Assessment 1

The main hardware used for VR experiences is called a...

• Head mounted display

• Weapon of mass destruction

• VR headset

• Heat sensing display

Answer explanation

This is probably one of the most common terms you're bound to run into in hearing or reading about virtual reality, especially because for the most part, HMDs are the current form of hardware delivering VR experiences to users. It's typically goggles or a helmet of some type, the kind you strap to your face or put on your head. That's where you're viewing the VR experience. Some have sensors for head tracking, some don't.

Field of view is the angle of degrees in a visual field. VR experience. The viewing angle for a healthy human eye is about _________.

• 180 degrees

• 360 degrees

• 200 degrees

• 90 degrees

Answer explanation

The viewing angle for a healthy human eye is about 200 degrees. The bigger that angle is in VR, the more immersive it feels.

Latency is when you turn your head and the visuals flawlessly move without any delay.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

If you've ever tried a VR experience and noticed that when you turn your head, the visuals don't quite keep up, that's latency. It's unpleasant, because that's not something that happens in the real world. That lag is an oft-cited complaint about VR experiences that aren't up to par for a variety of reasons.

What is haptics?

• Touching something in VR but not being able to feel it.

• How high the refresh rate is in an experience.

• Feeling like you're touching something that's not really there.

• When you get motion sickness from an experience.

Answer explanation

Here's another word that's not exclusive to virtual reality, but still gets play. It's tactile feedback. In VR, that would mean users feeling like they're touching something that's not really there. In June, Oculus unveiled its Oculus Touch controllers -- the Half Moon prototype, and one of the features was haptics.

If virtual reality strives to takes users and immerse them in new environments, _______ is what's achieved when that happens.

• Presence

• Realism

• Haptics

• Jutter

Answer explanation

PresenceIf virtual reality strives to takes users and immerse them in new environments, presence is what's achieved when that happens. Plain and simple, users feel like they're there, wherever "there" is.

The two main types of VR are...

• Social VR

• Gaming VR

• Cinematic VR

• Thematic VR

360 video is less immersive than your typical VR experience.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

There is a difference between virtual reality and 360-degree video. The latter is less immersive and typically keeps the viewer in a fixed point surrounded by roughly 360 degrees of video. This is what you're most likely to see if you're playing around with YouTube 360 or Google Cardboard apps. Purists will say that 360 video is not actually virtual reality.

________ is the process of taking footage from different cameras and combining that footage into spherical video.

• Combing

• Connecting

• Switching

• Stitching

Answer explanation

Stitching is the process of taking footage from different cameras, like GoPro cameras that have been used in a 360 camera mount, and combining that footage into spherical video. The process usually involves reorienting video, placing seams, and generally editing it so that it looks like one continuous view, rather than a patchwork of angles.

If you start to feel sick to your stomach while in a VR experience, you may be dealing with simulator sickness.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Simulator sickness is a conflict of sorts between what your brain and body think they're doing. Your eyes say, "We're moving!" And your brain says "Nope! Let's get nauseated!" As much as people look at virtual reality and want to do things like fly or jump, for many folks, it's the beginning of a bad idea. But, as everyone has different thresholds, not everyone gets sick, or as sick as someone else might. This is one of the big challenges for developers -- figuring out how to move people without making them ill.

If you were to put on a VR headset today and could do any type of experience you want, where would you go?