Full Body Tracking - Are we missing it?

[Sting]

Anyone else worried that Oculus is missing the craze for Full Body Tracking?  It is all I hear about in VRChat and the HTC Vive trackers are about the only game in town.  I tried a Kinect (2.0) setup but it is not in the same ballpark.  I've been Oculus all the way since DK2 and I am surprised they are so flat-footed on this.  I can understand their focus on inside-out tracking and such, but they are missing a growing segment.  I believe once a person experiences good full body VR, it becomes a necessity.  That's just an opinion.  Anyone have thoughts or counter opinions?  

[ItzFlipz]

I think thrillseeker made a video on it?

[Nunyabinez]

First of all, putting one or two Vive trackers on stuff or your body is not "Full Body Tracking." Second, what top games even support this? I see that VR chat does, but what are you going to go with your feet in VR chat that would make me feel I'm missing out?

It's the same as full finger tracking on the knuckles. What are you going to do with your ring finger totally independent of your pinky? Knuckles may be a superior technology, but it's a technology in search of an application.

When there are games that need to know where anything other than your hands are, then we will be missing out, but right now there is nothing to see here. Plus, I bet there are people at Oculus working on this anyway.

[Anonymous]

To play fair - technology companies grow on the idea of searching of an application/market. But as Nunyabinesz states, there just isnt anything really out there for it yet. Heck, we haven't even master the HMD let alone the tracking method that works best for almost all situations while not costing an arm and leg (this talking as a whole for VR). 

I say once we have  a "good enough" HMD with 4k per eye displays, eye tracking, FOVA, etc etc - then we will see them move onto something else. It wouldn't really be hard to add it later such as using using current IMUs or even the improve ones that are coming out next. Then you can add some sort of re-syncing with them using magnetic tracking after that. So I am sure its possible in the next 5 years. The problem is will people at a massive scale buy enough them? How complex will that make our games to make use of them? How much is that going to cost extra?

I think the buggiest limiter will be how much will it complex our games to make use of them. Game devs are already busy just trying to keep up with the newest technology from our Graphic Cards - then adding the VR feel and working with a bit more complex input system of our heads and eyes. Throwing in extra input is going to get even more crazy after that xD I say body tracking needs at least 5 more years and let the dust settle for what we even currently have. If anything - instead of asking Oculus to come out with body tracking - what we should be asking from Oculus is to be more open with their technology to allow others to support the accessory market so you can have your body tracking for low volume sell market. This way its a choice for the end customer and for Oculus if they want to try and push that as a feature.

[kojack]

It's a shame Sixense never released the Stem. It had 10 magnetic field tracking units you could attach and they were working on a headset agnostic body tracking library. Attach one to the headset to sync the coordinate systems and the rest to your body.

(Although I know someone who was working with the Stem prototypes and he didn't enjoy it).

Or instead of a limited system just get a mocap suit like a Perception Neuron. Every body part tracked, including fingers (and even multi joint tracking of index fingers and thumbs). Although the same issue: almost nothing supports it (probably less than vive trackers).

A Perception Neuron with a Quest means unlimited tracking distance. No external devices, no wires.

I do feel that at least foot tracking is important for VR. I hate looking down and seeing I'm just a floating head, or have a body that doesn't match my movements. Having feet tracked gives you a better grounding in the world.

[Anonymous]

kojack said:

I do feel that at least foot tracking is important for VR. I hate looking down and seeing I'm just a floating head, or have a body that doesn't match my movements. Having feet tracked gives you a better grounding in the world.

That's where something like vision tracking could come in handy instead. Instead of tracking - you instead project your self into the game. Much like how the hand tracking currently works with Quest - you could just in theory - look down - see your body in game move around without the need for extra stuff. Sure its not really "tracking" as its a projection of what it sees during that time - but it would help the feeling you are there when you do look down at your feet. To some level you could use that to track some motion. But again - complicity always adds no matter what direction we go, but it could be an optional choice if a game dev wants to add it in later.

If Oculus moves in the direction I predicted - moving to Quest-2-PC - it would allow the hardware on the mobile side to just focus on tracking and translate the data back to the PC to allow even more complex tracking such as feet, legs, mid body, arms, and hands depending on where you are looking and what it can see. Again, not tracking in terms of what really going on - but still way more immersion than what we have now.

I guess if they go this route though - what? You just need a few IMUs attach to your body parts for a bit more tracking - and just resync them when the cameras look down. I guess that could be possible. Unlike our hands that could move in almost any direction - legs, feet, and mid body has really limited freedom of motion.