Yes, webcam latency is pretty bad, but you can do some prediction to help. I only do this as a temp solution. I would say that depending on the game having some latency of positional tracking is better than none at all. Also webcam can be used for movement along with position. I'll be experimenting the prediction and movement soon.
Something else to consider is what options will the consumers have. Many people have webcams and can get them cheap. Hopefully Oculus Rift release will have the positional tracking by it's main release.
So the hydra is expensive when you realize that you will have to buy a new one when the head tracking comes since you can't use two magnetic fields at the same time. Either Oculus should announce that their spool sensor is compatible with the hydras magnetic field (if that is possible) OR they should announce that you should wait with buying the hydra because there will be something better really really soon. They had this (hydra style positioning) working atleast a year ago, I wonder why it takes them so long?!
Again: We need this standardized NOW, since the only usable positioning uses magnetic fields and you can't have more than ONE magnetic field at the same time. It doesn't matter if the product sucks, that can improve later.
"It's like Homeworld in first person." Disable Aero and vSync for a completely simulator sickness free experience with 2xHz FPS.
Keep the config utility open for tracking to work.
Much too early for standards. People seem to still be rediscovering prior art. And while there have been some companies working at "VR" for a while, they've tended to be focused on specific applications rather than a general VR experience.
"rupy" wrote: So the hydra is expensive when you realize that you will have to buy a new one when the head tracking comes since you can't use two magnetic fields at the same time. Either Oculus should announce that their spool sensor is compatible with the hydras magnetic field (if that is possible) OR they should announce that you should wait with buying the hydra because there will be something better really really soon. They had this (hydra style positioning) working atleast a year ago, I wonder why it takes them so long?!
Again: We need this standardized NOW, since the only usable positioning uses magnetic fields and you can't have more than ONE magnetic field at the same time. It doesn't matter if the product sucks, that can improve later.
That's not strictly speaking true.
The technology behind the hydra CAN use multiple magnetic fields, but the hydra itself cannot. On top of that, the tech can support wireless controllers, and up to 4 controllers per base station.
Since head tracking would require a 3rd controller anyway, two solutions present themselves that could be implemented: 1. Create a wireless tracker that can be used with an existing hydra base station. - By far the cheapest potential solution, since it's a single wireless magnetic tracker/controller, set up to read the same frequencies the hydra base station already uses. - A bit of driver tweaking to add this 3rd controller, and... problem solved. 2. Because the Sixsense SDK supports multiple base stations on separate frequencies, but the hydra's frequency isn't adjustable, simply release a new product using the same basic tech, but make sure it's on a different frequency to that used by hydras.
The only problem caused by the current hydra design is that you cannot simply buy 2 hydras as-is, and get them both working at the same time. (That means that at the moment, you cannot get both head tracking, and tracking of 2 hands as well) But the fundamental technology behind it is built to get around this problem pretty easily if there was a need for it.
You'd need to buy something extra regardless though, because the hydra as-is isn't quite up to the task of tracking both hand and head movements. All this means is you can't buy a 2nd hydra to solve the problem. (but you could buy something else based on the same tech at some point without it causing problems.)
It would be interesting if two hydra bases could be "genlocked" together, so the coils could be disabled in all but one of them, and they would still see the signal timing that they expect from the one active base unit. There is an ongoing discussion of this at MTBS3D:
I expect that wouldn't be difficult if you had the ability to communicate directly with the hardware.
I guess sixsense could do it pretty easily, but I'm not sure they'd have the incentive to actually do so.
I'm not 100% certain about how this works, but it would seem to me that if you could just turn off the coils in the base station (and I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, given that I doubt the coil timing is hard-wired into anything, although it may be part of the firmware), then you could still read the controller values, and simply perform whatever calculations are required as if the other base station were the one they were being tracked relative to.
Aside from needing to be able to write the drivers for this, the other wrinkle I can come up with is that the hydra seems as though it's using an onboard DSP chip to perform the calculations. Which might mean you'd have to disable the base station coils without turning off the DSP, and worst case may also require feeding in timing information from the other base station.
(Then again, since wireless controllers are possible using this tech, it may be easier than that). It largely depends on whether the data from the controllers requires any knowledge of what the base station is doing at that exact moment, or merely a general idea of how strong the signals the base station puts out might be.
It of course also depends on how much control the drivers potentially have over the hardware, and how good you are at writing device drivers... XD
You need a cable between the sensor and the base station in order for this stuff to work today and someone has to build a mass produced product.
The rift is useless without a great control scheme; hydra + head sensor is that control scheme AFAIK.
Sure you can fiddle together something for a small minority to play with but I think the point of this company is to make a standard for VR so the concept can go beyond virtuaboy, which still is the most successful consumer VR device to date with 350.000 devices sold right?
"It's like Homeworld in first person." Disable Aero and vSync for a completely simulator sickness free experience with 2xHz FPS.
Keep the config utility open for tracking to work.
"tbowren" wrote: Back in December, when I thought I was getting the Rift, I started playing with the Hydra to get ready to develop for it. At that time i was playing with head tracking on a regular monitor, to create a virtual "window".
The hydra was attached to the phone in this case and a custom frustrum was created from the hydra's position relative to the monitor to make it look like you were looking into the monitor to a virtual world. Once I had the Tuscany demo and the Rift's orientation it was pretty easy to merge the two ideas.
That is such a kickass video. Very inspiring!
Titans of Space PLUS for Quest is now available on DrashVR.com
"rupy" wrote: You need a cable between the sensor and the base station in order for this stuff to work today and someone has to build a mass produced product.
The rift is useless without a great control scheme; hydra + head sensor is that control scheme AFAIK.
Sure you can fiddle together something for a small minority to play with but I think the point of this company is to make a standard for VR so the concept can go beyond virtuaboy, which still is the most successful consumer VR device to date with 350.000 devices sold right?
No, no you don't. I'm not sure about the hydra itself, but before it was released, the prototypes were wireless. And there are much more expensive research devices based on fundamentally the same technology, which are also wireless.
The tech can do it. That's not the question. The question we have at the moment is about adapting commercially available tech that's already for sale.
If you want to talk about developing a standard input device, simply ask sixsense directly, and get a new product build similar to the hydra, but with 3 wireless controllers instead. Their SDK (as well as the hydra prototypes) show they know how to do it. It's merely a matter of someone being willing to pay the costs of manufacturing such a device commercially. And at the moment, only Razer has done so, which means for the time being we are stuck with the hydra.
But at the end of the day, if the rift gets a dedicated position tracking system of it's own, it'll be a moot point, because the hydra won't have to be shoehorned into performing that task by then. (What the solution for the Rift headset ends up being is up to Oculus to work out.)
The rift currently available is a devkit, remember. It's essentially just a mass-manufactured early prototype.
Complaining about the lack of commercially available products to support something which itself isn't technically a commercial product is just a little bit silly.
low latency webcam monitoring hands and body movement similar to the kinect, will work well, with HD webcam less than $70 virtual tracking doesn't have to be complicated.
I read an article here on the forums about low latency tracking.
