Forum Discussion
Is oculus having difficulty thinking of an input device?
I thought oculus would have had it all figured out, but the more i read this section of the thread the more i doubt that oculus haven't figured out an input device. This is what you do, you use the b...
You're damn right Oculus is having difficulty coming up with an input device. They've stated the reasons themselves, so I'll just restate what Oculus themselves have said several times:
Oculus aren't going to compromise on Input - if an input device ships with CV1, it's basically going to become the industry standard for VR input for many years.
The reason for this: imagine everybody with a Rift has some control device. After that, it's fair to say that more or less every VR game will have to implement that control device. Over years, developers become comfortable working with this control device and are hesitant to change. Large studios are unwilling to take risks on less-supported input devices, even if they're superior. Even if Oculus release a new input device bundled with CV2, VR consumers will have to own the old input device if they want to play old games, and not everyone will have the new input device (since not everyone will upgrade), meaning the new input device won't be as widely supported. These things slow down VR
The only ideal input is this: a skeletal hand tracker that has sub-millimetre accuracy, very good latency, and 100% reliability.
This is what Oculus have said their input device needs to be. There are a two (very big) problems with this goal however:
Everyone's response to Oculus' spiel about Input (and mine) is "It doesn't matter, they should just come out with *something*!
To which I partially agree, and partially disagree.
On one hand, as a developer, knowing that every single user had some form of 3D input (e.g. hydras) would be tremendously exciting and really open up a lot of creative possibility.
On the other hand, I know as a VR evangelist that hand-tracking is without doubt the future of VR input, and I know that if Oculus bundle anything else with CV1, that basically guarantees ubiquitous hand tracking by 2-5 years, or more. And I'm willing to sit through a few more years of a fragmented input-device market if it means that every headset comes with perfect hand-tracking.
As for Carbon Design - Oculus definitely didn't buy them to design them an input device, they bought them to design CV1. Sure, having an in-house design team means that they'll also be designing CV1's camera, all the boxes, cable housings, marketing material, etc. Once Oculus have an input device all nice and working properly, Carbon Design Group will get busy making it look pretty. But designing the Input Device definitely wasn't their main mission.
Oculus aren't going to compromise on Input - if an input device ships with CV1, it's basically going to become the industry standard for VR input for many years.
The reason for this: imagine everybody with a Rift has some control device. After that, it's fair to say that more or less every VR game will have to implement that control device. Over years, developers become comfortable working with this control device and are hesitant to change. Large studios are unwilling to take risks on less-supported input devices, even if they're superior. Even if Oculus release a new input device bundled with CV2, VR consumers will have to own the old input device if they want to play old games, and not everyone will have the new input device (since not everyone will upgrade), meaning the new input device won't be as widely supported. These things slow down VR
The only ideal input is this: a skeletal hand tracker that has sub-millimetre accuracy, very good latency, and 100% reliability.
This is what Oculus have said their input device needs to be. There are a two (very big) problems with this goal however:
- If both hands are being tracked, this means that you can't hold onto a controller (or if you do, then that hand can no longer be used for interaction). The main problem with this is locomotion: how do you move around in the game if both your hands are unavailable to move joysticks / press buttons? It's something that's talked about a great deal so I won't mention it any further.
- At the moment, all hand-tracking technologies are either too expensive to be bundled with every Rift (e.g. IMU-based tracking) or too unreliable/inaccurate (e.g. optical tracking). This basically means Oculus have to come up with a completely novel hand-tracking solution
Everyone's response to Oculus' spiel about Input (and mine) is "It doesn't matter, they should just come out with *something*!
To which I partially agree, and partially disagree.
On one hand, as a developer, knowing that every single user had some form of 3D input (e.g. hydras) would be tremendously exciting and really open up a lot of creative possibility.
On the other hand, I know as a VR evangelist that hand-tracking is without doubt the future of VR input, and I know that if Oculus bundle anything else with CV1, that basically guarantees ubiquitous hand tracking by 2-5 years, or more. And I'm willing to sit through a few more years of a fragmented input-device market if it means that every headset comes with perfect hand-tracking.
As for Carbon Design - Oculus definitely didn't buy them to design them an input device, they bought them to design CV1. Sure, having an in-house design team means that they'll also be designing CV1's camera, all the boxes, cable housings, marketing material, etc. Once Oculus have an input device all nice and working properly, Carbon Design Group will get busy making it look pretty. But designing the Input Device definitely wasn't their main mission.