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Thoughts on roomscale (Vive opinion, so skip if not interested)

Anonymous
Not applicable
Yep, I'm back again. Anyone miss me? Nope? Thought not! Anyone remember me? Phew, I'm safe then 🙂

Anyway, if anyone does remember me, you'll know that when I first got my HMD (Vive - don't shoot me), I had a tiny space and could pretty much only play seated games. 

I now have a much larger space - just over 2 metres square, and as such, I've been able to finally sample room scale over the past few weeks. And, in a nutshell, it's awesome. I was never convinced about it before I got my Vive - always thought I'd simply play sitting down, but as soon as I got my Vive and started using it, I knew I needed more space.

The feeling of immersion is hard to put into words. I was playing Island 359 the other day. There was a packing crate standing next to me, and without thinking, I went to lean against it... and fell over.  Just being able to walk around (granted, in a limited fashion) is so liberating and adds so much to a game.  Hearing a monster/dinosaur/zombie coming up behind you, spinning round and offing it... way more satisfying than doing it to an on-screen enemy. Having a weapon fired at you and being able to dodge or duck out of the way. It's just... FUN.

I've heard a few people criticise the teleport method of moving around in a game, but for this generation of VR (and until houses are built with purpose made LARGE VR rooms), it's probably the best compromise we're going to get. And, as a bonus, it's pretty good at not causing motion sickness either 🙂

Not having a go at Rift owners here at all, but motion controllers also add a lot to the game. The sooner you guys get Touch, the better (genuine question here - I'm totally out of the loop with things Oculus - has Touch been given a release date/price yet?). Moving around and aiming with a joypad is absolutely blown out of the water by moving around and using a torch/gun/knife/bow and arrow.

Honestly, if you haven't got enough room for at least limited room scale, knock down a wall or something. You won't regret it!
19 REPLIES 19

Shpinxis
Protege
I know there are some who agree with me, maybe not many, but I still see room scale as a gimmick. I don't disagree that there will be amazing experiences for it, but in the long run, with a majority of games, I think it will not last. It is way too limiting in my opinion. The problem of locomotion is the biggest issue. As soon as gamers want the larger AAA experiences, there is no way that room scale can handle it at this point. Maybe someone will think of some amazing solution, but the chances on that seem slim. Every app out there right now that uses room scall/motion controllers either has gameplay elements specifically for it, or are still considered "experiences." I think there is hype around it right now, and there is some good reason, but in the long run, the industry will remember why controller input is so good at the moment. It always seems to come full circle back to the traditional gamepad.

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
@ Notsram How could we forget you brother. Have you tried RAW DATA, it's one of the best VR games at the moment imo.  They've recently updated it to include more areas and better multiplayer implementation. It makes great use of roomscale and teleportation. 


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.

MowTin
Expert Trustee
I don't understand why roomscale needs two sensors. The kinect doesn't need two sensors and it can see your entire body. I also don't understand why the sensors can't see our entire body like the kinect. 

Maybe someone can clarify.
i7 9700k 3090 rtx   CV1, Rift-S, Index, G2

Shadowmask72
Honored Visionary
I think the key word is occlusion. Kinect tracks your body as a whole mass but cannot see through the body so if kinect is in front of you and you put hands behind your back then sure it can see you have done this but can no longer see your hands or what they are holding.

With roomscale there's lots of potential for rotational movement where hands and controllers could become obscured by the body, so the two sensor set up means it can see and track your hands (and head) no matter where you turn.

That's my basic understanding of it.


System Specs: MSI NVIDIA RTX 4090 , i5 13700K CPU, 32GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 11 64 Bit OS.

Viswar
Explorer
@notsram I'm very excited to experience room scale VR. Knowing that you have a 2 meter square area for it, would you say that you have just enough space, too much or still too little? Reason I ask is because I was just planning on creating a space specifically for VR.

JED44
Rising Star

Shpinxis said:

I know there are some who agree with me, maybe not many, but I still see room scale as a gimmick. I don't disagree that there will be amazing experiences for it, but in the long run, with a majority of games, I think it will not last. It is way too limiting in my opinion. The problem of locomotion is the biggest issue. As soon as gamers want the larger AAA experiences, there is no way that room scale can handle it at this point. Maybe someone will think of some amazing solution, but the chances on that seem slim. Every app out there right now that uses room scall/motion controllers either has gameplay elements specifically for it, or are still considered "experiences." I think there is hype around it right now, and there is some good reason, but in the long run, the industry will remember why controller input is so good at the moment. It always seems to come full circle back to the traditional gamepad.


Look up Onward. It is literally the counterpoint to what you just said. Uses traditional locomotion with limited sickness (compared to other traditional locomotion titles) and uses all the benefits of roomscale, 360 tracking, and motion controllers. Its becoming kind of like the counterstrike of VR at the moment. incredible game.

Jose
Heroic Explorer
There are a lot of people (probably half of all VR users) who would rather not stand up and move around when playing games. That's their personal preference, and there's nothing wrong with that. Their job might require them to be on their feet all day. And afterwards they just wanna go home and relax and play VR games. They're probably not gonna want to play Hover Junkers. I totally get that. There isn't much that anyone can do to convince them to like room-scale VR.

Me, personally, I like having the option of doing both, whenever I feel like it.

HiThere_
Superstar
I cleared a space of almost 2mx2m too (more like ~2.1mx1.9m), and that's roughly enough for a
standing 360° experience, but not enough to start walking around, not
unless you keep your 6D controllers close to your body the whole time
(which you typically won't).

Even with ~2mx2m and standing in the
center, I still managed to bang and almost damage a controller into
some furniture by bending forward to extend my reach in a sword fight, so
I'm aiming to go out of my way to extend it to ~2.1mx2.1m (by purchasing a smaller desk). And again
that's just for a standing 360° experience, and not for walking around a
room.

Thing is just the standing 360° experience in ~2mx2m is
great (and just enough if I don't bend forward with my arm streched
out), and once you add a solution to the locomotion issue (and the
headset
cable), of which teleportation is only one example, then you don't need
any more room then that.

Also I
placed a small round rug in my room so I can feel where the center is,
without having to use Chaperone's distracting visual queues (because in a
~2mx2m 360° standing space chaperone tends to activate too often).

As

for Touch, it should be announced during Oculus Connect 3 (October
5th-7th), and until
then the rumor mill says ~199$ and November the 21st : In the
meantime I'm using 2011 Razer Hydra controllers which are wired (meaning I get 180° each side
rather then full 360°, which works out better for managing the headset cable
flawlessly anyway), which are shorter then
the HTC Vive wands (suggesting I'd need a ~2.2mx2.2m space to be able
to use HTC Vive wands, which would require throwing out even more
furniture ^^ ).

The upside of making room for hand controllers,
is that my room never felt so big : I wouldn't want to change it back to
what it was 🙂

PS : To state the obvious, the smaller you are
(arm span), the less space you need. Basically stand in the middle of
your space, try touching something by bending forward, and if there's a
big enough safety margin (add an extra ~0.1m for HTC Vive wands) in every
direction you're good 🙂

PPS : From my personal experience
walking starts around ~1.5mx2.5m (~2mx2.5m is more often suggested),
while facing a specific direction (so not really full 360°, more like
you can either only walk forward and back a bit, either only strafe
sideways a bit, but for doing both without risking to bang your controllers you'd need at least 2.5mx2.5m, depending on your size).

maxpare79
Trustee
Hey Nostram! Glad to have you back here! I really miss your grumpiness lol 😉
Like others have mention Onward is the go to game for the VIVE now, no teleportation, and awesome gameplay (like Counter-Strike). After playing it, all other VIVE games really feel gimmicky (looking at you wave-base shooters!)

I believe teleportation is holding back VR, dev need to stop being afraid using traditional locomotion (meaning stick or trackpad). You get use to everything, I can run around full-speed using a stick in VR without getting one ounce of motion sickness...sure it took some getting used to, but free movement is way better then teleportation.

I don't own a VIVE, my friend does and it took a lot of convincing on my part to get my friend to buy Onward, because he only experienced teleportation games so far, he was worried he would get sick and didn't want to buy it...That's what I mean when I say it's holding back VR, how many people will hold up buying game because they feel "safer" teleporting around.

He finally caved and now it's the best game he ever played after getting used to a bit of dizziness...

Teleportation needs to go, or at least always give 2 options of movement
I am a spacesim/flightsim/racesim enthusiast first 🙂 I9 9900k@5.0, 32gb RAM/ 2080ti Former DK2, Gear VR,CV1 and Rift S owner