Forum Discussion
Proposal for a new MobleVR control scheme
This is a re-post from the GearVR part of the forum, I thought it should better fit here, sorry for the double post.
Hi all, by now, I have tried quite a few mobile VR apps, including Gear VR stuff at our VR Meetup. What struck me was the total lack of support for motion controls, not even at a rudimentary level. I experimented a bit and I think that a cheap gyro mouse/joystick should be bundled with VR headsets. I put below a set of two videos as a proof of concept of a simile but effective mobile VR control scheme using a 15 EUR airmouse. I did a video with the unity player to show a crisp image with screen capture and demonstrate the interaction capabilities that such small addition opens to developers (the "look to shoot/operate" control scheme that is now almost everywhere is so limiting and unnatural). Here is the video of the Unity Player https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz25fAeCC0s. I also did a very amateur video with an old android phone (sorry for bad quality) showing the airmouse working on a Kindle Fire HDX with decoupled hand/head orientation (actually, I have 2 sub-schemes toggled with a button) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbV1rUXUFXI. Now, there are limitations, since the airmouse hardware is not designed for such operation:
(1) Unlike Windows, Android does not have a native DirectInput support, so once your cursor reaches the edge of the screen, tracking is lost; this can be alleviated by lowering the pointer sensitivity in Android, but this is unfortunately not available in Kindle Fire OS; the best way of solving this would be at driver level where the airmouse would not output mouse, but gamepad to Android, thus unlimiting the virtual axes;
(2) Again, unlike Windows, Android does not let you hide the cursor which might be annoying at first, but you can get used to it; the OUYA custom Android ROM can switch off the cursor, but not in Android; again, the solution is to make the airmouse output gamepad control to Android instead of mouse;
(3) from the airmouse hardware you are limited to 2 axes - horizontal and vertical, so you cannot replicate all movements and have to use buttons instead, it is still better than nothing;
(4) button placement is very inconvenient for VR, ideally it should be in the shape of a Wii Nunchuck with 4-5 buttons and everything else can be with VR menus, I may experiment with VR menus, but it was not a priority for me so far.
And this is the link to the app https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7L0f ... sp=sharing
Hi all, by now, I have tried quite a few mobile VR apps, including Gear VR stuff at our VR Meetup. What struck me was the total lack of support for motion controls, not even at a rudimentary level. I experimented a bit and I think that a cheap gyro mouse/joystick should be bundled with VR headsets. I put below a set of two videos as a proof of concept of a simile but effective mobile VR control scheme using a 15 EUR airmouse. I did a video with the unity player to show a crisp image with screen capture and demonstrate the interaction capabilities that such small addition opens to developers (the "look to shoot/operate" control scheme that is now almost everywhere is so limiting and unnatural). Here is the video of the Unity Player https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz25fAeCC0s. I also did a very amateur video with an old android phone (sorry for bad quality) showing the airmouse working on a Kindle Fire HDX with decoupled hand/head orientation (actually, I have 2 sub-schemes toggled with a button) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbV1rUXUFXI. Now, there are limitations, since the airmouse hardware is not designed for such operation:
(1) Unlike Windows, Android does not have a native DirectInput support, so once your cursor reaches the edge of the screen, tracking is lost; this can be alleviated by lowering the pointer sensitivity in Android, but this is unfortunately not available in Kindle Fire OS; the best way of solving this would be at driver level where the airmouse would not output mouse, but gamepad to Android, thus unlimiting the virtual axes;
(2) Again, unlike Windows, Android does not let you hide the cursor which might be annoying at first, but you can get used to it; the OUYA custom Android ROM can switch off the cursor, but not in Android; again, the solution is to make the airmouse output gamepad control to Android instead of mouse;
(3) from the airmouse hardware you are limited to 2 axes - horizontal and vertical, so you cannot replicate all movements and have to use buttons instead, it is still better than nothing;
(4) button placement is very inconvenient for VR, ideally it should be in the shape of a Wii Nunchuck with 4-5 buttons and everything else can be with VR menus, I may experiment with VR menus, but it was not a priority for me so far.
And this is the link to the app https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7L0f ... sp=sharing
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