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Did Oculus just standardize 5-finger tracking and make hand-controllers obsolete??

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
One of my favorite announcements from Facebook and Oculus today is the new controller-free hand tracking.



This is quite amazing since it gives us 5-finger tracking while removing any bulky controllers from our hands entirely, thus allowing us to use our mouse, keyboard, and interact with any other real world objects while keeping our hands and fingers tracked. An added bonus is the way this works seamlessly with Passthrough technology; and of course the future we will see with Facebook's vision for Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality.

The only downside (aside from perfecting tracking accuracy) is the lack of haptic feedback. However, I never cared for haptic feedback at all (it adds battery drain and doesn't accurately reflect what happens in the real world!) so it's a worthy sacrifice considering the huge benefits and possibilities.

And this technology is going to be open-sourced. So... is this the new universal path forward?
53 REPLIES 53

Protocol7
Heroic Explorer
Controllers still have a place for many games where you use thumbsticks
for locomotion or triggers for shooting etc. The tactile experience of
holding something is often desirable. I think haptic feedback is valuable. But I very much look forward to using the finger tracking.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Protocol7 said:

Controllers still have a place for many games where you use thumbsticks
for locomotion or triggers for shooting etc. The tactile experience of
holding something is often desirable. I think haptic feedback is valuable. But I very much look forward to using the finger tracking.




It seems like we can just use any real world object to function as a gun, sword, shield, etc. Grab a Nerf gun! For example. No more using duct tape and pipes to create makeshift weaponry all for the sake of accommodating hand controllers. Now we can use any real world representation.

And for those who need haptic feedback, we could likely see that in the form of VR Gloves soon as well.

nalex66
MVP
MVP
This is a very impressive and interesting development, although some games will still benefit from physical controllers (locomotion input).

I can see many games working really well with just hands, though. They could come up with UI methods like tapping your wrist to open a menu, allowing more detailed interaction without needing physical buttons. The possibilities are endless!

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3.


Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

inovator
Consultant
Personally I love haptic in the controls. Especially for palvov and gun games. If given a choice I would use whatever is best for the games. I hope they figure how to have it on the hand tracking

Anonymous
Not applicable
Well it's going to have a lot of uses for non-gaming applications but the vast majority of gamers will ALWAYS prefer to hold something in their hands and use sticks for locomotion.

The gloves that were on Tested years ago that provided not only haptic feedback but also physically stopped your fingers from moving when you gripped things would be useful but even then you'd still need some way of having players move during gameplay.

inovator
Consultant

snowdog said:

Well it's going to have a lot of uses for non-gaming applications but the vast majority of gamers will ALWAYS prefer to hold something in their hands and use sticks for locomotion.

The gloves that were on Tested years ago that provided not only haptic feedback but also physically stopped your fingers from moving when you gripped things would be useful but even then you'd still need some way of having players move during gameplay.


Agreed

Anonymous
Not applicable
Yeah there will be a place for controllers like Touch for some time to come.
Hand tracking will be pretty neat for certain experiences/games designed for it.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Whelp here comes hand tracked VR Porn mark my words!
WAAAGH!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Protocol7 said:

Controllers still have a place for many games where you use thumbsticks
for locomotion or triggers for shooting etc. The tactile experience of
holding something is often desirable. I think haptic feedback is valuable. But I very much look forward to using the finger tracking.



Completely agree...until they figure out a way to make it feel like you're actually holding an object without actually holding an object. If their haptic glove could do that, even feel like you're gripping a pistol, then that changes everything. Except for their being no weight to the object.