[MUSIC]
Hello.
[MUSIC]
[LAUGH] Hi.
When it was announced that Facebook bought the company Oculus, it was kind of a big deal.
One, because it was a lot of money, sorta legitimizing VR in a way, but also scared a lot of people, because a lot of people, Have problems with Facebook, but one of the things that they were planning on doing was making virtual reality a very social tool.
And I got a chance to try it at E3 and loved it.
You just got a chance to try it today.
Sure did.
Describe to me the base scenario, what was happening?
Man, okay, so basically I was standing in a room which had soundproofing in it, it was a square room.
And I was standing right in the middle and they popped the oculus onto my head.
And it got like, speakers, right?
It's got its headphones right here.
And then, I can't see anything at this stage.
And they ask me to put my hands out, and they put something onto my hands.
I have no idea what these things are, but they fit nice.
And then, I basically beam up and I'm in this world.
Right.
From what I can see, I must be a pair of hands and a face because there's somebody
It's across from me.
And they start talking to me.
And then I realize that they're in the room behind.
And we're actually playing together.
[MUSIC]
So the basis for the whole thing is that you are in a virtual space with somebody but in actuality you guys are in separate locations, right.
So and essentially what you're accomplishing is you have, Create a social scenario that doesn't exist in any other technology.
Yes!
I don't think it's possible any other way to really interact like you were in 3D space.
Like, what was some of the things your guys were doing?
Cause I know my favorite was lighting fireworks and throwing them and catching them and stuff like that.
Yeah, so basically what,
With the things in my hands, I don't even know what they are but they work, which feels really strange cuz I'm basically squeezing my hands and my hands are turning into fists.
They're intuitive.
Yeah, but I'm pointing and my hand is pointing and I'm doing thumbs up.
I'm what I'm doing basically is picking up objects, picking up Qboyd, picking up rectangles.
Then piling them up, like playing anti-Jenga basically.
And then it's like, oh, we can play with all these other things.
You know, the ball, and like, I throw the ball, and then he catches it and he throws it back, and I'm like, okay.
This doesn't feel like I'm playing a video game anymore.
This feels like I'm actually playing a game.
You're not thinking about it, right?
No.
No.
You just react the way you would in
In normal light.
Yeah Chris is behind the camera now.
We did a demo afterwards and I will say just unprompted I picked up a robot and chucked it him and he went, whoa he caught it.
It was like super, super intuitive.
It basically went through a bunch of these sort of technical presentations showing off various different things you could do from picking up objects.
Shooting things, but my favorite was there was a slingshot.
Yeah, that seems really good.
And it just works.
And you just pick the [BLEEP] and it goes boom.
And you pick up ammo, and one of the funniest things that happened was at a certain stage, he brings out a ray gun which basically either makes you small, or makes the other person small.
Chris shoots me with the ray gun, and I'm this tiny version of me, right.
And he was like, being a jerk and throwing things out at me at shooting me and stuff.
And I can't move, because I'm tiny.
But then I see the slingshot, I pick up the slingshot, and I can still use it.
But now I'm like.
It's like ten times as large.
So I'm sure with all this footage, I'll be looking like an absolute numb [UNKNOWN] playing this thing.
It was unbelievable.
It was one of those things where like.
I could've described it to you, and you probably wouldn't have any idea how it felt.
Because it is a feeling, it is not just something that you learn, and then understand.
You have to Had to experience it.
Totally.
And when I was talking to the gentleman on the other side, or talking to Chris.
The microphone on the headset, it just works.
And when they talk it's like a pulse [CROSSTALK] It's like a floating form.
It's like a floating head with a wire frame and it moves.
Everything about it, head gestures and [NOISE] just felt like I was talking to him.
Like a human person.
And I think a lot of people expect for that to feel that way.
It has to look exactly like them and has to be to-
Yeah.
Like perfect representation.
But we are instinctively trained to defacing them things that don't exist right?
Totally.
So therefore when we have a thing that's rendered, that just sort of shares the qualities of the face it's really easy to sort of buy into it and go along with it.
And then there's this world that's like so, it all just works.
It's basically a physics demo.
But there's all these Things you do like, for instance, there were these balls in the corner that you smash, and they turn it into like underwater land, or like space, and then suddenly gravity works.
So right at the end of the presentation, he was like oh, act three, we actually found this cool thing we can do, and he basically starts spawning Roman candles, and then he spawns dynamite, and what he's going to do is smash the The space ball right as they go off.
And it's gonna be a glorious fireworks display in space.
But I'm just standing here while he's doing it and I'm just like picking **** up and throwing it.
And I throw this thing, this cube, and it hits this massive like gnome that like falls and hits the space ball before he's finished and everything just goes flying through the air.
[LAUGH]
Whoops whoops.
[LAUGH]
All your work just disappeared.
And everything just goes flying through the air and starts exploding.
And then the space ball, it dissipates after a while, and you go back into normal.
And it all falls down, and I'm like ooo.
That was just a random thing that wasn't supposed to happen, and it was amazing.
So, when I try to tell people what it's like to experience VR, it's very convincing, it's never about how it feels in the moment of VR because
You're not thinking about it so much.
But for me, whenever I take the headset off, it's coming back to reality.
And the fact that it shocks my system,
Yeah.
And then I realize I really bought into this.
Yeah totally.
I actually believed what was happening to me, and I only know it when I just wrench myself out of it so fast.
Nothing about this felt like I was playing a video game.
Or trying to focus
[UNKNOWN] right?
Yes.
Exactly.
There was no me trying to buy into it.
It **** worked.
And that was like, super exciting.
You can tell, it feels like one of those moments, like you know when you picked up the Wii remote for the first time and you're like [NOISE].
It's like that like times a hundred.
I had a lot of fun watching you.
[LAUGH] And I know [UNKNOWN] told me so far what Danny was doing, but here's a look at just the joy that you had for about 20 minutes straight.
[UNKNOWN]
[LAUGH] Hello.
[LAUGH] Oh I got his leg.
I got his leg.
[LAUGH]
****.
[LAUGH]
Wow.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
They're gonna explode.
[LAUGH] You madman.
No, you don't.
[LAUGH]
[LAUGH]
Where'd he go?
[LAUGH]
It that a picture of Socrates?
Oh yeah, right.
Awesome.
Sorry, little dude.
My bad.
Oh, yeah, the bag.
Hello.
Ha ha ha ha.
That's great.
Alright, you know what, I'm just gonna keep my hands to myself, okay.
[LAUGH] Woo!
I could do this thing forever.
This is amazing.
There's something like, it's so satisfying in real life about doing this, but it totally exists here as well.
Awesome.
Woo.
[LAUGH]
[LAUGH]
Was it bad?
That's pretty amazing.
Woah!
I think I need a minute.
[MUSIC]
