Forum Discussion
a cheap foot controller for intuitive hands-free movement
Aside from beautiful but costly omni directional threadmills or sliding surfaces, consumer VR needs a cheap and solid device to intuitively and effectively move our avatar character in game while leav...
Hey Crespo, nice to see you in here and great that you created this thread!
I believe/hope that both developers and gamers are going to realize soon that this type of input is essential in order to have the best VR experience. Things like the new Hydra Tuscany demo already show the potential of being able to use both hands, and I think removing the general avatar movement from those thumbsticks is the next natural step (they could be used to control something much more intuitive like the way your fingers move for instance).
Personally I think the best approach for seated play would be something similar to your last paragraph (the STRZ method), with WASD mapped to the left foot; but instead of using your right foot in a similar way to a laptop touchpad, i would use it in a similar way to a gamepad right analog stick (only left-right): so basically rotate your right foot clockwise to turn your avatar right and counterclockwise to turn left; the more you rotate the faster you turn. I guess this is what edzieba was referring to as well. Obviously we would need some sort of spring or force feedback to return the foot to the default steady position naturally.
The best part is that all this is technically quite simple really, the only problem I see is that even if someone builds and sells some great and cheap standalone foot controller solution, it would be a hard sell for gamers (and developers) to have to buy/rely on 3 different inputs (rift + hydra + foot controller) in order to play VR.
I think the ideal case would be that Oculus released the consumer version of the Rift integrated with both hand and foot controllers, but to deliver an amazing HMD display on its own should be a priority over this. The 2nd best option would be that either Razer released the Hydra 2 + VR foot controller as a package or that Oculus released the consumer Rift + foot controller as a package (without hand controls). This way developers would have to integrate only 2 systems from different companies and costumers would have to buy only 2 "devices" to get a great VR experience. Unfortunately i'm a bit skeptical that this is going to happen anytime soon..
I believe/hope that both developers and gamers are going to realize soon that this type of input is essential in order to have the best VR experience. Things like the new Hydra Tuscany demo already show the potential of being able to use both hands, and I think removing the general avatar movement from those thumbsticks is the next natural step (they could be used to control something much more intuitive like the way your fingers move for instance).
Personally I think the best approach for seated play would be something similar to your last paragraph (the STRZ method), with WASD mapped to the left foot; but instead of using your right foot in a similar way to a laptop touchpad, i would use it in a similar way to a gamepad right analog stick (only left-right): so basically rotate your right foot clockwise to turn your avatar right and counterclockwise to turn left; the more you rotate the faster you turn. I guess this is what edzieba was referring to as well. Obviously we would need some sort of spring or force feedback to return the foot to the default steady position naturally.
The best part is that all this is technically quite simple really, the only problem I see is that even if someone builds and sells some great and cheap standalone foot controller solution, it would be a hard sell for gamers (and developers) to have to buy/rely on 3 different inputs (rift + hydra + foot controller) in order to play VR.
I think the ideal case would be that Oculus released the consumer version of the Rift integrated with both hand and foot controllers, but to deliver an amazing HMD display on its own should be a priority over this. The 2nd best option would be that either Razer released the Hydra 2 + VR foot controller as a package or that Oculus released the consumer Rift + foot controller as a package (without hand controls). This way developers would have to integrate only 2 systems from different companies and costumers would have to buy only 2 "devices" to get a great VR experience. Unfortunately i'm a bit skeptical that this is going to happen anytime soon..