Forum Discussion
Pointless ponderings about mouse movement
Ahh, the humble computer mouse. It's been our loyal companion for quite a while, hasn't it? Everyone has one, or something approximating it. For an OS-control environment, wouldn't it still do a ...
I was thinking about mouse input for a VR OS a while ago. I don't think using the mousewheel to control the 3rd dimension is the best idea, but I do agree that there is some requirement to be able to interact with a 2D mouse in a 3D virtual space.
(What I would really like is some device that you slot your mouse into that allows you to freely move it up or down without having to lift its weight, but we're not talking about new devices here are we ;) )
A way that you could do it is use a mousebutton (say middle-click) to lock the mouse cursors z-position to the frame that the HMD is currently pointed at.
Alternatively, you have the mouse mapped to the X and Y axes just like how it is right now (that is to say, mouseX -> virtualX and mouseY -> virtualY), and while holding both mouse buttons (or perhaps middle mouse), the mouseY maps to virtualZ, so you can very naturally push and pull the cursor forwards and backwards.
Ah, I beg to differ! Imagine if you had a Windows shell for VR where you were able to have windows behind other windows, and the ability to really naturally move them forward or backwards by dragging them exactly how you currently do, only with the 3rd dimensional capabilities of some novel way of interpreting mouse input!
But yeah, I agree that it would be super awesome if some VR productivity software had the ability to use a regular mouse for 3D input, since they're everywhere! :D
(What I would really like is some device that you slot your mouse into that allows you to freely move it up or down without having to lift its weight, but we're not talking about new devices here are we ;) )
A way that you could do it is use a mousebutton (say middle-click) to lock the mouse cursors z-position to the frame that the HMD is currently pointed at.
Alternatively, you have the mouse mapped to the X and Y axes just like how it is right now (that is to say, mouseX -> virtualX and mouseY -> virtualY), and while holding both mouse buttons (or perhaps middle mouse), the mouseY maps to virtualZ, so you can very naturally push and pull the cursor forwards and backwards.
"mystify" wrote:
for an OS control enviroment ,the 3rd dimension is probably not useful, not with a conventional design at least. Simply having a single layer to use a mouse with would be sufficient, not need to worry about complex control schemes to mouse in 3 dimensions
Ah, I beg to differ! Imagine if you had a Windows shell for VR where you were able to have windows behind other windows, and the ability to really naturally move them forward or backwards by dragging them exactly how you currently do, only with the 3rd dimensional capabilities of some novel way of interpreting mouse input!
But yeah, I agree that it would be super awesome if some VR productivity software had the ability to use a regular mouse for 3D input, since they're everywhere! :D