just a small part of the possibilities offered by virtual reality glasses. And of course, for unique opportunities virtual reality to create realistic simulators and simulators seized on industrial enterprises.
Standalone virtual reality headset
It is worth paying special attention to the segment of wireless virtual reality glasses, such as HTC Focus or Oculus Go. They, of course, lose to their older brothers Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in terms of complexity and quality of graphics, but they have a huge advantage - mobility. They are not wired to a desktop computer. And they have enough computing power to show projects of the same architectural visualization or a small simulator.
United 3D Labs interactive graphics laboratory invites you to our demo room. We will be happy to show the virtual reality solutions we have developed and demonstrate the main models of VR glasses that exist on the market, talk about their strengths and weaknesses.
1. We study the equipment
Ask yourself: Am I interested in developing for desktop devices like the HTC Vive, or am I more interested in mobile devices like the Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard? If you haven't decided yet, then read the reviews and think about what is the best choice for your market. If your ideas require motion controllers or high-quality graphics, then focus on computer-connected VR glasses. Models currently supported by Unity, Unreal engines and web implementations:Computer VR:
- Photogrammetry and 3D scanning
- Check out Oculus' Introduction to Spatial Audio Positioning and this video 3D Audio: Designing Sounds for VR.
4. Introduction of interactivity
After you get comfortable with the engine and prepare art materials, you will need to figure out how to make your project interactive. I highly recommend first reading about the principles of building UI and UX in virtual reality. Otherwise, your users may get sore eyes from bad stereoscopic rendering decisions, or get motion sick. This can be avoided by simply deselecting the text anchor to the viewport, or by placing the player's camera while moving in a visible capsule (car, suit, cockpit). And if you want to implement manual control, then I recommend doing everything as realistically as possible - your research and prototyping efforts will be rewarded with a sense of presence.. A guide explaining various useful principles.
About what trends in the IT world you should pay attention to in the future 2017. One of the points was virtual reality, and for good reason. Interest in VR has grown strongly over the past 2–3 years and continues to grow, more and more different equipment and technologies appear, and most importantly, new ideas that need developers to implement.
In this introductory article, we will talk about the properties, types and applications of VR - this will help to better orient those who want to start their journey in a developing and relevant field.
A virtual reality is a computer-generated three-dimensional environment with which the user can interact, completely or partially immersed in it.
VR properties
It is rare to find a complete set, but the following are the features that you need to focus on when creating virtual reality.
- believable - keeps the user feeling the reality of what is happening.
- Interactive - provides interaction with the environment.
- machine-generated - based on powerful hardware.
- available for study - provides an opportunity to explore a large detailed world.
- Creating the effect of presence - involves both the brain and the body of the user in the process, affecting the maximum possible number of sensory organs.
Types of VR
Immersive VR
This type implies the presence of three factors:
- A believable simulation of the world with a high degree detail.
- A high-performance computer capable of recognizing user actions and responding to them in real time.
- Special equipment connected to a computer, which provides an immersive effect in the process of exploring the environment. We will talk about it in more detail later.
VR without immersion
Not everyone and not always needs a complete immersion in an alternative reality. Non-immersive simulations include high-quality visuals, sound, and controllers, ideally broadcast on a wide screen. Also falling into this category are projects such as 3D archaeological reconstructions of ancient settlements or building models that architects create to showcase their work to a client. All of the examples listed above do not fully meet the VR standards, but allow you to experience the simulated world several levels deeper than other multimedia tools, and therefore are classified as virtual reality.
VR with collaborative infrastructure
This includes "virtual worlds" like Second Life and Minecraft. The only property of the above that they lack for a complete set is the creation of the effect of presence: such worlds do not provide complete immersion (in the case of Minecraft, this only applies to standard controls - the game already has a version for virtual reality that supports Oculus Rift and Gear helmets VR). However, interactions with other users are well-written in virtual worlds, which is often lacking in "real" virtual reality products.
Virtual worlds are used not only in the gaming industry: thanks to platforms such as 3D Immersive Collaboration and Open Cobalt, it is possible to organize 3D work and learning spaces - this is called " teamwork with the effect of presence.
Creating the possibility of simultaneous interaction in the community and complete immersion is now one of the important directions development of VR (remember the same Minecraft).
Internet based VR
Specialists in the field computer science developed a way to create virtual worlds on the web using Virtual Reality Markup Language technology, similar to HTML. It was neglected for a while and is now considered obsolete, but given the growing interest of Facebook in VR, in the future virtual reality promises to be based not only on interaction, but also on Internet technologies.
There is also AR, not to be confused with VR
AR (augmented reality) is augmented reality. Yes, PokemonGo (which, by the way, everyone has already forgotten about) belongs to this category, although it is a somewhat simplified example. Unlike VR, in which we intentionally fence ourselves off from the environment, augmented reality allows us to create an overlay of the virtual world on the real one in the user's field of perception. Thus, we can simultaneously receive information from two sources.
Technically, AR is not virtual reality, but the questions that arise when creating it are similar to those that arise when creating VR (for example, how to get the device to calculate its exact location and adjust to the smallest changes the user makes in real time). Therefore, AR and VR technologies are considered quite closely related.
- For a computer - they work in conjunction with a PC or consoles: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Playstation VR.
- For mobile devices - they are called headsets and work in conjunction with smartphones, they are a holder with lenses: Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, YesVR.
- Independent virtual reality glasses are independent devices that run special or adapted operating systems: Sulon Q, DeePoon, AuraVisor.
An alternative for those who don't want to ruin their hair - the images in this case are not transmitted to the helmet, but to the walls of the room, often representing MotionParallax3D displays (although for a more complete UX in some of these rooms you need to wear 3D glasses or even combine CAVE and HMD ). There is an opinion that VR rooms are much better than VR helmets: more a high resolution, there is no need to carry around a bulky device, in which some even get sick, and self-identification is easier due to the fact that the user has the opportunity to constantly see himself. However, the acquisition of such a room, of course, will be much more expensive than buying a helmet.
Data gloves / Datagloves
To satisfy the user's instinctive need to touch with his hands what he finds interesting for himself in the process of exploring the environment, gloves were created with sensors to capture the movements of the hands and fingers. Technical support This process varies - it is possible to use fiber optic cables, strain gauge or piezoelectric sensors, as well as electromechanical devices (such as potentiometers).
Joysticks (gamepads) / Wands
Special devices for interacting with the virtual environment, containing built-in position and motion sensors, as well as buttons and scroll wheels, like a mouse. Now they are increasingly being made wireless to avoid the inconvenience and clutter when connected to a computer.
Applications for VR
Education
VR is used to simulate the training environment in activities that require preliminary preparation: for example, flying an airplane, skydiving and even brain surgery.
The science
VR allows you to improve and accelerate the study of the molecular and atomic world: immersing yourself in a virtual environment, a scientist can handle particles as if they were LEGO bricks.
Medicine
In addition to helping to train surgeons, VR technology is also useful in the operations themselves: the doctor, using special equipment, can control the movements of the robot, while gaining the opportunity to better control the process.
Industrial design and architecture
Instead of building expensive models of cars, aircraft or buildings, you can create a virtual model that allows you not only to explore the project from the inside, but also to test its technical characteristics.
Games and entertainment
On this moment this is the most famous and widest area of VR use: it includes both games and movies, virtual tourism and visits to various events.
As we said, VR continues to integrate with different areas of our lives and from the myth of science fiction it has turned into (virtual) reality, so choose an area for development, and go ahead. An international organization is now standardizing VR technologies
Virtual reality is an artificially created environment that allows us to perceive it as reality.
These innovations use a host of technologies and developments that take into account not only technical part, but also human perception, to ensure the greatest comfort and ease of use.
Virtual reality should not be seen as a technology aimed exclusively at the computer games industry. It also has much more serious uses.
Today, this technology is becoming cheaper, more accessible and therefore more widespread. That is why it is high time to learn more about virtual reality.
What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality is a term used to describe a computer-generated three-dimensional environment that interacts with the human senses, allowing him to be completely immersed in it.
Being in this virtual reality, a person is able to control objects or perform a series of certain actions.
How is virtual reality created?
Today, virtual reality is achieved through computer technology. There are a number of systems and assistive headsets such as helmets, headphones, treadmills, suits, joysticks, etc. that are used for this purpose.
All these auxiliary systems and technology affects the senses and perception of a person to create the illusion of reality.
It is much more difficult than it sounds in the description.
All our senses and the brain are developed for one purpose - to perceive reality and notice even minor inconsistencies. That is why we suffer from seasickness, we notice what is happening with peripheral vision and feel the presence of other people, even when we do not see them.
All this is extremely difficult to reproduce with the help of even the most advanced computer technology. Virtual reality technology must take into account all the features of our physiology.
If virtual reality manages to get the perfect combination of hardware, software and sensory synchrony, we get the effect of immersion in a fictional environment.
Why do we need virtual reality?
The creation of virtual reality requires considerable costs and effort. Is the game worth the candle in the case of this new development?
Only in the entertainment industry is virtual reality able to recoup all costs, and in the very near future. The technology allows you to get a unique experience while watching movies and using computer games.
After all, the gaming industry alone operates in the billions and is willing to go to great lengths to please its customers with a novelty.
Usage
Today, virtual reality has many other purposes, much more important and serious.
Applications based on virtual reality are actively used in areas such as:
- Architecture - space planning and project creation.
- Medicine is a practice for young professionals in the virtual space.
- Art - virtual museums and theaters.
- Entertainment - virtual concerts, casinos, cinemas, etc.
- Army - conducting exercises and piloting practice.
Virtual reality has the potential to lead to new and exciting discoveries in these and many other areas that will impact our daily lives.
If use real space too dangerous, expensive or simply impossible, a virtual environment completely simulating reality.
From fighter pilots to neurosurgeons, VR is helping aspiring professionals take virtual risks to gain real-world experience.
As the cost decreases, the development of technology will allow virtual reality to occupy a considerable niche in the field of education. Not to mention how much the interface of our familiar programs, computers and even household appliances can change.
Future
It is already becoming clear that virtual reality is ready to firmly stand on its feet in the very near future.
while Facebook's Oculus Rift, Sony's VR PlayStation, and HTC's Vive burst into the modern market with fanfare, 2016 was not the year of virtual reality. Perhaps this technology needs a few more years, because not everything depends solely on equipment developers.
In order for virtual reality to sparkle with all its colors, an effort is also needed on the part of software creators, game and application developers. It is on them for the most part that the creation of platforms that are attractive to consumers depends.
Of course, equipment with virtual reality will not yet become the main computer devices. And all because this equipment is not cheap and it will not work with a regular computer.
To enjoy virtual reality today, you need to shell out a hefty sum for a high performance computer, hardware like the Oculus Rift, software and applications that support virtual reality. Few are able to shell out such an amount at one time.
Chipset maker Nvidia has released data showing that in 2016, only 13 million computers were powerful enough to run VR hardware. That is, less than 1% of all computers in use around the world are capable of supporting this new technology.
Most likely, the equipment will soon become much cheaper and more affordable. Perhaps the era of virtual reality will come in five or six years.
The site's product manager spoke with the Pixonic team about creating a game for virtual reality, experimenting with development on the iMac Pro, and the future of VR.
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Russian company Pixonic was founded in 2009. The studio has more than 200 employees in four offices - in Moscow, Berlin, Belgorod and Cyprus. “We are expanding and we don't have enough space, so we want to move to a new office soon,” says Nikita Guk, strategic director of Pixonic, during a tour of the company's Moscow office.
The reason for our meeting was two experiments conducted by the studio. First, the team released their first VR game and agreed to share details about its development. Second, the company's senior VR developer tried using the iMac Pro, a computer that Apple touts as a powerful tool for VR app developers, to create the game.
War Robots for virtual environment
“When the first talk about virtual reality appeared, we tried to study the audience of VR games, but quickly realized that nothing was clear on this market at all: how many players, how to find them and whether they were ready to pay at all,” Nikita Guk begins the conversation. “Therefore, we decided to conduct an experiment and independently collect the data of interest to us.”
The team decided to create an experimental project based on the company's main blockbuster - the free-to-play game War Robots, in which the user becomes a combat robot pilot. He can play alone or as part of a team. To win in War Robots, you must either keep from capturing as much territory as possible, or completely destroy the opponent's squad.
War Robots is the highest grossing game in the history of the company. In 2016, Google named it one of the most exciting projects on its mobile platform. In 2018, the app passed the 80 million downloads mark, and its daily audience exceeded 1 million players.
“We wanted to see if War Robots with such graphics would be accepted in virtual reality. Or you need to create something special with a wow effect exclusively for Oculus,” says Guk.
Pixonic assigned to the project a team of 18 people who, in almost six months, created the first version of the game for virtual reality - War Robots VR. As in the mobile version of the game, the user needs to fight off the attacks of other robots while in the robot's cockpit.
War Robots VR Game Trailer
Features of development for VR
During the development process, a VR game goes through the same stages as a regular game for a mobile platform or computer - creating a prototype, thinking through the gameplay, drawing graphics, developing, and so on.
Since the Pixonic developers did not have much experience in developing VR games, they started by creating a very rough model of the cockpit, consisting of simple rectangles.
“So we were able to understand how the user will control the robot in VR, what scale the cabin should be, at what distance to place buildings and other objects, at what speed the player should move so that he is comfortable and not bored. When you look through a helmet, you have a completely different feeling from the game than if you just look at it through the screen, ”says Artem Klinovitsky, senior VR developer at the company.
Artem Klinovitsky
The main problem that developers do not face mobile applications, but which the creators of VR games have to constantly solve - motion sickness of a person in a virtual reality helmet. "Our former producer Artur Mostovoy even had a hypothesis during development that VR could be used to train the vestibular apparatus,” Guk recalls.
A person begins to feel sick at the moment when the brain receives conflicting information from the vestibular apparatus and the eyes, Klinovitsky explains. The brain thinks that poison has entered the body, and tries to get rid of it. Therefore, when designing VR games, the naturalness of everything that happens in front of your eyes is critical.
Hence the high technical requirements for applications - you always need to keep in mind the performance of modern virtual reality helmets and optimize the code so that there are no delays or lags in the game. Otherwise, graphics problems affect the player's well-being.
For example, when developing games for smartphones and computers, developers focus on minimal amount frames per second - FPS.
For a calm and not too dynamic game on a mobile device, it is enough to stick to the value of 30 frames per second. For a game in virtual reality, the minimum FPS value is several times higher than on a smartphone or computer - for example, for the HTC Vive helmet it is 90 FPS. At a lower value, the player begins to feel motion sick, he loses the feeling of being in a virtual environment, and soon he has an irresistible desire to leave the game.
The complexity of the work is added by the need to generate images for the right and left eyes in the helmet. Designers have to take this into account, just as helmet designers optimize this process in order to system requirements to helmets remained acceptable.
Objects that are at a distance of three meters from the player should be as detailed as possible, without "soapy structures" and low-poly objects, otherwise the player will not leave the feeling of unreality of what is happening. The background can be devoid of this level of detail, as it is blurred for the player - this, among other things, helps to optimize performance.
In no case should a player in VR glasses be dragged somewhere by force. In a regular shooter, the player presses a key and the character runs forward - everything is fine here.
But if you transfer this mechanic to VR, the player will immediately experience complete dissonance: vestibular apparatus tells me that I am standing in one place, but at the same time I see that I am moving.
Artem Klinovitsky
VR developer
All actions in virtual reality should at least be predictable for the player, or, even better, always be initialized by him: “To move the player, it is better that he picks up some kind of manipulator in the virtual environment - for example, a control panel, and “promotes "self in the game with it. Then the movements will be perceived more naturally.
“If in a regular game we can untie the camera from the player at any time and show the whole scene from different angles, then in VR we must always understand that we look at everything only from the first person, no matter what the game is,” explains Artem Klinovitsky .
Wherein you can't control the direction of the user's gaze- the player always decides where to look. Developers have to create various interface prompts and sound effects that tell the user "Look behind you, something important is happening there."
Unlike a regular screen game, the interface cannot be a plane that “hangs” in front of the player’s eyes all the time. In VR, the application interface has to fit into the three-dimensional space surrounding the user so that it does not interfere with the player's view and is perceived naturally, the developer says.
Screenshot of the game War Robots VR
Even though Pixonic was building a VR game based on their mobile hit, the developers couldn't just port the finished objects from War Robots. In a normal game, smoke or fire is most often a simple plane with an image. On the screen of a smartphone or computer, this is almost invisible, but if you transfer such planes to a three-dimensional environment, the player will immediately notice their two-dimensionality. Therefore, all effects have to be created almost from scratch, Pixonic notes.
What are VR games developed on?
Pixonic develops the lion's share of projects in Unity, a popular game engine that allows you to create applications for different environments at once - smartphones, computers, consoles, including virtual reality helmets.
Development in VR is extremely demanding on computer resources. Most studio employees work on a PC - team members can order any computer configuration necessary for comfortable work. “If someone is constantly working with complex graphics, we can build a powerful station for him with four video cards. In this matter, we have neither limits nor restrictions - the main thing is to work comfortably,” says Nikita Guk.
War Robots VR was developed in Unity on PC. However, as an experiment, the studio's senior VR developer tried switching to the iMac Pro, a computer that Apple touts as a powerful tool for VR app developers.
According to Klinovitsky, the transition from PC to iMac turned out to be seamless for him - Unity for macOS is practically the same as the version for Windows: “The code editor is identical. The rest of the development tools are the same. The transition was easy and fast."
“However, on my PC with a top graphics card, the performance was better than on the iMac Pro,” continues the developer. Another problem, he says, is that the VR software for the iMac is still under development.
Almost all Pixonic developers work with two large monitors side by side: on one they display the code editor, on the other - game previews or other working tools. In the case of the 27-inch iMac, it was difficult for Pixonic to find an external monitor of equal quality and size, so they often had to switch windows, which reduced work efficiency, the VR developer notes.
At the same time, the Apple workstation coped better with parallel development processes, which made it possible to work simultaneously in several applications, regardless of the load: “Unity has such a process as light baking - calculating light on a map. This is usually a long process that big map may take several hours or sometimes days. It ran faster on the iMac thanks to good process management. At the same time, despite the heavy load on the processor, you can still work with other applications in parallel. On Windows, in such situations, everything immediately dies, and you go to drink coffee.
Klinovitsky believes that the iMac Pro is more suitable for level designers and those who work with graphics for games: “The scene in a virtual reality helmet always looks different than when you look at it on the monitor screen, so convenient editing tools are important for designers in VR.
Usually, after each edit on the computer, they have to put on a helmet to look at the result. However modern facilities developments - such as Unreal - allow you to edit graphics directly from the first person, while in virtual reality. The designer turns on the scene editing mode, puts on a helmet and, using the Oculus controllers, changes the location of objects, color, and so on.
Market in its infancy
The experiment with War Robots VR showed that the market for virtual reality games is still in its infancy, says Nikita Guk: “It is not like gaming industry in the usual sense. VR is a showcase of interesting technologies that you can experiment with in your product».
In addition to gaming companies, the entertainment market is showing great interest in VR: with the help of helmets, customers are shown how the designed buildings will look like, they create quests and hold contemporary art exhibitions in virtual reality.
Probably, such point experiments will help to overcome the high input threshold for the user in the future - now, in addition to a good helmet, the buyer must purchase a powerful computer capable of instantly processing complex graphics.
Another barrier to the market is the lack large companies. So far, the market consists of small labels, which individually carry out small experiments. However, a big brand will be able to allocate multi-million dollar marketing budgets for VR games and get gamers interested in the technology, Guk said.
In games, we primarily look at what coverage we can achieve, as we want to give cool emotions to as many players as possible. We look at established markets to understand what kind of audience they have, whether it is possible to win a certain percentage of it, and in this case the market becomes interesting for us. But we are also not limited to such frameworks and can try something new.
Nikita Guk
Strategic Director Pixonic
“We made War Robots VR on pure altruism, because it was obvious that in in the near future, it is unlikely that a major development in VR will be able to recoup investments,- says Nikita Guk. - The main indicator of project success for Pixonic is its scalability. Therefore, for example, we do not consider successful a project that brings in a million dollars a month, but at the same time does not scale many times».
Another metric that Pixonic looks at when launching games is their potential - whether users will return to it again and again, whether they want to play the same map many times - like in Counter Strike. “I would like it to be about the same in VR, but so far there are no such success stories”, concludes the strategic director of Pixonic.
Future and VR
Answering a question about the main problems of VR games, developer Pixonic notes the low resolution of modern helmets. “When you see a big picture in front of your eyes, for example, from a game, you quickly forget about the rather large pixels on the screen. But when you see the text, it immediately catches your eye.”
For comfortable work in VR, the resolution of helmets should reach 8K - and for each screen, Klinovitsky believes. However, to generate such images, much more powerful computers will be needed, which are not yet available to all users.
The future of VR is certainly not in helmets. Helmets are just an intermediate step on the way to virtual reality. The future of VR will come when we can connect directly to the brain, where you don't need any intermediate devices. Then this market will shoot, and everything will be like in the movie “Ready Player One”.
Artem Klinovitsky
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