Finger "tracking". Is it really?

[VizionVR]

From what I've read in the reviews coming out of E3. the finger tracking is nothing more than a touch sensitive pad on a button. When a particular pad cannot detect touch, the in-game finger associated with that particular pad is displayed.

This explains how a thumbs up is done, even though the thumb is not inside the Touch sensor ring. You lift your thumb off the stick, the lack of touch is detected, and the in-game thumb goes up.

[ThreeDeeVision]

Since it looks like they got rid of the camera on the front of the CV1, there isn't any sort of LEAP device to track the fingers. It must be based on button touch alone in this first iteration. The only issue with that is you will only be able to do simple gestures that are programmed, it isn't actually what your hand is doing. So no joy in flipping the bird to an opponent or waving 'hello' to your pal in the metaverse. I guess you could make the wave position if you don't have fingers on any buttons, but again that is a pretty big assumption. Maybe the player is really doing the 'shocker' sign instead of waving or saying 'I love you' in sign language.

This seems like another half-baked plan to get some sort of emotive hand gestures. Either do it right, or don't bother.

As far as I know, the Vive still has a camera or cameras on the front, so there is still hope for some sort of hand tracking.

[snappahead]

"ThreeDeeVision" wrote:
Since it looks like they got rid of the camera on the front of the CV1, there isn't any sort of LEAP device to track the fingers. It must be based on button touch alone in this first iteration. The only issue with that is you will only be able to do simple gestures that are programmed, it isn't actually what your hand is doing. So no joy in flipping the bird to an opponent or waving 'hello' to your pal in the metaverse. I guess you could make the wave position if you don't have fingers on any buttons, but again that is a pretty big assumption. Maybe the player is really doing the 'shocker' sign instead of waving or saying 'I love you' in sign language.

This seems like another half-baked plan to get some sort of emotive hand gestures. Either do it right, or don't bother.

As far as I know, the Vive still has a camera or cameras on the front, so there is still hope for some sort of hand tracking.

The Touch has sensors that can read simple finger movements and translate that into on screen gestures.

[Malkmus1979]

"Snappahead" wrote:
One step at a time, man. It's funny how we always want more. Now that we've got this amazing hand tracking with haptics and solid hand representation, we're already talking about full hand tracking.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with what both Valve and Oculus are offering, I'm just saying Touch, IMO, sounds better- at least now. Who knows what tricks Valve could have up their sleeve, but they are being awfully quiet.

[willste]

"Snappahead" wrote:
I'm sure full hand tracking is a goal of vr, but for now, I think wands or good motion controllers like we're seeing now are good enough. Ideally, we'll see both eventually and you can have wands/controllers for haptics and functionality and hands for 1:1 hand presence and full gestural control without a controller in hand. Until then, I'm fine with buttons for gestures. One step at a time, man. It's funny how we always want more. Now that we've got this amazing hand tracking with haptics and solid hand representation, we're already talking about full hand tracking.

I think Oculus is really hitting on a good middle ground. Clearly intuitive gestures go a long ways to making you feel more a part of the game. Their controllers still offer you joystick and button controls though which so far are critical to playing most games. It appears to definitely be a refinement over move and Vive prototype controls. I am sure Vive's final controls will be better as well.

It will be interesting to see if Valve can make any VR games for Vive which use only on real world locomotion at room level. If they can achieve that then there is a real strong case for ditching wands with buttons and joysticks and simply doing full hand motion controls for some games. But so far I think Valves kitchen demo is the closest we have seen to this and even that is far from being a game.

They may be touching on the concept for new genre where hand tracking will work really well. It will be very interesting to see Valve's launch titles as I think that is going to demonstrate if developers, other than Valve, can make great games in VR using just motion controls. Their launch library may include some VR games that use traditional controls. Hopefully a lot of devs learned some lessons from the Wii that plastering motion controls where they don't belong doesn't always work so well. I think Palmer's perspective is very realistic. There will be no one magic bullet controller any time soon. You need to use the best controller for the game you playing.

[snappahead]

"Malkmus1979" wrote:

"Snappahead" wrote:
One step at a time, man. It's funny how we always want more. Now that we've got this amazing hand tracking with haptics and solid hand representation, we're already talking about full hand tracking.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with what both Valve and Oculus are offering, I'm just saying Touch, IMO, sounds better- at least now. Who knows what tricks Valve could have up their sleeve, but they are being awfully quiet.

They're probably waiting for all this Oculus stuff to die down. Touch has that new car smell on it, so they might be better off waiting until that's worn off a bit to show any updates. When it happens, I don't know if it's going to be Valve or HTC that does it.

[snappahead]

"willste" wrote:

"Snappahead" wrote:
I'm sure full hand tracking is a goal of vr, but for now, I think wands or good motion controllers like we're seeing now are good enough. Ideally, we'll see both eventually and you can have wands/controllers for haptics and functionality and hands for 1:1 hand presence and full gestural control without a controller in hand. Until then, I'm fine with buttons for gestures. One step at a time, man. It's funny how we always want more. Now that we've got this amazing hand tracking with haptics and solid hand representation, we're already talking about full hand tracking.

I think Oculus is really hitting on a good middle ground. Clearly intuitive gestures go a long ways to making you feel more a part of the game. Their controllers still offer you joystick and button controls though which so far are critical to playing most games. It appears to definitely be a refinement over move and Vive prototype controls. I am sure Vive's final controls will be better as well.

It will be interesting to see if Valve can make any VR games for Vive which use only on real world locomotion at room level. If they can achieve that then there is a real strong case for ditching wands with buttons and joysticks and simply doing full hand motion controls for some games. But so far I think Valves kitchen demo is the closest we have seen to this and even that is far from being a game.

They may be touching on the concept for new genre where hand tracking will work really well. It will be very interesting to see Valve's launch titles as I think that is going to demonstrate if developers, other than Valve, can make great games in VR using just motion controls. Their launch library may include some VR games that use traditional controls. Hopefully a lot of devs learned some lessons from the Wii that plastering motion controls where they don't belong doesn't always work so well. I think Palmer's perspective is very realistic. There will be no one magic bullet controller any time soon. You need to use the best controller for the game you playing.

Yeah, I don't know yet how exactly full room scale will be used. That to me is the big trump card for them, but of course it also puts it into the heavy niche category since most people can't use it fully. I will! At least you can room scale and have full motion control out of the box though. Stupid Oculus.

[Malkmus1979]

"ThreeDeeVision" wrote:
Since it looks like they got rid of the camera on the front of the CV1, there isn't any sort of LEAP device to track the fingers. It must be based on button touch alone in this first iteration. The only issue with that is you will only be able to do simple gestures that are programmed, it isn't actually what your hand is doing. So no joy in flipping the bird to an opponent or waving 'hello' to your pal in the metaverse. I guess you could make the wave position if you don't have fingers on any buttons, but again that is a pretty big assumption. Maybe the player is really doing the 'shocker' sign instead of waving or saying 'I love you' in sign language.

This seems like another half-baked plan to get some sort of emotive hand gestures. Either do it right, or don't bother.

As far as I know, the Vive still has a camera or cameras on the front, so there is still hope for some sort of hand tracking.

This is my take on the current state of gesture input. All three (Vive, Touch, Move) have "grab". But I feel like pointing is something we really won't be able to appreciate until we start using it. I think pointing is almost as important as grabbing. I could do without the thumbs up or peace sign. But pointing and grabbing are the two big things to me. Just think of selecting options on a menu and using your index finger rather than your entire hand. Also, makes me think of the Henry short with people pointing at objects. I'm just saying, I think pointing will be a huge advantage, and actually lifting your index finger to do so will feel much better.

[ThreeDeeVision]

"Snappahead" wrote:

The Touch has sensors that can read simple finger movements and translate that into on screen gestures.

I was under the impression that it could only tell if your finger wasn't touching a button. Is there actually hand tracking sensors on it too? If so, they haven't really gone into much detail on them or how they work.

[Malkmus1979]

"Snappahead" wrote:

Yeah, I don't know yet how exactly full room scale will be used. That to me is the big trump card for them, but of course it also puts it into the heavy niche category since most people can't use it fully. I will! At least you can room scale and have full motion control out of the box though. Stupid Oculus.

I'm planning on devoting my garage to the Vive. It's been said by some devs that the tracking space is actually greater then 15x15. I think they were using a 20x20 space which is about the size of my garage. But I think Oculus will be just fine for living rooms and offices.

[snappahead]

"ThreeDeeVision" wrote:

"Snappahead" wrote:

The Touch has sensors that can read simple finger movements and translate that into on screen gestures.

I was under the impression that it could only tell if your finger wasn't touching a button. Is there actually hand tracking sensors on it too? If so, they haven't really gone into much detail on them or how they work.

I think it's more than that. Otherwise every time you moved your fingers, you'd accidentally point or thumbs up heh.