Inspiring

Question

We have to stop associating all VR with motion controls...

168 replies
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Things I see Vive-owners saying on social media on a near-daily basis:

"The Vive is the only real VR because it has motion controls!"

"Without motion controls, VR is just a monitor on your face"

"Why would I play this game if it doesn't have motion controls in it?"

"This game is incredible because motion controls! (no other reason given)"

"You can't get immersion without motion controls."

"I'll buy anything with motion controls in it!"

Things I see my fellow Rifters saying here:

"Oh yeah well the Rift WILL be the best AFTER we get motion controls!"

"These games are fun I guess but they'd be better if they used Touch"

"Every game I want to see in the future involves motion controls."

Things I remember Wii-owners saying:

"I can't wait until the Wii comes out, motion controls are going to revolutionize gaming!"

"Oh wow, Wii Sports is the most incredible game I've ever played! Motion controls, yay!"

"Huh... motion controls sure got old fast. All these developers just shoe-horned them in unnecessarily thinking we'd buy anything involving the wii-mote, instead of actually making the games good."

"All these motion-control games are the same. I'm not buying any more."

"How much store credit can I get for this Wii? You say you're already overstocked?"

This pattern worries me. Thanks to the Vive craze, a LOT of people are now looking at VR headsets as just an accessory TO motion control gaming, rather than the other way around. So what's going to happen to VR after everyone inevitably gets bored of motion controls again? Will the VR platforms thrive even after people become jaded with motion controls? Wil people jump ship from the Vive to the Rift, because we have content that doesn't rely entirely on motion controls to be fun? Or will they just conclude that all VR was a fad?

Or will motion controls actually survive past the "novelty" stage this time around? Will developers have learned from the Wii's short time in the lime-light (and the utter failure of Kinect) and actually go to the effort of making GOOD games that just happen to involve motion controls, or will they flood the VR platforms with glorified tech demos and half-assed shovelware that rely entirely on the novelty of motion controls, after seeing how easily impressed consumers are with such content on the Vive?

Believe me, I'm as eager as the rest of you to get my hands on Touch, but much like the people raving about the Vive now, and everyone hyped for the Wii when it first came out, this excitement is based on what could potentially be rather than anything we know for sure. The future of the entire VR industry shouldn't rely on whether our expectations for motion controls are met, because then if motion controls prove to be a short-lived novelty, VR would die with them. People need to see that VR is amazing with OR without motion controls, so that it will survive even if that proves to be a fad.

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A

Anonymous

@zenbane I never said you need to always have a physical controller. I said ALL controllers need to be tracked, there is a huge difference. Slow down your reading speed, you are making ups words in my sentences.

VR is very simple, it's a Virtual Reality. A reality we can understand similar to ours that is created by computers. To achieve perfect Virtual Reality, it's needs to trick all our human senses to make us believe we are living in that Virtual World. Because we have spent all our life in the natural reality, for the virtual reality to convince us that it's real it must contain functions that we are accustomed to, like 3D visuals, the sounds, the feeling of touch, and further in the future, sense of smell, tastes, and then the feeling of motion.

If we do evolve way out in the future, Virtual Reality wont be VR anymore it will be something different, and if we only live there and create your telepathic powers you speak of, going back to the natural reality will be inefficient for the mind.

C

CrashFuAuthor

Inspiring

@tranceology3 - If there was a way to track the gamepad or touch remote or other non-Touch input devices, that certainly could be used to cool effect. Not something I'd consider necessary, but there are potentially cool applications. How would that work, though? Some kind of IR-light stick-on kit? :tongue:

(On a side note, I've actually had the same idea about Lucky's Tale, and how it would be cool if a future sequel involved Touch to create or move platforms or grab things Lucky can't reach, etc all while using the analog inputs on the touch controller to control lucky just like you would with the gamepad. It wouldn't even have to be represented as hands in-game, it could be a separate character like a bird or a bee or something, a Tails to Lucky's Sonic, as.. backwards as that sounds.)

It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

tranceology3 said:

@zenbane I never said you need to always have a physical controller. I said ALL controllers need to be tracked, there is a huge difference. Slow down your reading speed, you are making ups words in my sentences.

So you're saying that all input devices need to have their inputs processed with a corresponding output? Oh okay then, my mistake :|

A

Anonymous

Zenbane said:

There are developments happening right now that are allowing the human eye itself to perform many actions in Virtual Reality.

Many actions is a way off. It can perform actions, but MANY? Tracking what the eye sees is very limited when interacting with objects (and I'm talking interacting, not foveated stuff). You focus in on it, and then have one other action, blink, to make it do something else. Good luck trying to stare at an object in VR like a cup, and throw it, spin, move in XYZ direction, all with the eye....lol. Cmon now, that is very inefficient, just use your hands for crying out loud.

C

CrashFuAuthor

Inspiring

tranceology3 said:

VR is very simple, it's a Virtual Reality. A reality we can understand similar to ours that is created by computers. To achieve perfect Virtual Reality, it's needs to trick all our human senses to make us believe we are living in that Virtual World. Because we have spent all our life in the natural reality, for the virtual reality to convince us that it's real it must contain functions that we are accustomed to, like 3D visuals, the sounds, the feeling of touch, and further in the future, sense of smell, tastes, and then the feeling of motion.

Wait, why does a virtual world have to be similar to ours? Other than taking virtual tours of real places or remotely "attending" real-world events I couldn't go to in person, I'd actually prefer that virtual worlds be far more interesting than our world. That's kind of the point.

And why do I have to believe my physical body is in that Virtual World? Emphasis on either my or physical? I'd actually prefer to be something more interesting than myself, and I only need to believe my consciousness is there and that the world seems real to feel presence in it, not to feel like I'm actually standing on it.

Using Virtual Reality for the purpose you suggest is really redundant and inefficient, anyways; Augmented Reality is more suited to that kind of "be there yourself as yourself" experience, and I think that's what the "motion controls or bust" camp really wants right now. Virtual Reality is more for experiences beyond human physical limitations, where our own bodies are unnecessary to the experience and would only slow us down.

It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

A

Anonymous

CrashFu said:

@tranceology3 - If there was a way to track the gamepad or touch remote or other non-Touch input devices, that certainly could be used to cool effect. Not something I'd consider necessary, but there are potentially cool applications. How would that work, though? Some kind of IR-light stick-on kit? :tongue:

Well, for Valve, there are ideas of them making tracking objects that can be applied to anything. This to me seems like the most efficient way to track anything you want. Valve's lighthouse is a great tracking solution that is very scaleable, I think SteamVR can contain up to 16 tracked devices.

Since the lighthouse photodiodes are very cheap to manufacture and Valve license the technology out, we should start seeing many different types of controllers on the market that use this technology. So we might see a tracked steam controller, tracked hotas, tracked steering wheels, or even just generic tracking pucks that can be attached to whatever you want to bring real objects from the real world into the virtual world.

T

ThreeDeeVision

Inspiring

@CrashFu, while you might know the reasoning behind that statement, it could also be construed that by saying 'we should stop associating all VR with motion controls' would imply that you don't think motion controls work well in any VR application. You know, because if you stop associating ALL of VR with motion controls, you would be disassociating some games/apps that happen to work the best with tracked inputs. Sorry if I misunderstood your actual motives with the thread, it has generated some constructive debates nonetheless.

I think it is pretty much a given that the matching inputs will always be the best solution in any given VR application. HOTAS for flying, wheels/pedals for driving, gamepads for third-person platformers, and some sort of hand presence for first-person VR (maybe additional limb tracking and feedback in the future). Every new person that has tried my various VR HMD's has looked for their hands at one time or another. Hand presence is going to be a big part of first person VR, regardless if it is a one-to-one representation of an avatar that matches your body, or any sort of fantastical avatar the devs can conceive.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

CrashFu said:

Wait, why does a virtual world have to be similar to ours? Other than taking virtual tours of real places or remotely "attending" real-world events I couldn't go to in person, I'd actually prefer that virtual worlds be far more interesting than our world. That's kind of the point.

Exactly. And what I like about this debate is that it is showing something I didn't really think about before... it seems that those who prefer room-scale and tracked controllers can only understand Virtual Reality as long as it represents something familiar to them (e.g., their physical bodies and surroundings). Whereas those of us who went with the Rift (e.g., we bought in to the marketing campaign that superior visual immersion is more important than Wii style gadgets) prefer to think of VR and something that allows us to transcend everything we have known to be true.

I agree that we need to push beyond the boundaries that keep us comfortable within the physical realm. Others clearly do not. Luckily there is a market for both.

T

ThreeDeeVision

Inspiring

@Zenbane I don't understand why you think that tracked controllers have to be a one-to-one representation of your in-game avatar, and then limit said avatar in some reality based setting? I think you are putting limitations on something just to argue for the sake of argument.

Why couldn't your in-game avatar be an extension of your physical movements, and be totally different from your physical body? And the setting could literally be anywhere doing anything, it doesn't have to be anything based in reality. It is you who are putting limitations on this technology acting like the gamepad is somehow the perfect VR input.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

I'm pretty sure I am arguing against limitations, especially since I said that the brain is limitless and the body is limited. Another poster even quoted it so I know some folks understand it.

Whatever you just typed up completely ignores that.

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