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Bodies and hands in VR

Orodreth16
Expert Protege
Hi all, 

I was wondering why in most games the developers only render the players hands and not the body. Some games won't even show your hands (hello, Fallout VR!), which in my opinion destroys immersion almost completely. 
In Lone Echo for example, you can see your whole body when you look down and this was something that made me feel like I was really there on that station. 
I haven't played Arktika.1 yet but I was instantly disappointed when I saw the floating hands in the trailers. 
So, is it so complicated or hard to render a body or what do you think why devs won't allow us to see our avatars in game? 

Thanks for your thoughts! 
4 REPLIES 4

Luciferous
Consultant
I think that is quite simply down to the fact they would need to create hand models to fit every object that you can hold. Fallout VR must have thousands of items. They created a half ass absolute minimum VR integration at a full price to get as much money as possible.

Orodreth16
Expert Protege
Yeah, in the Fallout case I also have the impression that it was all about how to get the VR edition out with as minimal effort as possible. 
However, wouldn't it be possible to use something similar to ragdoll physics, so that they wouldn't have to create a whole lot of hand models but rather have the hand modeled "on the fly"? I'm sure this would occasionally lead to some unnatural movements of fingers, like it was sometimes in Lone Echo, but it would still be better than having no hands at all. 

Anonymous
Not applicable
4A games talked about this and it's because they feel there is more of a disconnect with people arms being different lengths and the like. Lone Echo maybe got away with it as you're floating around and thus there is a disconnect there, however it could just be there tech is good enough to allow for it and others are not so far ahead.

Fallout 4 VR was a joke, it's one of the few games where I feel like it is genuinely a scam. The games mechanics aren't even implemented in full yet (eg: you can't use any guns scopes). Hopefully they fix it, but unless they plan a psvr version I imagine it will get a few patches changing little and then be abandoned.

Devilstower
Expert Protege
Star Trek Bridge Crew shows how things can be done well. I wish more games would give this level of embodiment, as it it really seems closer to that "holodeck" dream.