An introduction to VR through the HTC Vive

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

I've long been a skeptic when it comes to Virtual Reality or VR. I've covered the technologies and evolution of virtual reality since the mid-90's when the idea was that the internet and VR could easily create a connected, immersive and interactive reality alongside reality itself.

But like many widely heralded buzz-worthy technologies, VR always felt like a hollow promise mired by compromise at every turn. It required expensive and enormous headsets, a ton of wires connected to a supercomputer, and the content was, for the most part, as low-rez and blocky as what one could get out of a PlayStation One console.  It is now 2016 and companies are flying high the VR flag again, what's different this time is that there are actual consumer products as well as content generated specifically for VR.

HTC invited me to try their HTC Vive VR headset in a Toronto hotel a few days ago and I brought a healthy dose of skepticism with me. Here's what I learned.

HTC collaborates

I've always respected HTC as a smartphone manufacturer. They create some of the most compelling and well-built Android handsets in the market today, including the HTC 10, which in my opinion is the cream of the current Android flagship crop by a wide margin.

HTC has also created tablets to some degree of success (Nexus 9) and they've not been afraid of experimenting in accsssories. The convenient HTC RE camera is a personal favourite that didn't seem to fly and HTC has also gotten deep into the fitness tracking game by collaborating with sportswear brand Under Armour and the result is the UNder Armour HealthBox which incorporates a wearable health tracker, a heart-rate monitor and a scale all built by HTC.

The Vive is a 50/50 effort between HTC and Valve which is a gaming focused technology innovator. HTC has proven it can collaborate with companies to a great degree of success and having spent time with the Vive, the results do speak for themselves.

What is HTC Vive?

Composed of a connected VR Headset with two 1080p HD displays (one for each eye), a surround headset, two controllers that incorporate motion sensors, accelerometers, buttons and a trackpad plus two VR receivers the size of small speakers, HTV Vive is connected to a high-spec PC to place the user in the centre of a virtual reality scenarios.

My biggest beef with any headset or even 3D glasses is that they're not designed for people who wear glasses. I'm nearsighted and very astigmatic so I need my specs on all the time, a headset that can't accomodate them is a non-starter for me as I assume it is for many other users.

Thankfully, the HTC Vive headset allows a little wiggle room for eyeglasses. Like slipping into an Alien facehugger, the HTC Vive goes over your head and has straps that keep things snug. How snug? My glasses were soon misting up and were pressed right against my eyeballs. Despit this, I could still see out a sliver and could make out the floor below me if I really wanted to.

Once the headset is added on, you're completely deprived of all sensory input except what is being mainlined into your eyes and ears. The HTC person didn't seem to realize this as they were giving me instructions which I could barely hear.

Inside the Matrix

Once you've suited up the headset and fired up HTC Vive, you're completely immersed in a 360' degree visual and aural construct.

Looking up from the launch application, I could see a giant moon, the stars and various celestial bodies. The first demo had me in an underwater scene walking on a wrecked ship. Above me was stray light filtering from the surface as digitized fish swam by. A large whale comes close enough to stare me in the eye before it decides to whip its tail and swim off.

The visuals were smooth without any glitching or weird artifacts which made the illusion feel complete and real. Even moving one's head up, down, side to side changed the view and perspective of what was around me. I could also interact with elements within the experience, including a robotic dog that could be petted and sticks that could be picked up or thrown. The Vive controllers are quite intuitive and easy to use,

The graphics are cartoony enough to inform you that what you're seeing isn't real but the scale, fluid motion and continuity as you spin around and even take steps back and forth is uncanny. The technology has to choose whether to render accurate items in the foreground of smoothen animation and it seems like in the demo, I saw a lot of both.

Another demo had me scaling a tall mountain and the illusion was so accurate that my eyes and mind perceived the height even if I was firmly planted. Virtually going up a mountain and being able to move a few paces back and forth and even walk around is seriously cool. The only thing missing was the cold mountain air and the feeling of wind gusting on my face.

Other cool demos included firing robotic talking cannonballs from a large crossbow into a warehouse filled with explosives as well as being able to draw and paint in 3-D space.

Using Google's Tilt Brush application, I was able to to draw and paint lines and shapes and walk around these as they were suspended in space. The range of materials and colours that you can choose to paint in space is vast and each has an incredibly accurate texture and amount of detail.

The other VR demos were exciting and showed of various capabilities of the technology but they are basically demoware. I doubt many users will spend hours scaling a virtual mountain or walking a shipwreck, but Google's Tilt Brush is another thing altogether. 

This is a VR drawing application that's beyond 3D in its immersive nature and proof that there are some applications to VR that go beyond fun and games. This is not to say that Tilt Brush isn't fun, I could have easily spent another hour exploring what this transformative application could do. If you had to test one application on the HTC Vive, try Tilt Brush.

Impressions

So, am I a VR convert? Not completely. The headset is still heavy and quite claustrophobic. The array of wires that come out the back and lead back to the connected PC are a hindrance. Expect to have a sweaty face and if you wear eyeglasses, they're going to be gross afterwards, so give them a good wash.

You can also get so immersed in the content that you can forget the very real and hard world around you. It is possible to get carried away and hit things or other people or a pet (anything you can't see while wearing the headset). If you do approach a wall, you get a grid within the Vive to remind your that you're hitting a boundary. Still, remember all the injuries that followed when the first Wii-motes came out? Well, in the case of VR you can't even see what is around you so maximum care must be taken.

I think everyone who has tried to use the Vive has likely felt like they were going to trip over them (not an issue if you're sitting down but the Vive's advantage is that you can stand and even walk around). You're still very much anchored to a PC (and the specs require some heavy hitting video cards, higher end processors and enough RAM). 

The HTC Vive iself will cost $1,214.00 and if you're getting a PC from scratch, expect to pay at least another $1500.00.  Not cheap by any means but still quite attainable specially if you're a content creator or developer willing to sink some money into what could very well be the future of media.

I salute HTC and Valve for coming to market with a compelling and cohesive platform for VR. I expect the best is yet to come and I personally haven't been this excited to see where a new technology is going since the first iPhone came out.

I am just wondering if VR will be able to come down in price for more people to seriously consider it. The hardware still needs a few iterations before we can really feel free and untethered (smaller headsets, wireless connections)? The content side of things is another big question mark. Right now there aren't standards, games and thrill rides are cool but I'd like to see more applications really make use of the technology the way Google has with Tilt Brush. 

I still think that the HTC Vive represents myriad possibilities and is one of the clearest paths towards VR's march into the mainstream.