No one else using PSMove?

Yes... For experimental purposes, anything you can get to work at some point is worth experimenting with.
(If nothing else, it gives you a good sense of what you could base later devices on. - After all, the rift itself is an example of something derived from a lot of experimenting with pre-existing hardware).

I do get the sense from the kind of discussions going on, that there are more developers than I would've expected who seem to have releasing commercial rift compatible software as a near-term goal.

Seems a little... Risky, especially given what some of them have been saying, but if that's what they want to do...

Anyway, as to my problems with the move, I noticed the issue is a well-known one, and it's the initial pairing that proves difficult. (after the first time, as you said, it connects without problem, usually) - it also appears to be a problem specifically related to the windows bluetooth implementation, which is an interesting situation too.

Unfortunately, my bluetooth adapter does seem completely incapable of making a connection, though bluetooth adapters are dirt-cheap these days (the new one I ordered cost £1.99), so it's not too big a deal.

The book included with the move I got is called the 'PS WonderBook', incidentally... XD

I feel like messing around with that now... Guess I better read up on real-time image recognition then...

The PSeye is a great little camera, have a look on the MTBS3D VR RnD forum, there are several tracking projects using it on there. There's also the DUO project, an open(ish)-source leap clone: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cod ... -3d-sensor

It would make a good snap-on upgrade to give the Rift "eyes" (for visual pass-through) but should also be able to do some head / hand tracking. A full computer-vision based system would require a lot of development work (PTAM, DTAM, stereo odometry etc) but something using markers seems quiet do-able in the near term. Sadly it doesn't look like they will hit their funding goal at the moment, a victim of kickstarter "fatigue" maybe, but a Rift tie-in might give them the bump they need...

Sounds interesting. And the framerate is even more rediculous than the PS eye camera itself (Though I suspect the framerate is actually limited by the USB connection, especially at high resolution.)

Meanwhile, I still can't get a PS Move controller to sync with my PC, even with a second bluetooth adapter.

I'm thinking of testing it on a Linux system, because I've heard the issue is specific to the windows bluetooth stack.
(Well, to be specific, the most common Linux bluetooth stack allows you to insert the ID of a bluetooth device into the stack without actually connecting it over bluetooth, which the Linux driver uses to pre-sync the controller when you connect it via USB - which you have to do anyway. - There doesn't seem to be a problem connecting to the controller after the first time, so this avoids the problem that arises on windows, which won't let you do things that way...)

Still... Kind of annoying really.

But at least the camera works... XD

The DUO is really just two PS3eye cams with wider FOV lenses (not even sure if they are hardware synced?) I guess that quoted fps is just achieved by interleaving the two. I hope you get you Bluetooth problems sorted, I've had enough problems getting Wiimotes to behave in the past, it's a real PITA, have a look at the Toshiba or BlueSoleil stacks, they might be more stable?

I had a lot of problems with wii remotes early on as well (though never to this extreme), but I haven't had an issue with one since about 2009 or so.

And that's on two seperate systems, and with the same bluetooth hardware that was initially giving me connection problems.
That looks a lot like a driver issue.

Meanwhile, I tried the toshiba bluetooth stack with a PS move controller, but wouldn't you know it, the Move API only supports the default windows bluetooth stack.

If this were like the Wii that wouldn't be an issue, but the Move controllers (and PS3 controllers generally) require that you write the MAC address of the bluetooth adapter to the controller over USB, otherwise the computer can't even see that the Move controller exists.

This requires a utility program that can access the PC's bluetooth stack, and this doesn't work with alternate bluetooth stacks.

It all adds up to just being really annoying. XD
(It's especially annoying knowing that the main problem I'm having apparently can be avoided on Linux and even Mac because of how their bluetooth stacks work.)

I like the idea of bluetooth, but the software implementation is a horrible mess of incompatibility and differing features.
I've struggled in the past with blue soleil, microsoft, toshiba and widcomm stacks with different dongles, getting a wiimote working was never simple.

Getting Wiimotes working was a real nightmare for me early on, but somehow that isn't the case anymore. (don't know what changed though, and it could be due to something I did. - I do recall that the problems I had all happened on my windows XP system, and never on my windows 7 one. - even though I was using the same dongle on both)

But on another note, I've just managed to get the Move controller working.

In typical crazy fashion, it just suddenly started working after a lot of messing around with drivers:

Here's everything I did so far:
-Install widcomm bluetooth stack.
-Uninstall widcomm bluetooth stack.
-Buy a new bluetooth adapter.
-Install motionInJoy, and it's weird drivers.
- uninstall motioninjoy.
- install FreeBT (required turning off all driver signing in windows 7...)
- uninstall FreeBT
- Manually remove motioninjoy files and drivers that it had left behind both for the bluetooth driver, and the Move controller itself

- Install the original bluetooth drivers again, and get the original Move HID drivers running again.

...

And now, somehow it works...

Bluetooth is such a mess. XD

(Well, it is with these kinds of devices that don't actually implement the protocols correctly, and the windows bluetooth stack being almost as bad...)

But... The end result is... Well, it works now.
I wonder if a second controller will be as troublesome, or if it will work easily now...
Because that'd be just typical... >_>

I definitely want to look into using the Move. I have a few of them lying around (from owning a PS3), and also have the Sharpshooter gun attachment, which might be a good peripheral for a game if I can get it to play nicely with the unofficial move API...

I still have to say I don't like the Move's button layout much.

Initially I though maybe this was just a case of familiarity, since I've spent so much time with Wii controllers, but when actually looking at it the reasons started to become more clear;

The Wii has 7 buttons and a 4 way D-pad (effectively 4 more buttons, with a few limitations on the possible combinations.)
For use with an actual Wii, one of these buttons (the home button) is off limits due to the system software, but on PC you can do anything you like with it. (There's also a power button, and while you can register button presses for it, it's hardwired to disconnect bluetooth, which makes it unusable in practice.)

The Wii remote can be held in multiple ways (one of which makes it resemble the layout of an NES controller) but assuming the most common vertical arrangement, 2 of the buttons are easily accessible. The D-Pad and 3 of the remaining buttons can also be easily pressed with a slight hand movement, and even the two buttons towards the bottom of the controller, while the most difficult to use, can still be pressed without too much trouble just by moving your thumb.

Compare this to the move...
The move has an analog trigger, a large 'move' button, a 'ps' button, 4 face buttons, and start and select buttons.
While the analog trigger is a nice addition, and can allow a handful of nice things, already you can see that we're short 2 buttons now compared to a Wii controller.
On PC however, you can register all 8 digital buttons, and the value of the trigger. (the 'PS' button, I think on a PS3 is also used for some kind of menu, but I'm not sure - if it were, you'd lose it's use on an actual PS3, but for PC, again, you can do anything you like with it.)

So, with 2 less buttons, you're already down a bit... But now let's consider the layout:
The trigger and 'move' buttons are easy to press, and in a pretty similar arrangement to the A & B buttons on a Wiimote.
The 4 face buttons are also in a fairly decent arrangement. They're slightly more accessible than the Wii's D-pad, but the layout is less useful for certain kinds of features. (D-pads are the shape they are for a reason) - But overall that's mostly a matter of preference.
The PS button is in a similar relative location to the Wii's home button, but the slightly larger distance, and the way it's recessed make it more awkward to use. (However, given the relative function of these buttons on their respective consoles, it wouldn't ordinarily have mattered much for their intended use.)

The real killer for the move controller however is the start and select buttons. They are placed on the side of the controller in a way that makes it all but impossible to press either one without moving the controller a substantial amount in your hand. (and making it difficult to use the other controls as a result),
This makes using these buttons for anything other than minor functions you rarely need to use all but pointless.

The 1 and 2 buttons on a Wii remote require awkwardly stretching out your thumb, but despite that it is a relatively quick motion to press one of them then return your hand to the buttons higher up. And throughout that entire move you can still keep your other finger on the B trigger.

To press start or select you have to make an awkward move with the controller that renders most of the usual buttons unusable. Not to mention that using select comfortably requires a different position to using start comfortably, neither of which is a comfortable posture for using any of the other main buttons...

So, while it was already 2 buttons short in comparison, the awkward layout effectively loses you another two buttons.
Granted, depending on what you're doing it might not matter, but having 4 less buttons to work with can certainly be a hassle at times.
(The upside is the tracking, especially positional tracking is a lot better. - Although ironically, the navigation controller has no motion tracking at all, while in the case of the Wii's Nunchuk controller, it has an accelerometer, just like a wii remote without upgrades.)

Anyway, sorry to rant at length about something like that... I guess my point here, if any is that each of these controllers has certain strengths and weaknesses, so if you're going to use them, it helps to know what they are.
(The Wii remote CAN do 3d position tracking incidentally, just in case you thought only the move could do that, but this relies on the IR camera, and to work effectively requires a IR tracking marker that's somewhat different in design to the 'sensor bar' nintendo chooses to use... The field of view is also pretty small, which can prove a bit of a problem in some applications.)

Still, you might think I'm being really negative about the move here...
But I'm really not. It's good points are pretty impressive. It just has a few design choices going on with it that really make me wonder 'what were they thinking?'...

Haha, yes, quite a long rant. :)

I do agree, the buttons are quite limited, and that can become a serious constraint for some uses. The start and select are horrible -- I'm inclined to use my other hand to press them if I have to (and it's free), so I don't move my grip out of place. They're that bad. I don't even like the four peripheral buttons, because they are quite hard to depress -- this is understandable since you want to avoid accidental presses while keeping a grip on the controller as you swing it about.

I'm familiar with the Wii. Played with an early "gamecube x2 + wiimote" devkit. It's precision tracking (camera+IR LEDs) is optimized for pointing at a narrow field; not something I'm specifically interested in for a virtual world.

I played with the Hydra now, thanks to VRMatthew on these forums, and it is pretty nice. Two tracked hands with thumbsticks is good. Yes -- the dumb nav-controller for PSMove is nearly useless. A DualShock in hand is better because it has motion sensors at least, but I would really prefer a proper Move controller with thumbstick. Anyway, back to the Hydra... I think it's great with the current class of demos we have... but these are leisure walks-in-the-park. I'm not going to be able to swing a sword with (current version of) Hydra! It will also be unreliable for aiming (PS Move isn't fantastic at this either with some orientation drift). I'd like the Rift sensor (fantastic orientation tracking!) paired with camera-tracked continuous calibration... and using the psmoveAPI I want to experiment with LEDs on the corners of the Rift -- and actually this goes back to the Wii somewhat, using a pair to determine distance.

I understand your concerns with the Move, and I wasn't suggesting it's *the answer*, but I was surprised that people were jumping on the Hydra as *the answer*. They all have their suckage points, but on the flipside, this is related to their strong points. The Hydra is well suited to Tuscany. Add some action and I think you'll be apt to hang yourself on those wires. And if it was wireless, even without latency concerns... you'd then drift outside the "sweet spot" and suffer glitchy behavior... why does that throw always seem off?

Edit: And I'm not trying to push for the Move itself... but rather it's technique and features... as just one more option to consider. I think people have too many high hopes and dreams of a magical purely magnetic solution -- which would be great, but I have my doubts about sufficient accuracy of this in the near term.