Oculus Touch Controllers: The Good And The Bad

[scolaner]

We spent hours with the Touch controllers and a raft of new and recent games. Here's what we observed.

Oculus Touch Controllers: The Good And The Bad : Read more

 

[Blitz Hacker]

Article should be called 'Just incase you were considering NOT getting the HTC Vive' Look at the moronic things the competition is doing. Virtual reality with 3 fingers, talk about crippling software engineers vs the competition before it's taken off. I stopped looking at the Oculus when Facebook bought it out. Hey props to them for starting the VR trend, but I'm pretty sure with Facebook's daily invasions of privacy and borderline illegal disclaimers and use of your private data. I'll pass.. <middle fing.. er nevermind they wouldn't understand that in Oculus land> <face palm>

 

[lolimaroflcopter]

LOL so it should be called 'incase you were considering NOT getting the vive' and you say look what the "moronic" competition is doing, VR with 3 fingers! Well how many fingers does the Vive controller let you use in VR? Here's a hint, it isn't bigger than 0. While you won't give Oculus the middle finger because they wouldn't understand it, you can't give HTC the thumbs up or even point at them since they don't even understand what a finger is period.

 

[Crystalizer]

looks weird and the buttons are positioned oddly. The grip looks weird too and the handle is way too small for it to feel comfortable. What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy? Isn't that the thing most people are interested in. Why dance around it? That only makes it much harder to find anything valuable in the text, which is exactly the thing I was experiencing while trying to quickly read and find useful stuff.

I was looking for the good and bad section. Now I feel like "what did I just read?" Experience of a man who tried it.

 

[Crystalizer]

LOL so it should be called 'incase you were considering NOT getting the vive' and you say look what the "moronic" competition is doing, VR with 3 fingers! Well how many fingers does the Vive controller let you use in VR? Here's a hint, it isn't bigger than 0. While you won't give Oculus the middle finger because they wouldn't understand it, you can't give HTC the thumbs up or even point at them since they don't even understand what a finger is period.

You do realize HTC Vive has had controllers since it was launced? And they are really good too.

 

[dstarr3]

LOL so it should be called 'incase you were considering NOT getting the vive' and you say look what the "moronic" competition is doing, VR with 3 fingers! Well how many fingers does the Vive controller let you use in VR? Here's a hint, it isn't bigger than 0. While you won't give Oculus the middle finger because they wouldn't understand it, you can't give HTC the thumbs up or even point at them since they don't even understand what a finger is period.

You do realize HTC Vive has had controllers since it was launced? And they are really good too.

He's acting like a child, but I think his point is that on the Vive, you only have a "grab" control, not any combination of fingers. So the Rift's hand controls are slightly more sophisticated in that way. But it's still a, pardon the pun, rather ham-fisted attempt at representing a usable hand in VR.

 

[chaz_bot]

If I am going to spend $800 on VR (wish I already did with the Vive) then I would get the Vive. Fuck the Facebookulus Rift.

 

[dstarr3]

If I am going to spend $800 on VR (wish I already did with the Vive) then I would get the Vive. Fuck the Facebookulus Rift.

Then get one.

 

[Jeff Fx]

>Thus, you can point and give a thumbs up, but otherwise it’s like one hand clapping. You can’t, for example, flip the bird.

This may be intentional. Some game developers work to reduce the impact of troubled players in their multiplayer games by limiting interaction. Until now I've only seen it as canned phrases replacing voice chat, but this may be the same sort of thing.

>If you look down in, say, a shooting game, your holsters are floating, too. You have no body and no legs, which feels rather strange

This is also probably intentional. If you try to represent someone's body without trackers that can see where the knees and elbows are, the representation winds up being wrong and weird, which reduces immersion. Getting the size of the torso wrong would probably do the same.

 

[Jeff Fx]

If I am going to spend $800 on VR (wish I already did with the Vive) then I would get the Vive. Fuck the Facebookulus Rift.

Get one. The Vive is fun and exercise even with the primitive early games, and will only get better as AAA titles come out.

 

[Specter0420]

I am getting an OSVR HDK2 early next week. It is $350 and has the same screen resolution and size as the CV1 and Vive, but uses full RGB displays. That means 50% more subpixels vs the other two using the same computer horsepower. It works with many motion controllers I already own too (move, wii, leapmotion, etc) for roomscale.

 

[bloodroses]

Now would have been a good time to release the Power Glove; not when Mattel/Nintendo originally did. I bet one properly hacked for PC (such as linked below) would work great with these VR headsets:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Power-Glove-20th-Anniversary-Edition/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Hacking-a-Powerglove/

 

[none12345]

Sadly i think they have already killed VR before it even had a chance. The hardware is just not ready yet. Resolution sucks, lag sucks, movement sucks, interaction sucks, the games REALLY suck.

I mean, sure, ohhhh shinny....but shinny wears off fast. Color me not impressed. I guess i shouldn't be surprised tho, VR has been touted off and on for the past 2+ decades now, with little success.

/sigh, wtf are the holodecks star trek promised!

 

[bit_user]

>Thus, you can point and give a thumbs up, but otherwise it’s like one hand clapping. You can’t, for example, flip the bird.

This may be intentional. Some game developers work to reduce the impact of troubled players in their multiplayer games by limiting interaction. Until now I've only seen it as canned phrases replacing voice chat, but this may be the same sort of thing.

It would be silly to handicap the controllers just for that. It should be trivial to filter such gestures in software. But if gamers want to be rude, they'll find ways around whatever filters or constraints you create.

Now would have been a good time to release the Power Glove; not when Mattel/Nintendo originally did. I bet one properly hacked for PC (such as linked below) would work great with these VR headsets:

I remember reading about early VR hobbyists doing that back in the early 90's.

The best solution is to have depth cameras and gesture recognition. Then, it'd be non-invasive, non-encumbering and you could accurately represent the player's arms and body.

 

[Crystalizer]

Sadly i think they have already killed VR before it even had a chance. The hardware is just not ready yet. Resolution sucks, lag sucks, movement sucks, interaction sucks, the games REALLY suck.

I mean, sure, ohhhh shinny....but shinny wears off fast. Color me not impressed. I guess i shouldn't be surprised tho, VR has been touted off and on for the past 2+ decades now, with little success.

/sigh, wtf are the holodecks star trek promised!

Graphics can always be downgraded. You can't expect the games to have the same AAA quality graphics. Games might look like they are made for mobile devices or cartoon like, but who cares if the games are fun. Don't worry. I think VR is not something that can be killed at this point anymore since investor's and developers wan't this to happen. It's just too awesome. The current state of vr is in child shoes anyways.

 

[gopher1369]

"What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy?"

It's creepy in the same way that it's creepy when I say "moist". Ready?

"Moist"

Example:

"Mmmm, nice hand feel." "Oh yeah, that's because it's really moist".

You're welcome.

 

[Crystalizer]

"What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy?"

It's creepy in the same way that it's creepy when I say "moist". Ready?

"Moist"

Example:

"Mmmm, nice hand feel." "Oh yeah, that's because it's really moist".

You're welcome.

Yea, I figured that out already. Internet ruined our minds.

 

[bloodroses]

Now would have been a good time to release the Power Glove; not when Mattel/Nintendo originally did. I bet one properly hacked for PC (such as linked below) would work great with these VR headsets:

I remember reading about early VR hobbyists doing that back in the early 90's.

The best solution is to have depth cameras and gesture recognition. Then, it'd be non-invasive, non-encumbering and you could accurately represent the player's arms and body.

Actually, I have one in my closet that I wired up for Serial Port usage during the 90s. The nice thing was that I hacked an extension cable instead of the one on the device itself so that it can still be used on a real Nintendo.

 

[scolaner]

looks weird and the buttons are positioned oddly. The grip looks weird too and the handle is way too small for it to feel comfortable. What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy? Isn't that the thing most people are interested in. Why dance around it? That only makes it much harder to find anything valuable in the text, which is exactly the thing I was experiencing while trying to quickly read and find useful stuff.

I was looking for the good and bad section. Now I feel like "what did I just read?" Experience of a man who tried it.

To be clear, the Touch controllers are great. They feel great. They work great. There are just some things that are yet lacking, and I discussed them.

The "feels good in the hand' thing is a bit of an inside joke. It started with smartphone reviews...every single review out there would mention that a phone "feels good in the hand." We eventually, officially, stopped using that phrase, because ultimately it's unhelpful and doesn't really make any sense.

Also, um...we don't want you to "quickly read"...the reason we often write in detailed long-form is to put as much useful information in there as possible, with as much context and thought as possible. You'll find much of value in the text....just read it, don't scan it.

 

[scolaner]

Sadly i think they have already killed VR before it even had a chance. The hardware is just not ready yet. Resolution sucks, lag sucks, movement sucks, interaction sucks, the games REALLY suck.

I mean, sure, ohhhh shinny....but shinny wears off fast. Color me not impressed. I guess i shouldn't be surprised tho, VR has been touted off and on for the past 2+ decades now, with little success.

/sigh, wtf are the holodecks star trek promised!

If you're waiting for the Holodeck, 1) you're going to be waiting a long time, and 2) you're missing the point of VR.

In a nutshell, this is what you should understand: You know how when you were little, you dreamed of sticking your head inside of a game, or cartoon, or TV show? Or see your action figures come to life and interact with them? They can do that now. Isn't that amazing enough for the time being?

 

[scolaner]

This is also probably intentional. If you try to represent someone's body without trackers that can see where the knees and elbows are, the representation winds up being wrong and weird, which reduces immersion. Getting the size of the torso wrong would probably do the same.

You're right. In one of the sessions, they talked about this aspect of design. We were curious about the cartoonish nature of the avatars Zuckerberg was showing in the keynote, and that's when they explained all this. It's what you said: Getting realism *almost* right is, as it turns out, horrifying. Imagine you Skype with your child but your face is slightly contorted. [shudder]. So they made the decision to not try and make it close-to-real, even though they can. They wanted to be sure the experience for all is enjoyable, so they dialed it all back.

In terms of body parts...same kind of thing. But we saw at least demo, Lone Echo, where your character is a robot, and even though there's no body tracking, when you look down you see arms and legs and a torso. Tl;dr, they computationally estimate where things should be based on the headset tracking and touch controllers. (Really clever.) They get away with it partially because you're in space, so your lower half is kind of just floating there in zero gravity anyway.

 

[Crystalizer]

looks weird and the buttons are positioned oddly. The grip looks weird too and the handle is way too small for it to feel comfortable. What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy? Isn't that the thing most people are interested in. Why dance around it? That only makes it much harder to find anything valuable in the text, which is exactly the thing I was experiencing while trying to quickly read and find useful stuff.

I was looking for the good and bad section. Now I feel like "what did I just read?" Experience of a man who tried it.

To be clear, the Touch controllers are great. They feel great. They work great. There are just some things that are yet lacking, and I discussed them.

The "feels good in the hand' thing is a bit of an inside joke. It started with smartphone reviews...every single review out there would mention that a phone "feels good in the hand." We eventually, officially, stopped using that phrase, because ultimately it's unhelpful and doesn't really make any sense.

Also, um...we don't want you to "quickly read"...the reason we often write in detailed long-form is to put as much useful information in there as possible, with as much context and thought as possible. You'll find much of value in the text....just read it, don't scan it.

Yea I know. I usually scan the contents so I can find if there is anything interesting going on. If there is, I then read the interesting parts or the whole content. There are lots of useful and interesting content on this site and on the web.

Maybe I was hoping for some comparisons and numerical test results on the accuracy and latency. Like I'm used to when I read hardware reviews here on Toms. But yeah it's just the hands on. That would still be really awesome. To finally get some benchmarks.

I have Vive and I can feel it's good and accurate, but it's just my experience. I have no way of knowing what the actual latency or the accuracy is in compared to other products without trying them. Just words like they are smooth and etc.

 

[scolaner]

looks weird and the buttons are positioned oddly. The grip looks weird too and the handle is way too small for it to feel comfortable. What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy? Isn't that the thing most people are interested in. Why dance around it? That only makes it much harder to find anything valuable in the text, which is exactly the thing I was experiencing while trying to quickly read and find useful stuff.

I was looking for the good and bad section. Now I feel like "what did I just read?" Experience of a man who tried it.

To be clear, the Touch controllers are great. They feel great. They work great. There are just some things that are yet lacking, and I discussed them.

The "feels good in the hand' thing is a bit of an inside joke. It started with smartphone reviews...every single review out there would mention that a phone "feels good in the hand." We eventually, officially, stopped using that phrase, because ultimately it's unhelpful and doesn't really make any sense.

Also, um...we don't want you to "quickly read"...the reason we often write in detailed long-form is to put as much useful information in there as possible, with as much context and thought as possible. You'll find much of value in the text....just read it, don't scan it.

Yea I know. I usually scan the contents so I can find if there is anything interesting going on. If there is, I then read the interesting parts or the whole content. There are lots of useful and interesting content on this site and on the web.

Maybe I was hoping for some comparisons and numerical test results on the accuracy and latency. Like I'm used to when I read hardware reviews here on Toms. But yeah it's just the hands on. That would still be really awesome. To finally get some benchmarks.

I have Vive and I can feel it's good and accurate, but it's just my experience. I have no way of knowing what the actual latency or the accuracy is in compared to other products without trying them. Just words like they are smooth and etc.

Preaching to the choir on numbers and benchmarks. We're obsessed with them. But...we can't always get them, particularly at tradeshows. Also, frustratingly, sometimes specs (and things like latency, etc.) are withheld. Also also...no one knows how to benchmark this stuff yet. But we're working on it.

 

[bit_user]

Also, um...we don't want you to "quickly read"...the reason we often write in detailed long-form is to put as much useful information in there as possible, with as much context and thought as possible. You'll find much of value in the text....just read it, don't scan it.

You can't force someone to read more than they want to. I often want the gist of a review without the full details, because I'm not making a purchasing decision but I like to know roughly how a product turned out.

Helpfully, most of the reviews have a "Conclusion" section, which this is lacking. I think it would've helped people see the bigger picture you're trying to paint, especially if they skimmed parts or all of the rest of the review.

 

[Crystalizer]

looks weird and the buttons are positioned oddly. The grip looks weird too and the handle is way too small for it to feel comfortable. What's so creepy about the feels good in the hand thingy? Isn't that the thing most people are interested in. Why dance around it? That only makes it much harder to find anything valuable in the text, which is exactly the thing I was experiencing while trying to quickly read and find useful stuff.

I was looking for the good and bad section. Now I feel like "what did I just read?" Experience of a man who tried it.

To be clear, the Touch controllers are great. They feel great. They work great. There are just some things that are yet lacking, and I discussed them.

The "feels good in the hand' thing is a bit of an inside joke. It started with smartphone reviews...every single review out there would mention that a phone "feels good in the hand." We eventually, officially, stopped using that phrase, because ultimately it's unhelpful and doesn't really make any sense.

Also, um...we don't want you to "quickly read"...the reason we often write in detailed long-form is to put as much useful information in there as possible, with as much context and thought as possible. You'll find much of value in the text....just read it, don't scan it.

Yea I know. I usually scan the contents so I can find if there is anything interesting going on. If there is, I then read the interesting parts or the whole content. There are lots of useful and interesting content on this site and on the web.

Maybe I was hoping for some comparisons and numerical test results on the accuracy and latency. Like I'm used to when I read hardware reviews here on Toms. But yeah it's just the hands on. That would still be really awesome. To finally get some benchmarks.

I have Vive and I can feel it's good and accurate, but it's just my experience. I have no way of knowing what the actual latency or the accuracy is in compared to other products without trying them. Just words like they are smooth and etc.

Preaching to the choir on numbers and benchmarks. We're obsessed with them. But...we can't always get them, particularly at tradeshows. Also, frustratingly, sometimes specs (and things like latency, etc.) are withheld. Also also...no one knows how to benchmark this stuff yet. But we're working on it.

Sounds very good