18:20 
VR Applications, VR Devices, VR Displays
The guys at EVL are posting a lot of videos !!
Those two show a state of VR in 1993, with an impressive list of videos and applications. It would be really nice to have one such video now =)
Just a small post to show you a video of one of the most famous, old-school demos : Second Reality, by Future Crew (1993).
Back then you had to tweak your autoexec.bat and config.sys to get enough memory to run those beautiful demos. If you didn’t have a Gravis Ultrasound you didn’t always get sound. You also didn’t have any 3D card so know that this is all software rendering.
Merry Christmas 
18:14 Game, VR Applications, Virtual Reality
Did you know that in 1995 Nintendo released a portable VR console, called the Virtual Boy ? With a monochrome stereoscopic HMD with a 384×224 resolution, it was priced at 180$ and reportedly Nintendo sold 700′000 units. The failure of the system had them discontinue the project one year later.
A bit sooner, Sega also tried to release a VR console [and wikipedia here] in 1994, with LCD screens and inertial trackers:
The Sega VR console combined full color LCD screens and stereo sound. Weight was distrusted evenly, and the device was reported to be comfortable. Also, unlike the Virtual Boy, it was truly portable, not requiring a cumbersome tripod for enjoyable game play.
(…)
Due to limited resources, strategic planning, the complete and utter failure of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, underwhelming graphics and performance, as well as motion sickness, Sega was wise in not bringing this cliché console to the market.
The company claimed the project was stopped because the VR was so real users would move while wearing the headset and injure themselves.
Hum. Lol.. =)
[update : here’s a video of the ad]
12:11 Virtual Reality
Back in the 90s there was a lot of hype about Virtual Reality, but the technology didn’t live up to the expectations. I found this video of one of the most famous movie about VR, Johnny Mnemonic (1995) :
There was also The Lawnmower Man (in french, Le Cobaye); watch the trailer, and the ending where Jobbe is trying to escape his VR prison.
This gives you a good idea of what people fantasized about VR. Fifteen years later we can at last have the visual immersion people expected at that time (but work still has to be done for 3DUIs (user interfaces)
This article by R.U. Sirius talks about Whatever happened to Virtual Reality. Here’s a summary of this long article (I only kept the VR part, there are also interesting thoughts about human evolution) :
If you weren’t there, you probably wouldn’t believe it. But way back at the start of the 90s, people at the edge of the emerging digital culture talked about Virtual Reality (VR) — the idea that we would soon interact in shared 3D worlds – as much as, if not more than, they talked about the internet. (…)
Virtual Reality developer Jaron Lanier was generally accepted as the public face of VR during this heady period that lasted from about 1989-91. (…)In the late 1980s Lanier’s team at VPL (Virtual Programming Language) developed the first implementation of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays. The work was applied to surgery and television production, among other things. He also led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. During the late 90s, Lanier served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet 2. The Initiative demonstrated the first prototypes of tele-immersion in 2000 after a three year development period. (…)
JARON LANIER : (…) what were people looking for? I still believe that what people really want from VR is to be able to touch upon the feeling of being able to share a dream with someone else . (…) You can divide the requirements of the technology that will give you that into two pieces. You can call one piece the production quality or production standards — how detailed is the resolution? How realistic do surfaces look? That boils down to fast computers, high quality sensors and displays: the tech underpinnings of it all.
But then there’s this other side; the software side, which involves how you can get a virtual world to do things. My feeling is that even a low-res virtual world can get people the kind of experience that I was just describing. And I think we did have some great moments and great experiences in the ‘80s, even with very low-res systems that were available then. I think that the failure since then is that the software that’s been developed is very rigid. (…)
(…) VR really needs a different attitude. Even today, you see people starting up a VR program and after some months they’ll have a cube rotating or maybe a videogame where you’re moving through a space and shooting at things. It’s been done for decades! Do these people not know the meaning of boredom? How can people bear that? (…)
my belief — is that even a really low-res system that’s sort of manageable by a small group of people could be done that would be much more exciting and bring out more of this feeling of transcendence than what we’re seeing now. (…)
RU: In your opinion, have there been fundamental changes in computer hardware that could make VR software more optimal in the intervening years?
JL: Not much. Just speed. More polygons.
RU The slowness in moving towards more creative forms of VR is a commercial problem also. If there was an obvious immediate market for it, a company with money would be working on it. You’d be working on it.
JL: Capitalism has proven really wonderful and optimal in encouraging certain kinds of improvements in technology but it seems to have these blind spots (…) But if it’s for something new and the market doesn’t already exist, you get caught up in a sort of chicken-and-egg situation even though one can see that if all the pieces were in place there would be an incredible market. (…)
RU: Well, it seems that the contravening force to capitalism in the digital world is the gift economies of open source enthusiasts, which has the added charm of being non-coercive.
JL: Yeah. Well if I can find the personal focus for it I might try to start an open source movement for making VR tools. I should probably do that. It would be courageous. (…)
I like to think of VR as an alternative way of thinking about a ramp of technological progress in the future where instead of making bigger and faster things, you make more intense experiences and more interesting forms of human connection. And if you think of that ramp, which is more of a McLuhanesque ramp than an Edward Teller ramp, that alternative ramp is the one that we can survive with. So in that sense, all this business about aesthetics and communications is a survival strategy. I really think it’s the only imaginable future.
I can only agree that software is the weak point. Even if the hardware is still expensive, solutions exist to have a good immersion. But the applications are still very simple. Tools exist to create virtual world, but it’s still a bit more complex that creating a 3d game. We need more high level tools. Stop reinventing the wheel! Build upon the existing, do things that have never been done before! Do proof of concepts rather than low level programming, show the world that the VR community is alive!
Related articles : VR to create a new communication form
23:53 Game, Game development
Tonight I went to a conference organized by the french chapter of the International Game Developpers Association, about old school game development. Invited were Philippe ULRICH et Didier BOUCHON, from ERE Informatique, authors of some mythical games like Captain Blood, and Eric CHAHI, author of Another World (Out of this world).
Mr Ulrich, Mr Bouchon and Mr Chahi
Mr Chahi is a sort of hero for me. He created Another World alone, at 22, for two years. When I first played his game on my Amiga, I remember getting a shock. This game was like nothing else I had already seen, both on the graphics and the game play point of view. Sometime after that, I locked myself in my teenage room for 1 month to program my first game, a bomberman clone in C and asm on PC.
15 years later, Another World is going out again, with improved graphics. I bought it, and it brings back a lot of memories. I was really happy to hear about this conference, and surprised to meet Mr Chahi at the entrance of the building as he arrived. As I instantly recognised him from the making-of videos included with the new Another World edition, I chatted with him a bit.
This and all the talking of the evening was really interesting. They all shared stories of the past, of these glorious days of games, and their thoughts about the state of the gaming industry.
Mr Ulrich was particularly disappointed by the lack of courage of investors and game developers. He thinks that risks should be taken, and that being successful is a very relative thing. Even if you make successful games your company can (and for him did on some occasions) close its doors, or fire you. So just step back and get back to work! He was particularly bitter about games (and music) being marketing driven, rather than creative driven. Going the creative route is a risky way, but very much worth it according to him. He also points out that finding funds nowadays is quite easy.
He also mentioned that it’s not because you sell lots of copies that you will make more money than an independent game that sells 10x less. How much you spent on marketing is too much? Word of mouth costs nothing.
Mr Bouchon, whom I had already met twice (one of which being this afternoon…) without knowing who he was, shared the story of the creation of Captain Blood. It was not a predefined idea, but rather a collection of ideas and piece of code put together to create a game “we were not even sure people could finish” !
Mr Chahi had an interesting memory about the financing of his games during those days. The money given by the publisher for one game would be used to finance the next game. The publisher wouldn’t invest any money, and the programmer was free of any pressure, and could create the game he wanted. The only pressure were material, of course, some day the money runs out! Another World was already his 10th game. He adds that he prefers working alone or with small teams, because creativity is improved. He is now involved in the creation of a new game (maybe PC/Wii) but he wouldn’t talk about it.
If you’re interested in the creation process of Another World, go buy a copy of the new edition, the making-of is particularly interesting (in french only I guess), or go here.
This may sound cheesy but I even have an autograph :p
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