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Are Tracking Pucks coming to Oculus? Why is Vive so ahead of the game?

JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
Having some easy-to-use, easy-to-integrate trackers like the Vive tracker seems highly critical to advancing this medium, in my opinion. 
Is Oculus working on its own tracking puck like this?!  https://www.vive.com/us/vive-tracker/

Virtual reality is currently only halfway to amazing, in my opinion. Sure it LOOKS real and immersive. But does it FEEL that way (touch wise)?  The ability to utilize (hopefully multiple) trackers to match visuals with real world objects seems like it should be an absolute priority in this world.   
78 REPLIES 78

elboffor
Consultant
The arguments posed in tbis thread are all valid. 
I will happily go on record saying the vive tracking is a better idea right now. But the fact is its an idea.
The reality in the tech they use is not sustainable in the actualr market, also its a short term realosation of what vr is and could be.

Full body tracking is the end goal. I challenge ANYONE to give me a descent counter argument. It is possible via constellation (which lets not forget is a camera system and with a device such as the microsoft kinnect emitting uv dots is actually capable of) without physical hardware on the user to fully track either a peripheral or a person in 3d space. This alone surely proves which is the better system.

The problem in reality is that vive want to sell more units in the current market, this is a smart move as a business but a shit one for the VR ecosystem.

Oculus are(were) focussing on the developement of vr. Vives (valves) actions his has led into a fragmentation of the entire market and has stifled vr as a medium.

Had this gen of vr been pad pc n mouse games and maybe a little bit of standing vs the recent race to do everything at once until the full shebang was realisable i would have been more than happy.

The reality is vive cooked up a short term creation that did (on ocassion does)  beat the idea of video tracking, the release of hand tracking/3d space has gained the vive the lead in mass consumer adoption.

I was at the pub earlier, the landlord said he has just got vr(psvr) and couldbt believe how good it was.
He is itching to go up a level (pcvr) but thinks the vive is better necause it dies roomscale.

This is purely because of the better social media presence,l. Such as Google, YouTube and even Facebook.

Im really annoid Facebook dont saturate its boards with oculus news and adds. Thats action alone would bring rift to the masses and it would be the go to platform for vr.

I still believe oculus have got the tech right and will come out on top, but only time will tell
This is my forum signature.
There are many others like it, but this is mine.

DarkTenka
Trustee
The only thing that worries me about full-body tracking is how much further it is going to move away from locomotion. You would have to buy, the HMD, The gloves, The trackers for waist/feet .. and then what? Play every game standing still? .. Use Touch Controllers over your gloves anyway? Buy a treadmill on top of all that?

Then you are going to have to go back to the dev side and do what?.. Support trackers optionally? (how would you even do that if you develop the experience around having them?)  Support Gloves/Controllers Optionally? (How do you make a controller match the usability of the glove? Do you implement "virtual analog sticks" for the gloves?)
Require that anyone who wants to play have the full set? (HMD + Gloves + Feet/Waist tracking + Treadmill)?

Either way you are developing an extremely specialised experience that is going to be extremely exclusive to a large portion of the audience. Developing for all of these peripherals is going to be an absolute nightmare. 

As immersive and cool as the experience might be with full-body tracking, theres a good chance we will have to come back to just having controllers/HMD as the most feasible option. I would love to be wrong here though.

RorschachPhoeni
Trustee

Atmos73 said:

I remember back in April 2016 when people on these very forums suggested Vive Wands were not the future of VR while sitting with their 'shitty' gamepads as us Vivers were being amazed playing Vanishing Realms and Call of Starseed. Eight months later Touch came along and now no serious Rifter would ever use a gamepad because they realised exactly why people bought the Vive. Its going to be the same people who poo poo the idea of body tracking that poo pooed the Wands. Sad but true.

But carry on in denial and enjoy your Touch controllers.


Played "Edge of Nowhere" with my 'shitty' gamepad yesterday. Good game though.
Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛

DarkTenka
Trustee



Atmos73 said:

I remember back in April 2016 when people on these very forums suggested Vive Wands were not the future of VR while sitting with their 'shitty' gamepads as us Vivers were being amazed playing Vanishing Realms and Call of Starseed. Eight months later Touch came along and now no serious Rifter would ever use a gamepad because they realised exactly why people bought the Vive. Its going to be the same people who poo poo the idea of body tracking that poo pooed the Wands. Sad but true.

But carry on in denial and enjoy your Touch controllers.


Played "Edge of Nowhere" with my 'shitty' gamepad yesterday. Good game though.


Yea, I just 100% worlds 3 and 4 in Yooka-Laylee with the VR mod using my "shitty" gamepad.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I beat Robinson the Journey with my MS Gamepad just a few weeks ago. I still love the Gamepad experience.

Touch > Gamepad > Vive Wands

RorschachPhoeni
Trustee
I think tracking pucks aren't worth it. We don't need more things to buy. We need less things to buy. Otherwise you'll have the same problem like Guitar Hero which you can't play without a special guitar.
I think in the future the outside tracking will be obsolete and even the controllers. There must be a big all-in-one solution.
I don't think the Vive approuch aka 'build your headset like you want it to be' (or 'buy this, buy that') is good for consumers or game content. It is good for companys though, because they can afford to upgrate and can do whatever they want. It is good to fullfill very specific needs. And it is also good for R&D and iteration.
But like I said: Very soon you will come to a point when developers aren't able to sell games anymore (it is difficult how it is right now), because more and more users don't own the required specific, external, additional hardware.
Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Completely agree @RorschachPhoenix

It's odd that HTC is watching their consumers use Revive (even the ones who said they never would) in order to play Oculus software tiles... and so HTC responds by making more Hardware? lol

The puck's needed to launch with a handful of noteworthy VR experiences, not just a small list of "cool ideas."

RorschachPhoeni
Trustee
The thing is: If you need some sort of hardware to play some type of game, it is smart to sell it together. Remember this?

Problem is: You don't buy your Steam or Oculus VR games in a store. It is different for PS4.
If HTC/Valve wants to sell a good amount of these tracking pucks, they should sell hardware bundled with software. And they need a good price. 100$ for one tracking puck is very expensive in my opinion.

"Software sells hardware"
Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛


Atmos73 said:

I remember back in April 2016 when people on these very forums suggested Vive Wands were not the future of VR while sitting with their 'shitty' gamepads as us Vivers were being amazed playing Vanishing Realms and Call of Starseed. Eight months later Touch came along and now no serious Rifter would ever use a gamepad because they realised exactly why people bought the Vive. Its going to be the same people who poo poo the idea of body tracking that poo pooed the Wands. Sad but true.

But carry on in denial and enjoy your Touch controllers.


Damn right Vive wands were not the future of VR - everybody who ever used them knew that, everybody who saw them knew that.

Touch on the other hand - thing of beauty, they feel sooo good.  

Poo poo the idea of body tracking?  No, i'll just poo poo these "pucks".

As we all said 3 or 4 years ago - bad VR is bad, Atmos.  Done correctly, it's fantastic.
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

DarkTenka
Trustee

Atmos73 said:

There's nothing wrong buying specific controllers for specific games plenty of people buy HOTAS for Elite Dangerous or Steering wheel setups for Racing games.



People don't buy HOTAS for Elite Dangerous, they buy it for Flight Sims (which there are hundreds available), same applies to Steering Wheels.



If you were to introduce all of these new peripherals you are talking either:


 A. Only new experiences will use it - ok, after all this work barely getting enough content for VR as is, lets just go back to square one. Barely any content, nobody willing to develop for it and nobody is willing to buy it because nobody is willing to develop for it.


or


B: Patch existing experiences so that it implements the new peripherals - because EVERYONE is doing that now with Flat to HMD right? I'm sure with a new VR Peripheral it will be different. /Sarcasm


Hardware doesnt sell software. Software sells hardware. You need the content before the hardware, plain and simple.