Thanks to the hack Revive, which allows Vive users to play Oculus Rift games, I was able to spend about an hour in Facebook Spaces today, the second day of the beta launch, and I have some good things to say, as well as some “I WISH”es.
First, I’m impressed with the avatar creation and motion. Now, anyone who makes me thin and with no age lines is trying to flatter me, and I wear my years with pride. However, I couldn’t find my body type or easily find my facial hair, so you see a rather younger version of me, perhaps, if we meet up in Spaces.
Do I need to backtrack, however, to explain how I got it to work on my Vive?
Here are the steps:
- Open an Oculus account, download the software, skip the equipment setup. Make sure you have a Facebook account, you’ll need it when it’s time to get into Facebook Spaces.
- Download Revive 1.11 – this installer is here: https://github.com/LibreVR/Revive/releases/tag/1.1.1. MAKE SURE TO OVERRIDE YOUR VIRUS PROTECTION SOFTWARE for this installer. In my case, Norton didn’t like it, so I had an extra step before I could get it going.
- Open your Steam VR setup. I re-ran my room setup for sitting, which on hindsight may not have been so good.
- Open Revive, and find the Facebook Spaces Beta, and run it.
- You will have to take off your HMD and put in your Facebook ID/password.
The Vive controllers are, of course, different than the Oculus, and you will have to get used first to seeing hands. The buttons on the controllers have a tendency to have two functions to them, depending if they are near an object. The side button, by the thumbs, will grasp objects if they are in proximity, or turn the index finger into a digit to press buttons along the wrist area of the hand or elsewhere in the VR space.
As I was intending to discover how to write and draw using the pencil (currently the only writing/drawing tool in Spaces), it took me a few minutes first to understand how to grab/grasp the pencil, and then it was pretty smooth sailing using the Vive trigger to write. This isn’t Tiltbrush; there are good color choices, but one pencil with a variety of thicknesses to choose from, but no style options. No undo either, you have to grab whatever you write or draw and then just trash it. If you click on this pictures, you’ll see that the writing and doodle are just as clear as what you can produce in Google’s Tiltbrush.
Dean Meyers trying out Facebook Spaces Social VR, using the Vive
Playing with filters, taking selfies, bring in 360 videos and pics, and calling a friend through Facebook Spaces Social VR
As I didn’t have any friends I could find online, I made a call to a fellow graphic facilitator, who, unfortunately, couldn’t see me, but who could see pictures I would post on Facebook. It was an hour’s hodgepodge of filters, selfies, and light conversation, but it could work for a business meeting, without too much of a stretch. At one point, I brought in a 360 video I had shot and uploaded, and it played in the background, meaning surrounding us, another use for bringing people fully into an environment to evoke and then capture immediate response.
Why would I even consider using Spaces? I remember the heyday of Second Life, where universities and other institutions of higher learning were building and maintaining areas, running classes online, and this was in 2007. It was a 2D environment, and personalizing avatars wasn’t too tough, but there was no true 3D, and you didn’t have the simplest pencil tool that’s one of the very few things you can use in Facebook Spaces.
Nor is it Altspace VR, where you can play group games, go to concerts and meetings, and not run into that paltry limit that makes Facebook Spaces more like hanging with a few friends in a coffee house. Period.
But that’s today’s Spaces, and Facebook has the computing power and resources to build this out to grand scale quickly, if they see it take off.
I have worked for years remotely, and when most of my work involves visuals, and, more importantly, being able to draw and work visually by sketching, drawing and diagramming by hand with co-workers and clients, I found the pencil in Spaces to be a good first tool to have at least a one-to-one or small group/team meeting virtually.
So I will put up with the avatar, and other limitations, and also hope that Facebook opens it for the less expensive Gear VR (also Oculus-based), to entice wider spread of VR HMDs.
Look me up and friend me on Facebook (Dean Meyers) if you’d like to try out Spaces and have a graphically recorded conversation.
