VZfit Explorer Feedback

[ggroppe]

Life's little technology mysteries. Most folks innocently believe that technology and software is a logical, consistent thing. Ha ha ha.

[Superlith]

I never had motion sickness with explorer or Virzoom in general . But my wife does and actually her girlfriend tried when I set up everything in Europe. She got really motion sickness symptoms almost instantly including games and explorer . How common is it? I was really surprised that she got such a significant motion sickness symptoms.
I will need to try anti-motion sickness wristband for them to prevent symptoms.

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Also I noticed that explorer looks now different, looks like the views are in patches kind of. Less depth effect for sure. I would rather take more distortion and have more depth and movement effect.

[emalafeew]

Riding VirZOOM is a lot like riding a bicycle, there can be initial fear that goes away once it "clicks" for you.

Our motion tech addresses the root cause of simulation sickness for most people (see https://virzoom.com/blog/vr-that-moves-you/), but VR can also provoke vertigo and fear of doing unsafe things that require acclimation to address. For such cases we recommended starting people on slow flat game such as Thunderbowl, which we label "comfortable" in VZfit Play, for hours or days before trying "moderate" or "intense" games that require more turning, hills, and flying. In VZfit Explorer I would start them on long roads with less distortion such as "Route 128, Colorado". Putting them in experiences with more movement or consequences before they feel totally in control can result in panic, which we recognize differently from motion sickness.

It's hard to put into numbers, but from hundreds of playtests we found 10 times more people can play VR games comfortably using our tech than without it. But if you don't start people out in safe experiences like above, maybe 1 in 3 will report initial discomfort. Our safest-feeling game is actually Lotus Pond, but it hasn't yet been ported to VZfit for performance issues.

Regarding Explorer depth effect, what you describe sounds like our Monoscopic option. You're playing on a Quest so can turn it off from the Options menu. Note that it's turned on automatically for Comfort Mode, but not turned off automatically, so you could have enabled it trying that.

[Superlith]

Eric, thank you for such a good explanation. It is encouraging that symptoms can get better and go away once they get more comfortable with it. I will send this information to my European friends.

[ggroppe]

Curiosity question, what technology advancements will be required so that the distance views in Explorer are as sharp as Google Street View?  I assume it's a limitation of the Oculus Go in my case.

[emalafeew]

There’s a higher level of detail, but it takes longer to download even with more network bandwidth. We need to load images as fast as you can ride through the white dots, and are already loading lower detail behind you (until you come to a stop) to conserve network. The other issue is internal—we’re already maxing out the cpu on the Go to decode the current size images at 60 hz. The Quest could possibly handle that, so could have the option if you have very high bandwidth and are willing to miss a few dots or ride slower. And both platforms could be loading highest detail when you stop. But the last issue is when we tried that, it aliased pretty badly because it’s higher resolution than the Go and Quest screens, and would require generating and uploading mipmaps which cost even more.

[emalafeew]

I've spent some time looking at this.  I couldn't figure out why Google Directions API sends you up Hwy 89 instead of Lake Shore Dr when starting from Horseshoe Bend.  But if you start at Wahweap and end at Horseshoe Bend, it seems to take Lake Shore Dr, and you should be able to "Ride Reverse" that route to get the same effect.  

Though when I was testing that, the white dots eventually stopped loading because their reported lat,lon was too far off the Google Directions path.  I made a fix for that in our upcoming build, aiming for this Friday.

As for why you can't turn off Hwy 90 to Wahweap Blvd, there seems to be a connectivity problem with Streetview in that direction.  If you approach that intersection from Wahweap Blvd to Hwy 90 it works.  Not sure how to fix this yet but glad you reported it.

Btw ggroppe this will be fixed in the next build.  I implemented a general way to search ahead for missing links.

[ggroppe]

I'm riding Westfjords, Iceland in reverse. I'm experiencing an unusually large number of rendering issues all along the ride but they get especially bad beginning at 40% and lasts for a few miles. For one stretch you're practically under the road to the point that you have to focus on the white dots to continue. Then you're especially high above the road so that it seems visually as if you're almost not moving. My other experiences on the Westfjords ride primarily deal with going around bends where the visual rendering of the road doesn't jive with the white dots.

Loving it all the same. Thanks

[emalafeew]

Thanks for the detailed report, we can use it as a test later! Explorer currently relies on location data embedded in each image, but we're aiming to improve elevations as part of our distortion fixup effort, going on now.

[Tercelman]

I'm riding Westfjords, Iceland in reverse. I'm experiencing an unusually large number of rendering issues all along the ride but they get especially bad beginning at 40% and lasts for a few miles. For one stretch you're practically under the road to the point that you have to focus on the white dots to continue. Then you're especially high above the road so that it seems visually as if you're almost not moving. My other experiences on the Westfjords ride primarily deal with going around bends where the visual rendering of the road doesn't jive with the white dots.

Loving it all the same. Thanks

Same here. Will wait until this issue is fixed then I'll be motivated to ride the bike in vr at the gym again.