Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

When people ask me what unique things VR brings over other viewing technologies my answer is quite often "scale".

You can get 3D via stereoscopic displays. You can get the realism and wrap-around view from huge monitors or projectors but VR let's you see the true scale of something in a way that no other technology can (aside from "actually being there").

For viewing objects where their scale is a critical aspect, VR is invaluable. Aside from arts, architecture is another obvious candidate.



Animals is what excites me most by this. Many documentaries lack real, human scale when showing animals either living or extinct.

The prospect of seeing just HOW large dinosaurs were is something that makes the 6 year old inside me just giddy with excitement.


Certainly, dinosaurs are exciting but I recently blew my kids minds showing them pictures of how large a moose actually are in real life (they seem closer to "small elephant" size than "big deer" size).


Had the same reaction to seeing wild rhinos in SA. I had a misconception they were hippo sized but they were almost as big as elephants.


I haven’t found any games that exploit this yet. Traditionally it has been very difficult to make games that feature truly large entities that behave actively and not in very broad and uninterested patterns due to things like camera constraints and what not. Shadow of Colossus and it’s siblings come to mind as close examples of this almost working. But VR could make it great.


Lone Echo does this. The first time you look at the rings of Saturn hundreds of miles beneath you is truly breathtaking.

https://www.vgvids.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/lone-echo-...


While the bosses move in broad and uninterested patterns, I've found that Jet Island is a game that features very large entities which make great use of the scale vr allows.


I haven't played it (VR or otherwise) but I've heard Subnautica VR makes you feel very small in a big scary ocean.


Dear God, Yes. And also claustrophobic.

Underwater volcanic caves... With __things__ in...


In the robot repair demo in Valve's "The Lab", when GLaDOS shows up, she's menacingly huge. It was never noticeable to me in the non-VR games, but it's the same model. I instinctively physically flinched away to protect myself when she showed up.

The VR game-- er, experience-- "theBlu" has some neat visuals that really benefit from the scale.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: