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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Anonymous

CrashFu said:

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.

No, what I was saying is a Reality we can understand similar to ours. Virtual Reality does not succeed by just shooting random colors and strange sounds, it needs to contain functions and objects we are familiar with. If that is going from the fantasy of dragons, skeletons, to the reality of travelling to a real castle in Scotland, or even just being a virus scaled down 1000x, living in the human body and destroying living tissue. All those virtual forms need to be similar to the way we understand our reality to make sense and to make us believe we are living that in that virtual reality - and this is achieved by virtually stimulating our senses and tricking us it's real - hence the term REALITY in Virtual Reality.

Virtual Reality used to recreate reality as identical as possible is the MOST efficient way we can progress in the world - even if it's a redundant recreation of something that exists in the world. The reason why, is because in VR you can control the REALITY, and simulate whatever you need. You can't do this in real life. So say you want to train someone to become a bartender. If we had 99% identical VR than real life, it would be much more efficient training someone to be a bartender in VR than real life. That trainee does not need to travel, they can be trained by a computer not an employee, they can get rated on their performance, and instantly find weak areas that need more training, they can be put under pressure and stress to see how they perfrom if a bar was busy as hell, and also train more efficient ways of handling multiple customers.

Virtual Reality is not all about games, cmon people, games are just what get the ball moving into the masses.

JED44

Up and Coming

Zenbane said:

Strongly disagree. The brain doesn't need to bring the limitations of the human body in to an artificial world in order to give the most immersion. That doesn't even make sense from a biological standpoint, since limbs on the human body simply send messages to the brain, and the brain sends messages back to control them. Virtual Reality allows us to engage in that same process, only it removes the human body as a barrier, thus giving the brain much more freedom and power.

I think the issue with this statement is the fact that even with just an HMD on your head, you are still limited by your physical body. Your physical eyes are sending messages to your brain about what is appearing on the screen, your neck and head are very much involved in what you are doing and your brain is controlling them to change what you are seeing in the virtual world. One is still acting with regards to one's own physical body.You have alot of ideas about decoupling the brain from our physical forms for VR and removing human limitations from the equation, but that is something that is not feasible yet.

Every single HMD on the market prevents the eyes from seeing the outside world, so that all interaction is focused on the human brain. That is where all my arguments come from.

You slip on a headset and headphones and all of a sudden see and can move around in a three dimensional world, wherever the program is set. You could explore an underwater world or ride a roller coaster; you could experience the very thing that triggers your debilitating anxiety — all while guided by a professional to help you get past that fear.

At this point you will always be wearing a tracked HMD on your head, despite what you are doing in VR, be it flying, swinging, swimming or whatever, its all just information being processed by your eyes and sent to your brain while your body sits or stands there. You aren't actually decoupled from it. You aren't smelling, feeling, tasting, or touching anything within the Virtual world, but you are in the real world. You may smell the cooking coming from another room, you feel the chair or the carpet beneath you, the temperature of the room you are in, and you feel the HMD on your head and the controller on your fingers. Your brain is still processing all of that.

Your brain is only interpreting the sense of sight and whatever queues come with it (i.e. queues for acceleration, which we are not actually feeling, which is why people get motion sick - it disagrees with what the inner ear is actually sensing) So one could argue that its a very limited form of utilizing the brain when compared to the ideas of neural interfacing or even suits capable of real time haptic feedback.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

tranceology3 said:

Virtual Reality does not succeed by just shooting random colors and strange sounds, it needs to contain functions and objects we are familiar with.

Completely untrue. Have you not tried the "Observatory" app yet?

And when you say, "functions and objects we are familiar with," then you should realize that no human is born with an instant familiarity of all functions and objects. This happens over time with exposure. There are functions and objects that exist today that were not around 100 years ago. Virtual Reality allows us to introduce functions and objects that we may not be familiar with, and then through exposure and time, we become familiar.

It's a process called "evolution," and there is some great reading material on the Internet that can help ya out.

DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

I'm just totally excited about the prospect of tracked control, always have been.

Not because it's necessary for VR, but because it's possibly the one thing remaining above all others that will bring more new kinds of VR experiences to us.

We want higher resolution, bigger FOVs, eye-tracking, lighter, clearer.... etc. etc. All the things that improve our existing experience. But none of those things bring new experiences.

I'm relieved Oculus is bringing us Touch, frustrated that it's taken this long, slightly worried about not having an idea of price.

But bottom line... I'm excited.

13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

DaftnDirect said:

Not because it's necessary for VR, but because it's possibly the one thing remaining above all others that will bring more new kinds of VR experiences to us.

Exactly!

Anonymous

Zenbane said:

DaftnDirect said:

Not because it's necessary for VR, but because it's possibly the one thing remaining above all others that will bring more new kinds of VR experiences to us.

Exactly!

I agree with this too. Just to make sure you are clear in what I am saying @zenbane, I am not saying Virtual Reality NEEDS tracked controllers to be considered Virtual Reality, or that it is the only thing that makes VR immersive, I am saying the CONTROLLERS (again, not VR) need to be tracked so in VR you can see them, it's just more efficient.

I have had many nice VR experiences in the Gear VR without any controller. Would a tracked controller help with immersion if the game uses a controller, yes, but some of the experiences don't even need a controller and I still enjoy it. If I was in a super realistic IMAX movie theater watching movies, do I need a tracked controller....no. Would a tracked controller help me navigate the menu for adjusting sound, changing videos, fast forwarding yes. The thing here is, a tracked controller is just an input to interact in the VR world like a PC mouse. It's as if this topic title is saying 'We have to stop associating all PCs with a mouse.' But for many decades the mouse has been proven to be the most efficient form of input for the 2D PC interface; and I believe tracked controllers will be the most efficient form to interact with the 3D VR interface. Until new technology, like a more robust leap motion can outperform a physical controller, then I still think tracked controllers are still the most efficient way for VR.

By the way @zenbane, the Observatory title you mentioned has objects that are recognizable to me, still looks look classic VR. First image I saw from the screenshot is a skeleton, and isn't that what I said...?

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

Don't cheat and watch a video of the Observatory app. At the very least play through the free demo.

Regardless, not everyone is limited to the barriers provided by familiarity.

EarlGrey

Up and Coming

Controllers provide for a compelling VR experience by providing for a more natural interaction with the world.
I think the VR controllers like the Wand for Vive and Touch for Rift are similar to as the mouse and keyboard are for the PC desktop.

Gamepad and joysticks and steering wheels are all fine, but I think they will continue to be a third party input controller for VR as they are for the PC, only applicable in some the experiences. You'll get them if you want a more natural input mechanism for e.g. a driving game.

For the immediate future, 5 years or so, VR controllers will be the primary, default, input mechanism for VR and all experiences will probably try to support them, just as you can use keyboard+mouse in all PC desktop games.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

EarlGrey said:

For the immediate future, 5 years or so, VR controllers will be the primary, default, input mechanism for VR and all experiences will probably try to support them, just as you can use keyboard+mouse in all PC desktop games.

5 years in technology time is like 50 years in real-time. In 5 years we'll be using our brains to communicate directly with not only computers, but other people.

DarkTenka

Inspiring

After using rift several weeks non-stop I fully agree with original poster. Vive has pioneered motion controls and room scale VR but without actual deep complex games backing it up.. motion controls/room scale is a gimmick at best.

The worst thing is room scale. On paper it sounds interesting but the limitations of room scale movement are hard and fast impossible to get around without making some terrible excuse for design implementation. I mean teleporting? Really? We are just going to accept that as a game mechanic?

In order to explore a virtual world we need to be able to seemlessly walk through out it without restrictions. Roomscale cant ever give us that.. unless the game is specifically designed around it with only having room-sized worlds in the game and they are going to be niche experiences at best.

Thing is motion controls arent that far behind in usability for their design. A game needs to be designed around them and we need a deep complex experience to drive the platform. . Which we wont get because not enough people own the platform for talented and resourceful developers to design for it.

However if as a developing community we focus our attention on JUST the HMD. That is a funcionality which can be ported to a lot of things that already exist in 2D gaming and actually improve on it without disrupting the game design for 2D gamers. We are far more likely to see widespread HMD support in AAA games by the next couple of years, meanwhile motion controls will still be lagging in content.

The thing is, if players jump on for just HMD support its much easier for them to then buy motion controls at a later date.. and then players can actually expect support from devs for it.

Unfortunately people seem to think motion controls are what VR is.. and without it it is a bad investment. Which will prevent people from buying HMDs which will prevent developers from even LOOKING at VR.

If VR fails.. it will be because of that idea in peoples minds - that motion controls are what makes VR what it is. It's not, the HMD makes VR what it is, the motion controls are a supporting feature that enhance VR and is not the core VR experience.

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