Project 2

Viewing and interacting with the world is very different in a virtual reality headset when compared to a virtual reality simulator. The main differentiator being that in virtual reality you literally have no sight of reality. The virtual reality headset allows you to see virtual objects in three dimensions as well as allowing you to manipulate them in 3D space. Virtual reality headsets also allow you interact with objects and hear sounds emit from all around you. For example if there is a character talking infront of you and you walk around them, you can hear their voice isolated in one ear or even behind you. This level of immersion offers a great platform for users to be immersed in any virtual reality activity. This is why video games such as Senua's Sacrifice has developed popularity in the virtual reality community. Games or activity that take advantage of virtual realities ability to harness our senses can invite us to experience new environments or stories that were previously thought impossible. On the other hand, the virtual reality simulator provides us the ability to experience the virtual world in a limited capacity without sacrificing much of our actual reality to do so. The simulator can often be imprecise and usually only allows for stereo sound which is often enough for us to break immersion with the virtual world. Humans like to touch and interact with things and I think people would prefer using the virtual reality headset over the virtual reality simulator due to the fact that you can manipulate objects in 3D space, hear directional sound all allowing users to be totally captivated by consuming the content.

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In terms of development, the virtual reality headset allowed better feedback to how objects would interact than in the virtual reality simulator. The simulator was useful for provide quick shallow feedback confirming that our implementation was working properly. In the headset we can get a sense of how big an object should be because it can be seen in 3D as well as in scale. How big an object should be in the headset is difficult to gauge in the simulator because the 3D scale the object will have is difficult to determine from a 2D image. In the simulator, is is much more involved to move the "users" view vertically or horizontally. This limitation makes closely looking at objects that are near the camera’s view very difficult to look at. In the headset, the user can move their head downward and get a closer view of an object in the scene. For example in the virtual reality simulator, it might be difficult to see if there is a ticket behind a hat since the hat is taller than the ticket and blocks its view from the camera. In a virtual reality headset, I could look above and around the hat to see what is behind it allowing me to see the hidden ticket. The simulator and headset both have their uses, but generally I prefer using the simulator for quick testing and the headset for all other tasks.