Hydra vs. Mouse/Keyboard

[GeraldT]

[youtube-hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcJZylnMdXk[/youtube-hd]

Just discovered this little gem on YouTube.

Now this is just one weapon and seeing it integrated into a VR experience might give you a good idea how complicated it would be to map these controls to a mouse/keyboard combination.

Imagine you use a Hydra and dual wield two guns... impossible! That is why I say that for a game to claim it is build truly for VR, it has to leave the boundaries of keyboard and mouse. Only a title that goes full "Hydra only" is IMO a true VR title.

Opinions?

[mahler]

Opinions?

Yes it's an impressive video. This is not specific to Oculus Rift, but VR in General.
That's why the creators of this VRcade posted their video in the designated forum
Our virtual reality arcade platform, VRcade, real-time demo

Guys... if you are interested in VR applications besides the Oculus Rift, also check out the other boards in Virtual & Augmented Reality

[GeraldT]

Opinions?

Yes it's an impressive video. This is not specific to Oculus Rift, but VR in General.
That's why the creators of this VRcade posted their video in the designated forum
Our virtual reality arcade platform, VRcade, real-time demo

Guys... if you are interested in VR applications besides the Oculus Rift, also check out the other boards in Virtual & Augmented Reality

Mahler I was not asking on opinions about the video, but on where VR optimized begins and whether a game that is still holding back to support mouse/keyboard can be considered "made for VR".

I would love to keep an eye on all other subforums here, but then I wouldn't get any work done. Not a good idea.

[mscoder610]

Now this is just one weapon and seeing it integrated into a VR experience might give you a good idea how complicated it would be to map these controls to a mouse/keyboard combination.

Imagine you use a Hydra and dual wield two guns... impossible! That is why I say that for a game to claim it is build truly for VR, it has to leave the boundaries of keyboard and mouse. Only a title that goes full "Hydra only" is IMO a true VR title.

The idea of dual wielding two guns + looking over your shoulder to shoot behind you does sound pretty fun when you've mentioned it. I agree that it seems like VR would be the only way to do that right.
If having two guns wasn't absolutely essential to gameplay though, you could still let non VR users play the title. You would just have to fallback to a single gun, controlled with the mouse, at that point.

In other news, now I really have a desire for a VR sandbox demo that's something like the Matrix lobby scene. Rift headset, dual guns with the Hydra, bullet time, and gratiutious particle / bullet effects and deformable columns / walls.

[GeraldT]

If having two guns wasn't absolutely essential to gameplay though, ...

The two guns are just one example - there are tons of gameplay options you loose when going mouse. I won't share them, because the cool ones are the ones I will try to sell games with in the future, but think about what you can do if you have two hands without fingers that you can "go go gadget" into anything you like. try to imagine how a whip and shield could work ...

I don't like the sword-fight mechanics, because having nothing to stop your swoop killed all my experiments... so when I see that stuff I always think that it only works well in videos, not with the hydra in hand. but using a shield to deflect lasers is working rather well ...

not going fully hydra will limit you - all the time! I can see that you can still do a lot of cool things with mouse and keyboard, but with a hydra you just can do soo much more.

[Evenios]

Hydra would be great if more games would support it working with the Rift i think both need to work together well to be effective . We shall see!

[stinkvis]

Mahler I was not asking on opinions about the video, but on where VR optimized begins and whether a game that is still holding back to support mouse/keyboard can be considered "made for VR".

That still isn't a rift-specific topic in any way, so it shouldn't have been posted here.

I would love to keep an eye on all other subforums here, but then I wouldn't get any work done. Not a good idea.

No one is asking you to keep track of every subforum. Just make sure you use the right one when you start a new thread. Being busy is NOT a valid reason for ignoring basic forum etiquette.

[zalo]

The old philosophical question "Where do you draw the line?" For VR, I'd consider anything with head tracking and an HMD to be VR.

But they're right. This belongs in General.

[Aabel]

Imagine you use a Hydra and dual wield two guns... impossible! That is why I say that for a game to claim it is build truly for VR, it has to leave the boundaries of keyboard and mouse. Only a title that goes full "Hydra only" is IMO a true VR title.

Opinions?

Agree completely, unless the VR experience is some office or productivity virtual environment I personally have no desire to create experiences that rely on traditional forms of control, those games are boring to me and I don't see a point in me investing my time and resources into developing those old thoroughly refined and now highly derivative forms of play. After 30+ years it is my opinion that everything that is worthwhile that can be done with a keyboard/mouse or game pad has been done, new experiences using those forms of input are going to be very rare, or very terrible.

[GeraldT]

Yeah sorry for posting this here! It was meant as a response to a discussion in a different thread here and I didn't want to take it offtopic any further.
I guess a mod will move it where it belongs.

...new experiences using those forms of input are going to be very rare, or very terrible.

this describes my feeling perfectly!! thank you

[Pingles]

I still think its a bit early to be adopting any standards besides the $300 goggles.

I totally agree that eventually we will be divorcing ourselves from keyboard/mouse but I think it's almost a mistake to even be considering it.

Lets get folks used to the Rift first and then throw something else in the mix.

And I will also say that the Hydra has some maturing to do before I will be able to take it seriously. It always seems like the person is not using their hands the way they would like but instead wrestling the Hydra to get it to point their onscreen hand in the right direction.

Not quite QWOP level but it does have a comical feel to it.

I see the power in it but I don't think it's implemented right just yet.

[rupy]

One problem is fatigue, I still think that the "best" control scheme is double analogue joystick controller.

Where the left is feet and the right is view/aim to relieve the neck with fixed viewport crosshair (because having an aimbox = aim then rotate at borders, will be terrible I suspect).

We'll see how it plays out... I would really like to play a flying game (this works with keyboard or digital controller only btw since rodders are up/down and left/right) in which you shoot where you look (view controlled minigun), but my guess is it will break your neck!

So unfortunately until anyone comes up with something revolutionary, the rift is going to be a little like 3D cinema, lots of hype, not much retention...

[cybereality]

Thread has been moved to General AR/VR, where is belongs.

And I totally agree, the mouse and keyboard is a major road-block, and is holding back new experiences. The gamepad is somewhat better, since you have 2 analog pads and 2 analog buttons, so you can do a bit more (for example, the controls on Fight Night: Round 3, which would have never worked on PCs). I think the Hydra is a good start, but by no means the best controller possible.

I'm still holding out for a decent data-glove, seems not to many people want this anymore. I think a fully working 6DOF (orientation + position) glove would be the ultimate for VR control.

[Aabel]

I'm still holding out for a decent data-glove, seems not to many people want this anymore. I think a fully working 6DOF (orientation + position) glove would be the ultimate for VR control.

100% agreement! I dream of data gloves, one for each hand, yet they still elude us. For the time bieng it really does seem the hydra is the most accessible 2 handed controller with solid 6dof and an SDK to boot.

One problem is fatigue,

Initially maybe, but I don't see it being a long term problem. When I first got my 22' Cintiq, it was a little fatiguing to use, nothing major I didn't need to shorten hours worked or anything, just took more frequent and frankly a more reasonable number of breaks, however that faded very quickly, by the second day even. People will adapt and they will be better for it. Our bodies were not meant to be so sedentary.

[mahler]

I think the Hydra is a good start, but by no means the best controller possible.

I also bought one recently and though impressed with the good looking and ergonomic design, it just doesn't seem to live up to it's full potential on a 2D screen. I'm looking forward to using it in 3D applications.

[zalo]

I agree on the data-glove front, but a physical glove might not even be necessary if cameras can do it for us. There used to be some extremely impressive videos of hand tracking (full skeletal hand tracking) on youtube with the Intel Perceptual Computing camera, but they got taken down. This one is the closest I can find:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqedReHDVA[/youtube]

The creator of the really impressive videos was asked to take them down from youtube You can find the forum thread he made about it here: http://bulletphysics.org/Bullet/phpBB3/ ... php?t=8742
If he ever posts them online again, you should be able to find them in this thread.

[rupy]

Our bodies were not meant to be so sedentary.

Agree, the only way to know, is to try. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced that it IS the super human capacity that makes peripherals fun to control with.

So the mouse is fun because it has speed and precision that nothing can match, except possibly the eye!

So if the rift only makes games slow, and provides nothing "fun", it's going to be a though sell.

Immersion will only be as good as the controls, so this needs to be solved!

And if it's still too early, well we'll know why VR failed a long time ago.

[ChrisJD]

I'm still holding out for a decent data-glove, seems not to many people want this anymore. I think a fully working 6DOF (orientation + position) glove would be the ultimate for VR control.

6DOF gloves with reasonable finger tracking is definitely what I want to see.

I think it is exactly what we'll get at some point. I think the HMD had to come first (I'm assuming the Rift is the start of a solid consumer HMD market), but with that, fully tracked gloves become the "obvious" input method of choice. Being able to accurately show hands in the virtual space will increase immersion a huge amount.

I think the biggest problem with any input method that has you trying to interact with your hands is haptic feedback. Without something preventing you from moving your hands through a virtual object there is always going to be a disconnect which will reduce immersion. Sure, you could be the unstoppable force within the virtual world, but that's going to get pretty dull imo.

[Aabel]

Agree, the only way to know, is to try. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced that it IS the super human capacity that makes peripherals fun to control with.

So the mouse is fun because it has speed and precision that nothing can match, except possibly the eye!

So if the rift only makes games slow, and provides nothing "fun", it's going to be a though sell.

Immersion will only be as good as the controls, so this needs to be solved!

And if it's still too early, well we'll know why VR failed a long time ago.

I agree, the super human capabilities are interesting for sure, but I am convinced that we can still do them in VR and make them more fun and more immersive than they are with traditional inputs and displays. Speed boosts and jumping boosts are high on my list of things to try on the rift. I imagine they will be more difficult to control at first but once trained up they will probably be far more exciting than anything out there in conventional game land now.

[metronome]

surely something like a bluetooth imu would work well perhaps strapped to either your wrist or the inside of your palm... then using detecting gestures,,,, im still a big fan of force powers :p


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/YEI-3-Space-S ... 20cefb5dda


Any ideas???

edit:

after using my 3d HMD I deff think rift will not be a tough sell at all, I think the 3D especially so close to you adds a sense of "presence" which is very different to immersion it's almost like at times the things are with you in the same space...

[Mystify]

One advantage of doing this as a hobby is not having to care what is standard. My goal is not to make something to release, it is to make something for my own enjoyment. If that means making a rift+hydra only game, then I will, despite the very narrow market such an application may have. If I do decide to release something, then that is just icing.