Hand Tracking coming this week!

nalex66

Oculus Blog post

Looks like we're getting our hands on this feature before the end of the year! It'll just be in Oculus menus and built-in apps at first, but the SDK releases next week, so developers can start including support in their apps soon.

dburne

https://www.oculus.com/blog/thumbs-up-hand-tracking-now-available-on-oculus-quest/
Looking forward to giving this a go once the update rolls out to my Quest.
Apparently Oculus is a little ahead of schedule on this.

TheDDerick

So i made this discussion to discuss about oculus quest hand tracking system i havent tried it just yet but im hoping its exactly how i imagined or how they are saying it. Im also hoping they are able to make it so if you are looking forward and put ur hand behind ur back u can still grab the thing you were trying to grab

TheDDerick

if you have anything to say just feel free to do it here

nalex66

I've merged the hand tracking threads to keep things tidy.

kojack

TheDDerick said:

Im also hoping they are able to make it so if you are looking forward and put ur hand behind ur back u can still grab the thing you were trying to grab

Games could fake it by just assuming hands moving towards your back are going to do a grab. But of course they can't tell if you really grabbed since fingers are only tracked when visible to the cameras. Hand tracking is less reliable than controller tracking.

DaftnDirect

Exciting times

dburne

So how the heck did my thread I started this morning with this announcement get overtaken on first post and mine get pushed to second?

Oh I see, guess me not being a moderator kicks me out of that right...
Yay!! Loving these Oculus forums!!

enigma01

dburne said:

So how the heck did my thread I started this morning with this announcement get overtaken on first post and mine get pushed to second?

Oh I see, guess me not being a moderator kicks me out of that right...
Yay!! Loving these Oculus forums!!

nalex66 had already started a Hand Tracking announcement post yesterday, they have just been merged together...

kojack

dburne said:

So how the heck did my thread I started this morning with this announcement get overtaken on first post and mine get pushed to second?

Oh I see, guess me not being a moderator kicks me out of that right...
Yay!! Loving these Oculus forums!!

It's not because Nalex is a moderator, it's because he beat you by 20 hours.

If your post came first, his thread would have been merged into yours instead.

dburne

kojack said:

dburne said:

So how the heck did my thread I started this morning with this announcement get overtaken on first post and mine get pushed to second?

Oh I see, guess me not being a moderator kicks me out of that right...
Yay!! Loving these Oculus forums!!

It's not because Nalex is a moderator, it's because he beat you by 20 hours.

If your post came first, his thread would have been merged into yours instead.

Ok thanks - I had looked to make sure no one had already posted and apparently missed it, my bad.

nalex66

No worries, the forum is moving fast lately with all the new members, so stuff drops off the front page pretty quickly. 

Also, THE GLORY IS MINE!!!

DaftnDirect

I'm going to start another thread and merge this into mine.

Seriously though I'm really looking forward to this, it feels like one of those real evolutionary and necessary steps in VR. Hopefully Rift-S isn't too far away after Quest but I understand the differences in the implementation aren't exactly inconsequential, so may be a little wait.

dburne

My Quest is on standby just waiting for Version 12 - anxious to check this out.

enigma01

dburne said:

My Quest is on standby just waiting for Version 12 - anxious to check this out.

Does leaving it on standby actually have any effect on the software updating now that you can check and update manually? 

I  wish Oculus would divulge a little more info on how updates roll out. I know they said it’s based on a percentage of global users, but is that percentage just a completely random set of users in different geographic locations and with random device registration dates etc?

nalex66

You still only get access to the update on a rolling basis, but the manual check can at least tell you if it's available to you. The last couple updates I manually initiated, it asked me to plug in my Quest before it would install, so leaving it plugged in on standby may ensure that it starts the update as soon as possible when it comes around. It also might save you constantly going in to check for availability.

That said, I did bring my Quest to work so I can check for updates throughout the day... I think I'll plug it in too in hopes of getting it sooner.

dburne

nalex66 said:

You still only get access to the update on a rolling basis, but the manual check can at least tell you if it's available to you. The last couple updates I manually initiated, it asked me to plug in my Quest before it would install, so leaving it plugged in on standby may ensure that it starts the update as soon as possible when it comes around. It also might save you constantly going in to check for availability.

That said, I did bring my Quest to work so I can check for updates throughout the day... I think I'll plug it in too in hopes of getting it sooner.

Good idea, have just plugged mine in hoping for the same.
Really wanting to try out this hand tracking.

Congratulations

I tried out hand tracking and here are some goods and here are some losses.

Goods

1) save batteries on controllers.
2) feels more immersive.
3) less to carry around.
4) quick and easy to pick up and take control of hand tracking.(first time trying)

Losses

1)Hands not track fully with movement like moving your hands in different hand gestures.
2) put my hands at a distance and can’t track them.
3) very limited on hand decisions, I wish i can take a photo with out clicking capture a screen shot.
4) need hand look more realistic like virtual gloves etc.

This is what I found out after trying hand tracking for the first time. it’s good and has some issues tho I think these will change as more updates come later.
what other goods and losses that I haven’t mentioned?

dburne

I would love to share however V12 has not made it's way to my Quest yet.

nalex66

Great to hear some real user feedback. I'm still waiting for the update to test it for myself.

I'm merging this into the main hand tracking thread, just to keep it all in one place.

kojack

My Quest finally updated to v12. I started the hand tracking and... oh.

The accuracy of the fingers was pretty good, but the latency was bad. The hands didn't feel like my own, they lagged behind my movements, and even slightly fast movement caused tracking loss.

Aiming my hands with my fingers pointing away (so the cameras could only see my arm and back of hand) lost tracking too.

In comparison, my Leap Motion can track as fast as I can move and the lack of obvious latency makes them actually feel like my hands. They can track in far more difficult poses. The only downside is the fingers aren't as accurate, but they react so fast my brain doesn't really care.

It seems like it would be convenient for some simple interactions.

nalex66

Yeah, I had a chance to finally play with it last night. Works about as I expected... good enough for menu navigation and simple interactions, but not robust enough for fast-paced gameplay. Still, it's a remarkable achievement for what it is--an after-the-fact add-on of new functionality using hardware that is already doing quite a bit of work.

Hopefully they can improve on the tracking losses that occur when hands move too quickly or get too close together. This isn't going to replace controllers for any but the simplest of games, but it could be quite useful for getting around the Home menus and for media playback controls.

Overall, I continue to be quite impressed with the Quest platform, and how much performance and functionality they've been able to wrangle out of it.

enigma01

Just been trying the hand tracking, I can see their being definite potential. I totally agree with the feedback of others here. I also found that you lose tracking when you place one hand behind the other (your virtual hands completely vanishes from view actually). 

I also think most games I currently play make great use of the haptic feedback, how would you feel about losing this in a games that make use of hand tracking?

I was hoping to be able to use the Oculus browser and type on the virtual keyboard more naturally, but you still have to pinch to select each letter. 

kojack

Here's a video I just made with a Leap Motion stuck to the front of my Quest, to compare the tracking of both systems at once.

I synced the videos using touch controller movement (not seen in this extract) so the lag in the video for Quest was the hand tracking, not the video source.

Both have issues, but the Quest lost tracking far more often. The leap also handled close tracking better (and it was sticking out from the Quest, so it was even closer to my hands).

The lighting conditions also favoured the Quest. The Leap works purely with IR, using a short range IR spotlight to light up your arms more than the background, but outside there was a lot of IR in the background. The Quest works with visible light (and IR for the controllers).

DaftnDirect

Yep, at the moment it's fun to play with, but even for simple navigation, I found I'd abandon it for controllers after a short time. Hopefully there'll be improvements made over the coming weeks and months.

kojack

It's pretty cool what they've managed to get working, but I've seen people acting like this is the end of controllers.

Remember this?

It didn't do so well.

For me there's one main use for finger tracking that I'm interested in: cockpit controls in conjunction with a wheel or HOTAS. But there's two problems with that:

- Quest can't run full PC flight/space/driving sims (Link doesn't count since it can't do finger tracking)

- Most controls in a virtual cockpit will cause me to hit my hands on my table/monitor/etc.

For things like media browsing it's probably fine, but for that I'd prefer the Oculus remote with gaze tracking, it's far smaller, lighter and unobtrusive than even the Go controller (and doesn't fall over or roll around).

Although when the SDK comes out (come on Oculus, you release a new feature but don't let developers actually make anything for it until a week after consumers get it?) I might see how well it handles my idea for game cockpit calibration. Often your HOTAS or wheel won't match the position in the VR world. Imagine if using the hand tracking you could grip the controls and the game would move the virtual ones to match your hand position. For example when you start a racing game it asks you to grip the wheel at 9 and 3, so it learns where the wheel is relative to your tracking origin. Then the wheel in the game is adjusted.

h.r.gargi

Well I tested it yesterday and there have to be a lot of improvements. Hands looking to jittery and the Quest is loosing handtracking too often. It is kind of wierd to see the own hands in VR but nothing to use seriuosly at this state of development.