Razer Hydra + Rift

[eshan]

Hi everyone,

Like most of us, I'm very excited about the Rift. However, it sounds like the tracker will only be orientation and not position, and aiming is still bound to looking. I think we can do better with readily available, inexpensive hardware: the Razer Hydra!

I made a brief video explaining my recent experiments in Blender Game Engine with the Razer Hydra showing camera and gun tracked independently, each with full 6DOF. I am a novice as far as Blender, Python, math, and video editing are concerned, but here it is:

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKhdfSva5zc[/youtube-hd]

If anyone with both the Hydra and an HMD want to try this demo, I can export a standalone executable. I know Palmer Luckey and John Carmack had both looked at the Hydra previously, but I'm not sure what happened after that. It seems promising to me, and I am hoping to restart the conversation around it.

Thanks,
Eshan

[JayJay]

That looks so amazing, imagine playing Skyrim where the rift controls your camera & the Hydra controls your weapon +arm, would that be possible when combining the rift + the hydra?

[eshan]

Glad you liked it!

I'm not personally very familiar with Skyrim, but I understand it has pretty good modding capabilities, so it might be possible. I remember someone saying people are already working on Rift support. One thing to note, though, is that the Hillcrest tracker the Rift is currently being demoed with can't give full six degrees of freedom, only three. So you can't easily lean to peek around something, for example. That's why I'm contemplating using the Razer Hydra for camera as well.

[zalo]

That looks like a really cool demo! John Carmack mentioned that the magnetic tracking gets really "lumpy" feeling around other metal objects, so it feels weird while head tracking. Have you experienced this?

Another question: Is that latency really that bad, or is it because the real video and the game aren't synced very well?

Thanks for being the one to take the plunge and build a neat looking demo from the Hydra!

[brantlew]

It might be helpful to just use the location coordinates from the Hydra and the orientation values from the Rift gyroscopic tracker. That would help a bit with the "lumpiness" that Carmack described so even if your head motions got stuck, at least your rotations would remain stable.

FYI: Valve supports an SDK in several of their games that allow you to control the camera in 6DOF. If you want a full game test-bed for this kind of work you should consider creating a Half-Life mod.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Head_Tracking
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15284

[eshan]

That looks like a really cool demo! John Carmack mentioned that the magnetic tracking gets really "lumpy" feeling around other metal objects, so it feels weird while head tracking. Have you experienced this?

Another question: Is that latency really that bad, or is it because the real video and the game aren't synced very well?

Thanks for being the one to take the plunge and build a neat looking demo from the Hydra!

Regarding the delay, the video must be off. In real life, it feels really snappy. As for lumpiness, I haven't experienced that, but I also don't have a head mounted display (yet). Maybe that increases your sensitivity to it?

[cybereality]

@eshan: Cool work man! Certainly shows the potential the Hydra has, such a nice device.

[IGameArt]

I ended up winning an ebay auction for one of these badboys at 35 bucks off retail price, it's refirbished but in near perfect condition. Should be here in a few days, I definitely look forward to playing around with this thing.

[Brandon9271]

I ended up winning an ebay auction for one of these badboys at 35 bucks off retail price, it's refirbished but in near perfect condition. Should be here in a few days, I definitely look forward to playing around with this thing.

Aww man, i wish i had known. I'm pretty sure i bid against you on the same auction! If I'd known a forum member was bidding i wouldnt have bid i ended up getting one with portal 2 for $90.. too bad i already had portal 2.

[IGameArt]

Lol that's fine dude, i'm still stoked to have all the tech required to develop the future of gaming either on it's way, or on it's way to be paid for lol. Got the Hydra, the Rift, and soon i'll be buying Digital Storm's xm11 Gaming netbook. 11.6 inches of pure gaming power with a free 750gb hard drive upgrade lol. Excited to see how well the hydra works with D3BFG and the Rift.

[android78]

That is really cool.
I think as a first step, if they can have independent gun control relative to head, that would be a huge step in the right direction. So wearing the base on you chest or something and seeing the gun moving left, right, up and down in your view.
Still having independent head tracking is still needed though.

[marbas]

If only the hydra controllers would be wireless I'd be very interested. With hmd cable + headset and whatnot. To much cables for my liking.

[eshan]

I got a couple requests for the code for this, so I posted it here:

https://github.com/satyrnein/hydra-bge

Very simple, but it might help someone just starting out.

[Krisper]

Excellent demo Eshan. That is exactly the sort of controls I have been imagining for years. Hopefully the RIFT will be the trigger to get this sort of support in many future games.