Ssnake Vetoes VR

[Asid]

Hi Wax

Per eSim’s explanation of their business model, the military will need to require it. That could take years.

If you do some research you will see that the military are very onboard with VR and using it right now. As I said earlier, This might not necessary be the requirements of Esims customers.

125 $US is pricy when compared to ‘games’ but, that’s comparing apples and oranges. Actually, I’m surprised the cost for SBpro_PE has not increased since 2006.

Here is a quote from Ssnake in 2006…
"Steel Beasts Pro PE is very mature software. Unlike normal games however, continuous evolutionary development and a much longer product lifetime with support and upgrades is part of the concept. As we are adding features for army customers, we will be making them available in the Personal Edition as well. "(Ssnake, technical director eSim)

That is pretty plain statement, to me.
Ssnake states eSim sold its product to the military with the assurance that the product would be evolutionary with a long product lifetime (that’s the B-52 concept. The military likes that).

BTW, I DO feel it is a two way thing. All of us PE customers do have unheard of access to top management. 

See you in the field..
Wax

I have software which costs a lot more than SB Pro. Yet thise companies approach customers differently.

SB Pro has paid updates. In fact some bug fixes you would have to pay for because they are bundled in a paid update.

BTW, I DO feel it is a two way thing. All of us PE customers do have unheard of access to top management. 

My experience and that of others is somewhat different.

I like SB Pro. I enjoy playing it. I accept its limitations and just get on with it.

I hope to play another mp session with you soon 

Regards

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-180203

I think we should refrain from attacking personal opinions that way.

Also, I think that streakeagle is right. In the long run people will move towards an image quality that matches or exceeds what you can currently get from desktop monitors (why settle for anything less, if it were available). There is an unbroken trend in desktop computing and entertainment electronics to drive up screen resolutions. Those of us old enough to remember the first days of personal computing may also remember 12" greenscale monitors in TV resolution at best, often just a quarter of that. That was merely 40 years ago. It doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to expect stereoscopic displays at 8K in 20 years. And the inherent logic why this is actually necessary from a functional point of view is an opinion that I share as well.

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-180220

Note that Streakeagle didn't say anywhere in his post anything about the timeline, and certainly not that he'd expect it "now". That's all something that you apparently read into it. The argument that in a flight sim he can't read the gauges properly is valid, likewise you can see in DCS videos a lot of rather extreme zooming (HUD or general orientation) where in reality the pilot would always have the same FOV. And that is because the human eye's resolution is so high (actually, it's variable - very high near the center view, not so much for peripheral vision, but since our focus can dart anywhere as far as eye movement allows, a display system would either have to render dynamically with eye tracking, or render constantly at a resolution that approximates the retina, with a field of view that approximates the human eye).

I think we're all on the same page that current technology simply can't deliver that.

Maybe we'll never get there because it'd be total overkill for anything that is NOT VR, and maybe VR is never going to make it into the average people's households so that there won't be a commercially viable path towards developing the necessary technology. Who knows. But that doesn't mean that the underlying arguments are invalid.

Well, my two cents. I'll leave it at that.

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-180227

I'm still not convinced that VR has much of a market potential beyond the enthusiasts. The headset manufacturers are pumping titles into the market to ensure that their customers have sufficient content, and I never debated the value of VR for a racing game or a flight simulation in general, particularly in dogfights or for those who just enjoy flying around in a beautiful landscape.

But look at the most popular game type - first person shooter - you can't do it because it literally makes people sick within minutes. So game developers are trying to find game designs where your visual frame of reference doesn't change, or change rather slowly. And while I have no doubt that there will be some clever games to incorporate that limitation into their design, I'm not yet convinced that the mass-market breakthrough (=tens of millions of headsets sold) will come from the gaming market. Maybe as a substitute for home cinema, once that headsets become as lightweight and convenient to use as normal glasses (not seeing that happening anytime soon).

Everybody was convinced that video telephony would be the future, soon, from the 1930s to the 1980s, but it took the combination of Skype and smartphones for an actual mass-market breakthrough. The technology was, sorta-kinda there since the 1960s but it took another four decades to find the right formula.

It's similar with 3D cinema - stereoscopic anaglyph films are around since the 1950s but the first film that actually was a large scale box office success was Avatar. And to be honest, I am yet waiting for a second film that does 3D as well. [Old man rant] Sure, pretty much all films are now released as 3D in the theaters, but we're not really given much of a choice here. If you want to see a film on widescreen, there's only one way to see it. Otherwise watch it in hall six please, in enlarged TV format, the early afternoon screening. When I go to the cinemas these days (and I used to love that), I begrudgingly tolerate being forced to wear 3D glasses but I can't say I enjoy the forced rollercoaster scenes that I know are only there as a token scene to justify why the whole pice was shot in 3D (when we all know it is because it increases box office revenues by 30%). I'm pretty sure, if the choice whether to shoot a film in 2D or 3D was left to the directors, and if the decision was made purely on artistic merit we would hardly see any 3D movies.[/Old man rant]

So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that what I'm seeing with VR goggles right now is a lot of potential. But I'm not convinced yet that all the conditions for a mass market breakthrough are in place - convenience of use, a sufficient number of (different) application cases, content availability, low purchasing price (or a massive functional advantage in at least one popular application case), and sufficiently potent companies to invest into the field. So far only the last point is solid green.

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-180357

There are many factors at play beyond visual scene complexity, like the integration of the render cycle with the simulation cycle, and possible interdependencies. As a minimum you need to guarantee that ANY scene you would throw at the graphics card is guaranteed to render at 90 frames per second. The next big - and largely unsolved - problem is that of movement within the virtual environment. What works with first person shooters doesn't work - at all, as far as I can see - with VR games. So, this may require an entirely different approach to the whole design of the game.

It's these points that make a direct transfer of an existing title into a VR title such a big challenge. I'm not saying "insurmountable" - but the complexity is by far greater than just looking at the polycount of a scene. Just because one can imagine that a solution exists doesn't mean that it's easy to get there.

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182177
http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182191
mpdugas makes a good argument. This part of the second link is the point of his argument:

You, too, could wear that mantle for tank simulations, if it weren't so far outside of your comfort zone to attempt. We've already covered that ground and your many objections, ad nauseam.  I only mention it because you acknowledged 1998's Falcon's present excellence.  Truthfully, I believe that a small developer called 1C/777 will wear that crown before eSim Games (sic) does.

You clearly miss the point of my post: it was intended to speak to those who hold out the hope that the present iteration of SBPro will ever support VR; I point out your 2016 message as an acknowledgement that is it too severe of a task to perform.  There is utterly minimal likelihood that SBPro's rendering engine will ever be moved to DX11, as a minimum, to support VR.  No, the intent of my post was to show the connection between your post of 2016 and the high improbability of SBPro, in its present incarnation, ever moving to a DX11 platform.

That cannot be construed as promoting VR.  That's just more script-flipping.  Please, just try not to be so antagonistic, and try not to react so personally, to my polite commentary."

To Grenny's smart-aleck remark "So where is the company that made Falcon 4 now??", I answer "It changed its name to eSim Games". No, seriously,  Ssnake himself states that "You realize the irony that four out of five programmers at eSim Games worked on Falcon 4, including BMS... " And these are the same people who are responsible for wrecking Falcon 4.0 to the point where Ssnake himself states that "In Falcon 4, everything is parallelized (or so I've been told by people who should know), yet it doesn't actually boost performance because you have a stop for data synchonization at pretty much every step in the code."

To Grenny's statement "Comfortable and undemanding? You don't know the custromers then.", I answer: sorry, you're wrong. The military clients are very undemanding when it comes to frame rates, just look at the recent Spanish brigade exercise video. The military clients are undemanding in the graphics department, as mpdugas pointed out.

To Grenny's challenge "Point is, none of them see any benefit in implementing VR for vehicle crew or tactical training. Can you name one?", I can name several:

• Bohemia Interactive
• TitanIM
• Holovis
• EnterVR
• AEgis Technologies
• at one point even eSim Games thought there might be a benefit

[Asid]

Everyone in that industry is wrong. Esim games is right 

[Rinix]

Everyone in that industry is wrong. Esim games is right 

And Ssnake continues to prove your point: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182196 But he's the person who's convinced that "immersion is no substitute for training value." In being convinced of that, he's missing the point which this great article made: gameplay and graphics are inseparable.

[Rinix]

Ssnake is still insisting that eSim Games is right, Captain_Colossus is accusing mpdugas of being a troll, and mpdugas makes great points: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182208

Ssnake:

1) You have not addressed any particular error of my having confused the two game versions , so I will not ask for more.  I recognize that English is probably not your first language, and I will just accept that your nebulous reply is likely based on your probable failure to understand my request for specificity due to subtleties of language when reduced to writing.

2)   SB was a VGA (640x480) non-3D accelerated game.  You just noted that M1Tank Platoon II was Voodoo accelerated.  That was the Glide API.   It was in stiff competition with OpenGL and DirectX back in 1999.

I offer the following contemporary reviews of SB, written at the time, comments from the original SB development team and my personal experience playing it, all sources agree:

Gamespot, by Bruce Grey on Oct 4, 2000 14:20 PM "Steel Beasts is practically a textbook example of the strengths and weaknesses of independently developed and published games: Specifically, the graphics are not 3D accelerated, and they may seem rather drab and uninspired for those accustomed to the latest in hardware-pushing technology."

Reviewed on PC / 26 Jan 2001 :"Nor is there is support for 3D acceleration cards or EAX audio either. In fact, sole programmer, Al Delaney, began the entire project as a post-graduate lark back in 1996."
 
Fandom: "Reviewers were initially put off by the substandard 640x480 graphics, then highly impressed by the gameplay, immersion and the intelligent-seeming behaviors exhibited by the computerized units."
 
Tanksim:  "It's okay to lament the lack of 3D accelerated graphics, it doesn't hold the sim back much."

In August of 2000, during an an interview in SimHQ with someone name Ssnake, he said " Nobody was willing to invest the comparatively tiny sum that was necessary to convert the game into a 3D accelerator supporting polygon engine.  Al prepared the existing code for a swift engine migration which never came.  This rendered all existing scenarios useless."  In the same interview, Michael McConnell said "The lack of 3D accelerated graphics will turn some people off, but truth be told, the graphics of SB are more than adequate for the task, and many  aspects of the graphics are very well done."

You contradict yourself.
 
3)   When I offered Al an opportunity to meet with armor officers at Fort Hood, he declined to do so.  Perhaps that was a seminal moment for him, and he later decided to do that.  I can only speak to the moment when he was struggling so hard to find customers, and I personally tried to help him with that.  Ab initio, SB was not intended for that market.  It was some sort of solo engineering thesis, as I recall.  He also remarked that "Certain publishers might want to fund an upgrade to the graphics engine to support 3D hardware acceleration as well as a major art upgrade, so that would set back the release by another three or four months or more."
 
In December, he interviews with SimHQ, as the only coder working on the game, and he said then that his four goals for SB were:

• Finish multiplayer in a big way.
• Upgrade the graphics engine /art.
• Implement our campaign system.
• Add more secondary vehicles and buildings.
• Add air support.

Looks like, even then, he wanted to do more with graphics, campaigns and aerial support, goals which have never been addressed to this day.  And this in 1999.  It was never written first to be a military training simulator.  It was kind of a a challenge by his professor to use an idea he had developed .  He said, in the same interview, "I created a terrain rendering engine and my wife and I decided that I should try to work for myself and make a game out of it."
 
4)   This thread was about whether SBPro 4.0 would ever use VR; the low quality of SB graphics, in its original, or Pro form, are its weakest attribute.  They remain that to this moment.   I have never suggested that the other aspects of SB or SBPro are lacking, so you need not pivot that discussion, either.  This is just your "red herring", another figure of speech.
 
5)   uncannily similar is not "identical", but I will, as a courtesy to you, demure on the basis of the apparent language differences.
 
6)   Benchmark Sims operates its process to modify Falcon 4.0 with the express consent of the copyright holders of the original Falcon 4.0 code; again, you do not seem to know your subject.
 
7)   You create straw dogs from thin air, and then beat them down.  I repeat: " You clearly miss the point of my post: it was intended to speak to those who hold out the hope that the present iteration of SBPro will ever support VR; I point(ed) out your 2016 message as an acknowledgement that is it too severe of a task to perform.  There is utterly minimal likelihood that SBPro's rendering engine will ever be moved to DX11, as a minimum, to support VR.  No, the intent of my post was to show the connection between your post of 2016 and the high improbability of SBPro, in its present incarnation, ever moving to a DX11 platform. "
 
In passing, I might mention that, in all of your "sturm und drang", you have never addressed that point.  Instead, you've spun my post into a whole new direction of your own making.  Why is the 3D engine of SBPro such a poor performer?
 
I really do think the subtlety of the meaning of my post has escaped you, and you deride me for words you put in my mouth, which is another figure of speech.

I will not reply to your fanbois except to say that you fan anger where there is no antipathy, you resist where there is no conflict, and you attribute to me much of what motivates you.  My comment about VR was mild beyond reproach, yet here you are, berating me for a simple effort to connect one dot to another.

mpdugas also makes a hat tip to us  : http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182210

Comfortable and undemanding? You don't know the custromers then.
Point is, none of them see any benefit in implementing VR for vehicle crew or tactical training. Can you name one?

I politely (more so than you) suggest you take up the discussion on the "Dogs Of War" forum, where all of your remarks have already been addressed.

Grenny can't be bothered to look up something: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182211

A simple and direct question, and your answer is "look it up somewhere"? That's your understanding of beeing polite?

Of course, Ssnake still insists that he's right, and Captain_Colossus insists (this time less obviously) that mpdugas is a troll.

[Rinix]

mpdugas remains right: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182225

A simple and direct question, and your answer is "look it up somewhere"? That's your understanding of beeing polite?

It's more than you afforded me.  I don't need to duplicate answers that other folks have already taken the time to lay out for you.  Nothing rude in a referral.

But Grenny still won't listen: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182232

It's more than you afforded me.  I don't need to duplicate answers that other folks have already taken the time to lay out for you.  Nothing rude in a referral.

I just gave you a friendly advice.
Well, I guess you just don't have an answer after all...so you switch to strawman posts.

[Rinix]

And the hits keep coming from mpdugas: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-182234

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-182241
Grenny's argument makes no sense, because for some reason he assumes that the trainee's body, arms, and legs have to be tracked. It's not that way in Steel Beasts currently, and it doesn't have to be that way in VR. Hand tracking and foot tracking can already be done by VR, even if it's not perfect yet: http://bgr.com/2017/12/14/htc-vive-tracker-review-virtual-reality-tracking/ There's no way all of the trackers needed for that, plus the more powerful PC hardware needed to drive VR, can cost more than a cabin trainer as Grenny claims.

[Rinix]

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-182251 You've got to love 12Alfa's sneaky personal attack. I thought he was above that. There goes any respect I ever had for him.

[wilso845]

plus the more powerful PC hardware needed to drive VR, can cost more than a cabin trainer as Grenny claims.

Load of pish......the British military use VR for para training you don't need some crazy high powered systems.
i did tank training on a simple PC VR headset using VBS.....

[Rinix]

Load of pish......the British military use VR for para training you don't need some crazy high powered systems.
i did tank training on a simple PC VR headset using VBS.....

Then that isn't an obstacle to VR.

Anyway, Azure Lion is a bootlicker with nothing of value to contribute who refers to Ssnake as "Sir Nils" (no, seriously), and Grenny just keeps making personal attacks.

[Rinix]

I forgot this, 12Alfa launches more personal attacks while pretending to be reasonable, and mpdugas falls for it: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/11869-virtual-reality-support/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-182256

[Rinix]

Azure Lion makes a personal attack by accusing mpdugas of projection, mpdugas responds, Ssnake rejects the too obvious bootlicking, and Homer announces – no doubt at Ssnake's prompting – that he'll take action on the thread.