I think its safe to say that we’re all fascinated by the concept of diving into a virtual world. And that may well be possible with the concepts of Virtual Reality.
But where did it all begin? This blog will discuss how Virtual reality progressed over the years from as early as the 1950’s to present day and beyond.
1956: Ivan Sutherland made the worlds first head mounted display but wait, was that really the start of VR? The concept/Inspiration for VR was given some 10 years earlier by a man named Morton heilig and his invention, The sensorama. He explained how it Conceived the creation of an experienced theater in his 1955 paper “The cinema of the future”. Basically the sensorama was just a box which you could stick your head in and watch a movie, It also created various environments relevant to what was going on in the movies back then stuff such as aroma’s, It tried to create a realistic illusion.
The advertisement of the sensorama when it was first released.
The first ever Head mounted display by Ivan sutherland, 1956.
Early Development:-
Military vehicle simulation, Special developers at NASA and work at the University of UTAH gave flow to the development of virtual reality in its early stages as the 1980’s kicked in. But then something truly Remarkable happened in 1985, Namely, The Virtual Environment Work Station.
Made by a team at NASA, It contained two LCD displays, wide angle stereoscopic optics and last but most definitely not least, A really goofy looking helmet because..what would we ever do without goofy looking helmets?
Not only all this, but later VR gloves were developed to work with the VEW.
The Virtual Interactive Environment Work station, 1985.
Randy Pausch:-
One can not write a VR blog without mentioning the inspirational Randy Pausch, Great man. Famous for “The last lecture, Achieving your childhood dreams.” In which he gave us a heart warming lecture that could put you in tears by the time you’re done watching it, He tells everyone that he has cancer and only 4 months to live, then tells them about all his life experiences and what he learned from them, Honestly, What a guy. His memory will remain in our heart always.
He worked with disney on early vr projects, founded the “Building virutal worlds” course in 1998 which he taught for 10 years at Carnegie Mellon University.
If anyone wants to see his last lecture (Which I highly suggest) Here’s the link to it: http://playit.pk/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
Randy Pausch giving his moving last lecture to a teary audience in Carnegie Mellon University at September 18, 2007.
Virtual Reality Gaming:-
In the 1990’s, VR GAMES were introduced. The earliest VR games were in the form of special arcade games.
1991-1993, A company “Virtuality Group“ created a line of advanced VR machines with stereoscopic 3D visuals and 276×372 resolution, But despite all these new and seemingly extraordinary features, Success was rare in early VR games.
Sega announced Sega VR in 1991 although the console never got released as a retail product despite having four games made for it specifically.
VR gaming, In arcades developed by Virtuality group, 1991.
But it was probably for the best because the VR console that WAS released a few years later was a big failure.
The Virtual boy, Developed by Nintendo, 32 bit, Only had the colors red and black and was really expensive
250$ in todays money. Which was outrageous for something this weird and new. It displayed 3D graphics (..kinda)
and it was impossible to play games in a comfortable position due to its flawed structure.
Bottom line, The reasons why it failed: Cost, Lack of software support and customer apathy.
Nintendos Virtual boy.
…Trust me, Looks are all it has.
After all this, VR disappeared for the rest of the decade. Until 1st august 2012
With the development of the Oculus Rift. A revolutionary VR gaming device, VR gaming was saved.
The Oculus Rift:-
Previous VR headsets used two separate LCD displays, One for each eye, but the Oculus rift uses a single LCD display supported by two lens along with a sensory tracker which allows users to have a 360 degree field of view which moves in accordance with your head movement.
Just like the brain is easily deceived by optical illusions, The brain is surprisingly quite quick to accept its new virtual body, The real illusion of reality kicks in due to the feeling of “Presence”
Recently, The brain has been labeled as a sort of “Prediction machine”, It makes a lot of predictions, The more they come true, The better our feeling of presence and hence the virtual reality.
List of Oculus Rift Games:-
A few games out on the Oculus rift are:-
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Elite: Dangerous
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Spirited Away: The Boiler Room (If you’ve seen the “Spirited away” movie, WE NEED TO BE FRIENDS)
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Euro Truck Simulator 2
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Solar System Explorer
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VR Cinema (Still a demo, But one of the best looking games on the Oculus)
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UE4 Rollercoaster
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Don’t Let Go (Another demo)
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Blue Marble
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (ITS TRUE, Skyrim now has DK2 support, The dream is now real. :’) )
Obviously there are a LOT more games on the Oculus.
Now there’s so much more I’d like to talk about here, Like The Morpheus Project by Sony, A few Virtual reality inspired shows/anime (Sword Art online and Log horizon In particular) But unfortunately, I’m running out of time and I need to submit this soon. So yeah. This was my blog on Virtual Reality, Peace. c:
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