How would you build the ultimate VR room for right now?
April 7, 2018 6:34 PM Subscribe
Imagine you had a large room available in your house and wanted to put together the most awesome, flexible and full-featured VR room that is achievable with currently available tech. The room will be used for no other purpose and the budget is unlimited, both for furnishings and for technology. What is the absolute best way to set it up?
I'm not really up to speed on the current state of VR, but the technology seems to have matured a lot and I'm interested in knowing what the cream of the crop is, and what affordances might go into a purpose-built best possible VR room. I've done a quick skim and am presuming there'd need to be some kind of overhead tether management, what method is best? Is there a good hardware solution yet for infinite omnidirectional movement? If multiple people want to jack in at the same time can they reasonably share a space, or would each participant need a separate booth/area? What's the best flooring? How high should the ceiling be? Should the space be round instead of square? Should anything special be done to allow for tracking cameras?
Also, once the room is built, what are the best things to do in there? I'm particularly interested in things that are not FPS or other classic "video game" applications, but more like multi-user cyberspace environments a la Second Life, or things like Zwift that get people together in a shared space to do a physical activity.
(this is part fantasy and part business planning)
I'm not really up to speed on the current state of VR, but the technology seems to have matured a lot and I'm interested in knowing what the cream of the crop is, and what affordances might go into a purpose-built best possible VR room. I've done a quick skim and am presuming there'd need to be some kind of overhead tether management, what method is best? Is there a good hardware solution yet for infinite omnidirectional movement? If multiple people want to jack in at the same time can they reasonably share a space, or would each participant need a separate booth/area? What's the best flooring? How high should the ceiling be? Should the space be round instead of square? Should anything special be done to allow for tracking cameras?
Also, once the room is built, what are the best things to do in there? I'm particularly interested in things that are not FPS or other classic "video game" applications, but more like multi-user cyberspace environments a la Second Life, or things like Zwift that get people together in a shared space to do a physical activity.
(this is part fantasy and part business planning)
Best answer: I haven't thought about commercialization; just some thoughts from a basic user perspective.
- Two or more people sharing space is probably very tough with any traditional tether management, esp. with the ceiling height of an average house – are there not wireless headsets yet? (Not enough bandwidth at this point?)
- Consider soft, modular/configurable 'walls' including interior smaller walls or objects – these are the boundaries of the experience in every way (in my experience, any contact with them really shapes the overall experience). Round outer wall does seem most flexible.
- A great non-game VR environment I've experienced was a totally abstract one based on a deep set of layers meant to show an exploding building – you control your position within and among the layers by walking around the space – at Kiasma, the main modern art museum in Helsinki. It may or may not be a permanent installation, but I saw it there in June 2017. (Traditional tethered headset, so it was notable for the content, not the hardware.)
posted by kalapierson at 3:08 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
- Two or more people sharing space is probably very tough with any traditional tether management, esp. with the ceiling height of an average house – are there not wireless headsets yet? (Not enough bandwidth at this point?)
- Consider soft, modular/configurable 'walls' including interior smaller walls or objects – these are the boundaries of the experience in every way (in my experience, any contact with them really shapes the overall experience). Round outer wall does seem most flexible.
- A great non-game VR environment I've experienced was a totally abstract one based on a deep set of layers meant to show an exploding building – you control your position within and among the layers by walking around the space – at Kiasma, the main modern art museum in Helsinki. It may or may not be a permanent installation, but I saw it there in June 2017. (Traditional tethered headset, so it was notable for the content, not the hardware.)
posted by kalapierson at 3:08 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
A lot of good idea's in LTT's recent video on a stealthy VR setup.
posted by zinon at 5:41 AM on April 8, 2018
posted by zinon at 5:41 AM on April 8, 2018
I strongly suggest that you visit a few commercial VR parlors to see what's available in terms of both equipment and, importantly, content ("experiences" being the correct VR term for content, instead of e.g. "games"). To be completely honest, you may be disappointed in the latter - the technology has arrived but the experiences are very limited. There is enough for an occasional visit to a VR parlor but not enough to buy into a home set up so it's like getting an amazing gaming set up only to discover that there are no games to justify it.
(Of course you may feel differently so if you do find enough experiences to justify a home set up, the VR parlor can help you set up - the one near me was really helpful but I ultimately decided against it because of the lack of good experiences that I would want to do over and over in my home.)
To answer some of your more specific questions:
1) As far as "infinite omnidirectional movement", that's a no because your headset is tethered.
2) There is no need for a special floor other than you can't have anything to stumble on, since you'll be completely blind to your surroundings.
3) It's best to have separate spaces for multiple users. You'll be wearing a headset so you will bump into each other and possibly tangle up in each other's cables if you don't. It doesn't have to be a hard wall, a heavy black curtain will work just as well.
4) I can't imagine that the shape of the room would make a difference. But in terms of separation, a rectangular or square room would work best, just because it's easier to separate with curtains.
5) The ceiling doesn't have to be particularly high - in fact the shorter the cables the better.
Honestly, your questions suggest that you just need to visit a VR parlor and see for yourself. It's not that complicated once you experience it in person. Some things can also be only experienced first hand, for example, I find the headsets to be much too bulky and heavy to be able to fully enjoy the experiences for more than 10-15 minutes (but I am a 100 lbs woman so YMMV).
posted by rada at 10:36 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
(Of course you may feel differently so if you do find enough experiences to justify a home set up, the VR parlor can help you set up - the one near me was really helpful but I ultimately decided against it because of the lack of good experiences that I would want to do over and over in my home.)
To answer some of your more specific questions:
1) As far as "infinite omnidirectional movement", that's a no because your headset is tethered.
2) There is no need for a special floor other than you can't have anything to stumble on, since you'll be completely blind to your surroundings.
3) It's best to have separate spaces for multiple users. You'll be wearing a headset so you will bump into each other and possibly tangle up in each other's cables if you don't. It doesn't have to be a hard wall, a heavy black curtain will work just as well.
4) I can't imagine that the shape of the room would make a difference. But in terms of separation, a rectangular or square room would work best, just because it's easier to separate with curtains.
5) The ceiling doesn't have to be particularly high - in fact the shorter the cables the better.
Honestly, your questions suggest that you just need to visit a VR parlor and see for yourself. It's not that complicated once you experience it in person. Some things can also be only experienced first hand, for example, I find the headsets to be much too bulky and heavy to be able to fully enjoy the experiences for more than 10-15 minutes (but I am a 100 lbs woman so YMMV).
posted by rada at 10:36 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The most important resource is going to be space. Nothing breaks immersion like constantly trying to keep track of where real walls/furniture are. Ceilings should be at least 8 feet, to allow someone to swing their arms overhead freely. Put down a thick rug so dropped controllers don't break and tripping people.land on something soft. Ideally there are no reflective surfaces such as windows, they'd need to be covered to prevent interference.
If you're using a Vive setup, which I'd recommend for room-scale experiences, you can fit two people within one tracked area (two lighthouses). If you have space for two independent areas, make sure they are competing visually occluded from one another so one pair of lighthouses doesn't interfere with the other pair's tracking.
As far as hardware, as others have said, the Vive pro is supposed to be a big improvemt over regular Vives, but pricey. Lyoull at least want the deluxe audio strap for a regular Vive, since that reduces cables and is more comfortable and easily adjustable. A GTX 1080 graphics card should get you perfectly decent and relatively future-proofed performance.
posted by subocoyne at 10:58 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you're using a Vive setup, which I'd recommend for room-scale experiences, you can fit two people within one tracked area (two lighthouses). If you have space for two independent areas, make sure they are competing visually occluded from one another so one pair of lighthouses doesn't interfere with the other pair's tracking.
As far as hardware, as others have said, the Vive pro is supposed to be a big improvemt over regular Vives, but pricey. Lyoull at least want the deluxe audio strap for a regular Vive, since that reduces cables and is more comfortable and easily adjustable. A GTX 1080 graphics card should get you perfectly decent and relatively future-proofed performance.
posted by subocoyne at 10:58 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: To be a little less coy: I'm feeling out the possibility of offering in-home VR parlor installations to the sorts of people who can afford that, not renting out time on a rig I own. As such I'm particularly interested in hardware or room renovations that genuinely improve the experience.
For the infinite-movement-while-tethered thing I was thinking along the lines of an omnidirectional treadmill, like this thing. Is there any hardware available or on the horizon that does this well and works with a variety of systems and games/applications?
posted by contraption at 12:17 PM on April 8, 2018
For the infinite-movement-while-tethered thing I was thinking along the lines of an omnidirectional treadmill, like this thing. Is there any hardware available or on the horizon that does this well and works with a variety of systems and games/applications?
posted by contraption at 12:17 PM on April 8, 2018
Best answer: About treadmills https://packet39.com/blog/2018/03/25/vr-treadmill-overview-march-2018/
There are a lot of interesting experiences around shooting things. Wireless seems great. Some arcades have multiple people interacting in the same space, but those have all featured special custom software as far as I can tell.
posted by mikhuang at 3:25 PM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
There are a lot of interesting experiences around shooting things. Wireless seems great. Some arcades have multiple people interacting in the same space, but those have all featured special custom software as far as I can tell.
posted by mikhuang at 3:25 PM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
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Bonus points if you rig up a camera and green screen so you can show in game footage with the person superimposed for spectators. ;)
For other people's ideas on how to make money, you might check out loftVR Arcade's website. It's a fairly new VR arcade in Miami that rents time on several Vive rigs. I mention them specifically only because I know they exist. ;)
posted by wierdo at 9:33 PM on April 7, 2018 [1 favorite]