Half Life 3 VR rumors surfacing from Pax Prime Seattle

Its fascinating to think that Valve started both a VR and AR revolution with no real intent in supporting the platforms other than to ensure their software was able to ride the wave!

Zen you stopped before the Shark!

Thane_ said:

Valve started an AR and VR revolution?

Probably a typo; the term "disillusion" is obviously more accurate
:p

Thane_ said:

Valve started an AR and VR revolution?

Started the current interest (revolution) in the tech and invested it with support - leading to the VR Room demonstrator 2011/13, and the CastAR project. Both were R&D projects internally at VALVE before Gabe became board of the burden and donated the VR Room system to the KS for OVR and allowed CastAR to split away and become a KS in its own right. It was OVR that made this latest phase in VR interest popular, supported originally by VALVE.

Shame CastAR had to close (even if they did pay back the backers and managed to license elements of their tech). From the demos I did using the MkII and MkIV units they had a interesting system.

I do agree that roomscale is pretty damn kickass, so is wireless, so are the new knuckle controls (IMO). For me it was a "had to see it to believe it" sort of thing. It was SirViveors's (spelling?) youtube video of the Doom 3 mod that really made it hit home how immersive roomscale/standing up could potentially be.

To me in my little world AR seems like the 2D-3D movie conversion of the VR world. At least they title it differently so people understand its not the same thing as VR.

There is a concern (IMHO) that AR is now being hijacked by the smart phone sector. Looking at systems like the newly launched Lenovo Star Wars Jedi Challenge AR playform, we really see a AR mobile headset with track points. This is as basic an approach as some feel the consumer can stomach regarding AR - not even touching the surface of what the tech originally promised, and diluting a lot of the elements of AR that drove original investment.

I always wanted to read the investment houses reasoning for dropping CastAR, as we were all aware of the issues that impacted GoogleGlass and the issues that still haunt Hololens. The "elephant in the room" (or should that be in the hand!) is that of how can Magic Leap hope to enter the scene with a platform able to ignite the current climate. Remembering that Disney / LucasFilm had already aligned themselves with ML, seeing the Lenovo system makes me wonder if ML will be quietly dropped for an alternative approach.

Thane_ said:

I do agree that roomscale is pretty damn kickass, so is wireless, so are the new knuckle controls (IMO). For me it was a "had to see it to believe it" sort of thing. It was SirViveors's (spelling?) youtube video of the Doom 3 mod that really made it hit home how immersive roomscale/standing up could potentially be.

To me in my little world AR seems like the 2D-3D movie conversion of the VR world. At least they title it differently so people understand its not the same thing as VR.

AR and VR will become a blind of itself soon once they can over come current AR problems with the display by creating rich colors with high enough resolution. AR is the future of what everything will be going to as AR is just VR with clear lens in between.

One way is to create a lens that becomes darker when needed to create the backdrop and then on the other side of the lens (middle?) create the images that you need to enable VR. Then turn off the backdrop of the lens when you want to enable AR instead. Turn both off if you want to just use your glasses to see:)

I know flat lenses might allow us to do such a thing soon, but we're still years out with that technology.