Trinity Magnum: Another VR gun

"Gerald" wrote:
to be fair this is not a mass produced article like Move, this is a kickstarter - the production costs for them are nothing like what Sony pays for a Move.

When nrp talked about his Adjacent Reality tracker at MTBS3D (1000Hz, wireless) the cost for the sensors was around $30 for a 100 quantity. I don't think the overall cost for the sensors, the LEDs and the 3D printed structure should be more than $50 for a similar or bigger quantity. I think this shouldn't cost more than $50 overall, $99 is pushing it a bit too hard.

"Gerald" wrote:
but try to connect one to your PC and develop for it in Unity ... then you might find that alternatives are not a bad idea :)

The problem with the PS Move seems to be the Windows Bluetooth stack, under Linux it works without a problem and given the right Bluetooth adapter I think it should be the same on Windows. For Unity there is also the UniMove plugin which has been used in several projects. And if you rely on the USB connection for the PS Move you shouldn't have any problem.

"Fredz" wrote:

"Gerald" wrote:
to be fair this is not a mass produced article like Move, this is a kickstarter - the production costs for them are nothing like what Sony pays for a Move.

When nrp talked about his Adjacent Reality tracker at MTBS3D (1000Hz, wireless) the cost for the sensors was around $30 for a 100 quantity. I don't think the overall cost for the sensors, the LEDs and the 3D printed structure should be more than $50 for a similar or bigger quantity. I think this shouldn't cost more than $50 overall, $99 is pushing it a bit too hard.

You are only looking at the hardware here - and even then I think you should not forget that all the tooling costs etc. are still there. But a big part of the costs are the software - if they create decent solutions for Unity and UE4, so that the likelyhood of developers supporting it goes up, then those costs are in that pricetag as well!
And those $99 also contain kickstarters cut and the costs for the payment processing!

"Fredz" wrote:

"Gerald" wrote:
but try to connect one to your PC and develop for it in Unity ... then you might find that alternatives are not a bad idea :)

The problem with the PS Move seems to be the Windows Bluetooth stack, under Linux it works without a problem and given the right Bluetooth adapter I think it should be the same on Windows. For Unity there is also the UniMove plugin which has been used in several projects. And if you rely on the USB connection for the PS Move you shouldn't have any problem.

As a developer I do not really care for what is possible, but for what is the users reality. And that is that making a game for PS Move makes no sense at the moment. In the end it is not how cheap a device is that matters the most, but how much support it sees. That is why I am waiting for what Oculus plans - if they show something cool and affordable I will consider it, if they announce that it will be bundled with every Rift I will support it without giving it a second thought.
So the last one would be the ideal solution unless you want to see a market where VR is still 99% of the time played with a gamepad or mouse/keyboard.

I made the mistake of putting a lot of effort into Leap Motion development. I won't do the same mistake again even though I would love to.

I asked the devs on Reddit about what the differences are compared to Sony Move - here the answer

Besides supporting more than 1 camera solution, the Magnum would be more accurate a distances farther away from the camera since the sphere is larger than on the PS Move. Accuracy is a function of sphere size and camera resolution so the better camera you're using (greater field of view, higher framerate, higher resolution), the better the positional tracking will be. The orientation tracking uses a 9-axis IMU with very low latency.

the "more than 1 camera" could be a great improvement already.
but also the other things make sense - not being limited to current cameras makes the system upgradeable. I will get me one when it launches and there is no better alternative by then. Right now this looks like the best compromise of price and performance.

I definitely like the idea of a cheap (psmove-like?) controller but I don't like the form factor at all. I think controllers should get away of any gun/wheel of whatever specific-game shapes and provide a generic shape and optional attachments for the specific game types.

"NoxWings" wrote:
I definitely like the idea of a cheap (psmove-like?) controller but I don't like the form factor at all. I think controllers should get away of any gun/wheel of whatever specific-game shapes and provide a generic shape and optional attachments for the specific game types.

yes - I would prefer something smaller too. something that then can be put into whatever form you want - nintendo really got the form factor figured out by making it just a long stick. they even found a way to make it a steering wheel :)

the Magnum would be more accurate a distances farther away from the camera since the sphere is larger than on the PS Move. Accuracy is a function of sphere size and camera resolution so the better camera you're using (greater field of view, higher framerate, higher resolution), the better the positional tracking will be

I fail to see how the sphere size could have any influence over precision/accuracy since blob tracking should be implemented with subpixel accuracy in the first place. Also from this video it seems the sphere is about the same size anyway.

The orientation tracking uses a 9-axis IMU with very low latency.

The PS Move is already using a 9-axis IMU as well, but since neither Sony nor Trinity released specs about latency there is no way to know which one has the lowest. Not that it matters much for hand tracking anyway, the Razer Hydra has a 50 ms latency and I've never heard any specific complaint about this.

Not to dismiss their project, but their marketing doesn't seem really kosher to me. They could instead talk about the real advantage of their controller, which should be better software support (PS Move on PC suffers from the poor Windows Bluetooth stack).

"Fredz" wrote:
(PS Move on PC suffers from the poor Windows Bluetooth stack).

I cant even get the PS eye to work, so the driver thing is a big point.

"IsoMacintosh" wrote:
I cant even get the PS eye to work, so the driver thing is a big point.

From their Kickstarter campaign :

For the developer kit we recommend that developers use the PS3 Eye

You're using the CL Eye Driver I guess ? What's the problem exactly ? I didn't try on Windows yet, only on Linux (works).

"Fredz" wrote:
You're using the CL Eye Driver I guess ? What's the problem exactly ? I didn't try on Windows yet, only on Linux (works).

EDIT: Apparently it does not work on moviemaker or firefox but chrome and skype work. So it was typical PEBKAC. :D