From: Marc Bernatchez Subject: Re: DESIGN: Is there really such a thing as text-based VR? Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 10:51:36 -0500 From: Marc Bernatchez date: 6/3/96 - Sorry if it took so long, posting problems... Robin wrote: >Many of the disagreements between Marc and myself are down to his >imaginitive use of numbers. For a start: So you're implying that I'm the source of the disagreements ;-) He he, well. It is true that putting numbers on such "subjective" matter is not quite an easy task. I do that because it's a good way to put some straight boundaries on subjects that tends to be too vague. You can see that a lot every times someone here start a discussion about a given VR related definition... we never seem to get a common ground agreement and it's normal because we use a subjective communication language. Using some numbers and rules can have some real benefits on this very issue. It's not perfect but it can hopefully limit the spreading that we notice when people try to express their views. I don't mean that I'm the one making the rules and others just have to follow though. I think that it should be a common effort and then, once we have some numerical tools to categorize these VR systems from their functioning and components, it will be much easier to agree on terms. > >>: 1- 3D imagery -> 0% in text based MUDs >>: 2- Immersion -> 0% or very poor >>: 3- Interaction (real-time response) -> 70% >> >>: average score: 23% > >The numbers sound very persuading (you can't argue with maths after >all) but where do you get these figures from Marc? Indeed. Let me take your first sentence and rephrase it a bit. Many of the disagreements between Robin and myself are down to the fact that he takes me too literally at times about my numbers ;-) Just teasing you Robin. It's my fault, I should have precised that these numbers were to be taken in a very large sense. I.e. if I say 70% by example, it's not a straight 70%. It's more like somewhere around that amount, from 50% to 100% at the limit. The numbers are just my numeric representation of subjective impressions. To get better figures, it would be necessary to get a large sample of people putting their numbers on each item above. Then it would be much tighter. I could do that someday if I find the time. Could be fun to see the results. I'll let you all know. >>I think something's amiss with your notion of "Immersion" in this >>definition. Maybe you need a tighter definition? If by immersion you >>mean, "you have to have an HMD on your head, or a DataGlove, or haptic >>feedback, or some other hardware gizmo" then yes MUDs get a 0%. >> >>On the other hand, you seem to be defining "Immersion" very loosely >>below as synonymous with "Presence." For those who are not hung up on > >I agree with Brandon here. I rarely talk about Immersion or Presence >since they seem very hard to quantify. For example a 130 degree FOV HMD >may have more visual 'immersion' than a 20 degree FOV, but ultimately it >seems that the total 'immersion' in an environment is down primarily to >content and not interface. By immersion, I do mean it on a technical sense. I.e. the immersion I'm referring to directly involve VR so I'm not talking about the lower levels of definitions we could get on a more psychological way of thinking. I agree with you Robin on that we should use " presence " as the term for more general feelings regarding immersion. Robin, I'm not convinced about the last statement. You can't argue that the better the FOV, the better the immersion feeling you will get... And the presence feeling too will be enhanced. If you could get a high resolution 180 degrees FOV HMD, I'm sure you would jump on it and throw the lower FOV HMD away. True? So your feelings tells you to go for the better hardware device. It's not about content. Well it's content because the image quality is a part of this content. Better resolution and FOV leads to better content (more info, more interesting, etc.). Thanks for the feedback Robin(and the others too). Bye for now. Marc Bernatchez | E-mail: mbernat@gel.ulaval.ca C.O.P.L. (local plt-00307) |============================================ Dep. Genie electrique | http://www.gel.ulaval.ca/~mbernat Universite LAVAL | http://www.imaginative.com/VResources Quebec, Canada |============================================ G1K 7P4 | Virtual Reality is the future of computers ==========================================================================