Page 31 - Aruba Today

PEOPLE & ARTS A31
For virtual reality creators, motion sickness a real issue
DERRIK J. LANG
AP Entertainment Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — If
the controls and move-
ment in a traditional video
game aren’t natural, it’s
merely annoying to play-
ers. For designers of virtual
reality experiences, the
same mistake could make
users sick.
With the release of a trio of
high-definition headsets on
the horizon, many VR afi-
cionados in attendance at
this week’s Game Devel-
opers Conference in San
Francisco are confronting
that issue head on.
The low-latency headsets
from Oculus, HTC and Sony
are intended to right the
nausea-inducing wrongs of
their VR predecessors from
20 years ago, but many us-
ers still report feeling woozy
after using souped-up sys-
tems, such as the Oculus
Rift.
“The challenge is that peo-
ple’s sensitivity to motion
and simulator sickness var-
ies wildly,” said Evan Suma,
an assistant professor who
studies VR at the University
of Southern California, dur-
ing a talk at the 30th an-
nual gathering of game
creators.
It’s a unique design chal-
lenge for game makers ac-
custom to crafting interac-
‘Divergent’ author anxious to meet fans at BookCon in May
HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — “Diver-
gent” author Veronica
Roth won’t have to travel
far to attend this year’s
BookCon.
Roth is a native of Chica-
go, the setting for the third
annual fan-based, pop-
culture publishing event,
thebook world’s version of
Comic-Con. BookCon will
be held May 14 at McCor-
mick Place, with featured
speakers also including
Samantha Bee, Sherman
Alexie and Richelle Mead.
“I’m fierce in my love for
Chicago, and it’s a great
place for books, so hope-
fully my author peers are
seduced by its wonderful-
ness and decide to move
here,” she told The Associ-
ated Press during a recent
In this Jan. 6, 2016 file photo, Peijun Guo wears the Oculus Rift VR past asteroids, missiles and
headset at the Oculus booth at CES International in Las Vegas. ships.
PlayStation VR’s debut will follow the respective launches of the Other designers are at-
Oculus Rift and HTC Vive consumer versions. tempting to tackle the
problem by limiting move-
Associated Press ment in virtual worlds and
not inundating players with
tive entertainment appear- Petursson, CEO of CCP head-spinning stimuli.
ing on flat screens in front Games, which is devel- “If you have something
of gamers, not completely oping several VR games, for your brain to fixate on
encasing them. including the sci-fi dog- as the thing that matches
Despite the advancements fighting simulator “EVE: similar inputs you’re given
made in VR over the past Valkyrie.” ‘’We want super when sitting in the real
four years, there’s still con- comfort all the way.” world, you’re going to be
cern the immersivetech- Petursson said the devel- feeling a lot better,” said
nology may force players opers of “Valkyrie” opted Palmer Luckey, co-founder
to lose more than a battle to surround seated play- of Oculus, which ignited
with an alien. They could ers with a virtual cockpit to the latest VR revolution in
also lose their lunch. ground and shelter them 2012.
“It’s been a huge focus of from the effects of appear- Oculus and Sony both post-
development,” said Hilmar ing to whiz through space ed health and safety warn-
ings outside their booths on
the GDC show floor, cau-
tioning attendees trying
the Rift and PlayStation VR
that they may feel motion
sickness, nausea, disorien-
tation and blurred vision.
Those effects were felt by
many attendees.
“After a morning’s worth
of different Rift games, I
felt disorientated, a touch
nauseous and distinctly
headachey,” wrote Keza
MacDonald on the gam-
ing site Kotaku. “After five
hours, I felt like I needed a
lie-down in a dark room.”
Kimberly Voll, senior tech-
nical designer at Radial
Games, noted during her
In this March 14, 2016 file photo, author Veronica Roth attends nual convention and trade
the premiere of “Allegiant” in New York. show. Thousands of young
people attended BookCon
Associated Press in 2014 and 2015 when the
event was held in New
email interview, adding As in previous years, Book- York, and Roth said she
that it’s “doubtful” anyone Con immediately follows was excited to meet some
will move “but a person BookExpo America, the of her fans.
can dream!” publishing industry’s an- “For me, it’s important to
connect with the people
who are reading my books,
particularly the younger
ones,” she wrote in an
email. “It reminds me why
it’s important to write stories enemy country,” explained
for them, and about them.
They are wonderfully com-
plex, enthusiastic people,
and what they share with
me in person — whether
it’s just their excitement, or
something more personal
— is an essential part of
what makes writing mean-
ingful to me.”
The film version of “Alle-
Saturday 19 March 2016
GDC speech about the
effects of VR on the brain
that more academic re-
search about VR should be
conducted.
“We really need to look
hard at the effects of long-
term exposure to VR, the
psychological effects and
what we can say about
the power of our VR ex-
periences,” said Voll, who
has studied computer and
cognitive science.
With hype for VR at an all-
time high and pre-orders
for the Rift and HTC Vive
sold out, it’s no longer a
question of if consumers
will want to experience VR.
They do. It’s now becom-
ing a matter of how long
it’s safe to keep it on their
noggins.
Would two hours in VR be
too much?
“With the current technol-
ogy, it’s iffy,” said Luck-
ey. “It’s all technologi-
cally solvable. It’s not like
we’re saying, ‘Oh no. We
can’t get any better. This
is a dead end.’ We have
tons of ways to make this
higher resolution, lighter
weight and more comfort-
able. Eventually, the goal is
to make something that’s
not much heavier than a
pair of sunglasses.”
For many who’ve tried VR,
it’s not an issue at all.
giant,” the third of four
planned adaptations of
her million-selling “Diver-
gent” trilogy, comes out
Friday and again stars
Shailene Woodley. Roth’s
next series, currently un-
titled, is expected to debut
early next year.
“The story is set in space,
and it’s about a young
man named Akos who,
along with his brother, is kid-
napped and taken into an
Roth, who last year told the
AP the new bookswould be
in “the vein of ‘Star Wars.’”
“While he’s there, the dic-
tator of that country threat-
ens his brother’s life, and
Akos has to work with an
enemy to save him. I’m still
working on it, but getting
pretty antsy for people to
read it!”