Nodding Yes or No for input

We tried this in a prototype, and although it's functional, it feels really silly. It works well if your game isn't taking itself seriously at all, but otherwise it actually breaks immersion because you become very self-conscious about how you're moving your head. Not to suggest breaking immersion is always a bad thing!

Thanks @KatsuomiK! Appreciate you sharing this.

@stupidn00b I bet that the more 'UI" focused the interaction is the more the nodding effect falls apart. If you're at a menu we expect a traditional UI, but if interacting with a character it seems like that would only increase immersion.

Would definitely be interesting to try it, but I suspect it's going to be frustrating.

non-verbal gestures like 'nodding' are a very subtle piece of communication, that involve much more than just head movements, namely eye-contact and other body-language, that a computer can't quite understand.

when I'm in the rift, I'm moving my head around a lot, something adjusting in my seat, sometimes adjusting the headset, maybe just looking around the scene... many of these motions could be seen by the computer as 'nods' because they involve small oscillating up/down motions.

So, to make sure you don't get false positives, you'd probably have to set your thresholds pretty high, using big exaggerated up down motions with very little side-to-side, and then you loose the subtleness that you're looking for.

Of course, that's just, you know, like, my opinion, man.

If you can pull it off, I'd love to see it and try it!

Have non of you played Asunder Earthbound?

https://share.oculusvr.com/app/asunder-earthbound

In Asunder Earthbound, it makes good use of nodding and shaking of the head as gestures to respond to an NPC- although I only tried it in the DK1 when I had one- it worked perfectly.

I thought about doing this but I'm sure it would be bad in the long run. The HMD is heavy!

Oh yeah, Asunder!

Both Asunder and Trial of the Rift Drifter used nodding gestures. Since they used it sparingly, the effect remained powerful. Great reminder Mr Crisp!

"CubicleNinjas" wrote:
@stupidn00b I bet that the more 'UI" focused the interaction is the more the nodding effect falls apart. If you're at a menu we expect a traditional UI, but if interacting with a character it seems like that would only increase immersion.

Actually, our implementation was for exactly the use case you describe - interacting with characters. Nodding and shaking your head in response just felt silly, because it isn't natural to only respond with nods. It felt very gimmicky to us. We put responses on buttons, but found a lot more success by making the more subtle parts of conversation matter - for example, characters might react differently if you turn away while they're talking to you. If you're staring at their feet or chest, they'll ask if there's something on their shirt, etc. Those kind of actions are unintentional by the player at first but make it way more immersive.