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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

JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
Maybe it'd be cool to live entirely in the mind, like Neo in the Matrix.  Or it might end up being a complete hell, like Neo in the Matrix. 

Personally, I think cutting out our sense of touch would be taking a big step backwards. 

Fri13
Protege

nalex66 said:

I think body tracking is an eventual goal for most VR hardware platforms, but I don't think pucks are the answer. I expect that Oculus will eventually have a camera-based body tracking system. (Didn't they acquire the team that developed Kinect?)

I'm envisioning a system where we use Touch controllers for precise tracking and input, and a camera-based system (either the same constellation camera that does the device tracking, or an additional 3D vision camera) to do full body tracking with no additional "wearables" required.

The body tracking may not be as precise as the head and hand tracking, but I don't think it really needs to be. We can live with a little float in our virtual elbows and knees, and the more precise tracking of our heads and hands can probably be used to help fine-tune the body data if necessary.

The body tracking will eventually be required, but as you say not so accurate as we alreay have the controllers in hands that are most important ones (controls + tracking same time, even if we would just have a tracking without controllers the controllers would be required so better have them there) but before that camera system, Oculus could just a release a "body tracker" set for cheap price, or open something up that anyone could just put together if so wanted. 

A small stickers/clippers that you can place somewhere, where is a one or two IR leds. Just need to place those two few places like ankle, knee, elbow and shoulder. Two IR to right side and single to left side. So the system can detect which side is visible.
The shoulders wouldn't be really required as the elbows will tell that what direction you are facing, as well the height of the elbow that way. And then if something would be on knee it would tell which knee is up and which is down on floor (otherwise body posture like kneeling or crawling is possible get from the headset) and then knees and elbows with controllers would allow to see is the person leaning forward and how much. 

Enough to get the 3D modeled avatar in the game to be nicely tracked. 

bigmike20vt
Visionary


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.   


i like some of the 3rd party stuff for the vive on a purely conceptual level, but for my personal wants and needs i just want a hmd to do exactly what the base vive and rift do.  Everything else is cool, but damn its expensive.

the money paid on making it wireless, getting the extra trackers,, upgrading the head mounting system, buying knuckles (and lets hope they are not as expensive as the wands!!! 😮 ) imo is better for most people to put that cash to 1 side towards an entirely new 2nd generation unit which will hopefully have all this as standard.

otherwise you could end up paying an extra £500 and still only end up having a 1st generation device under it all which will be largely obsolete in 18 months time when vive 2 / CV2 launches with it all in the box,  AND perhaps with twin 2k screens to boot.

as for the "ahead of the game"... how do you even know? just because oculus are not releasing stuff does NOT mean they are not working on stuff.

oculus demoed inside out tracking long before the rumoured inside out tracked stand alone vive HMD.

i believe i have also seen images of........ zukerberg i think it was..... using some hepatic glove type device.

It is safe to assume imo that there is other stuff banging around in the oculus design labs which we have not even seen yet either.

edit
i just saw the age of the thread and seems i already posted somethign similar. at least i am consistent 😄
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

Sharpfish
Heroic Explorer



the money paid on making it wireless, getting the extra trackers,, upgrading the head mounting system, buying knuckles (and lets hope they are not as expensive as the wands!!! 😮 ) imo is better for most people to put that cash to 1 side towards an entirely new 2nd generation unit which will hopefully have all this as standard.



This. Throwing good money after.... bad isn't the answer. 

I do like that on the Vive side they are pushing things a bit, for the experimental guys who want to play around with the tech, but much of it isn't ready for prime time nor of much use to anyone until adopted as standard. What I do like is that it forces other companies to take things more seriously, sooner, to keep up (wireless for example).

One thing that many vivers see as positive though is that HTC release these things (and valve soon with Knuckles) but there seems very little plan-of-action or reasoning behind releasing it for general people to buy other than to make even more money off people. The biggest P-take is the deluxe audio strap. Ok so the audio side does cost and nobody promised built in phones at launch on the vive, but comfort and ergonomics were terrible on the vive (esp vs rift and PSVR) so they should have made a strap without the headphones and bundled it in as standard and offer them cheaply to owners to upgrade. given the prices of the wands and base stations it just seems HTC is trying to take all the cash it can from its punters with very little pride in its base product or even a sense of 'ownership of the problems' it created by essentially rushing an unfinished dev kit to market to beat oculus. Valve clearly have some blame in that too. I know valve and oculus have 'issues' and was on Valve's side for much of it, but hindsight shows that valve's win was at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of people who bought a vive assuming at least the base quality/customer support/ergonomics of a finished product. It seems increasingly that Valve's only goal was to beat rift at all cost, and never mind the customer footing the bill for expensive replacements, dodgy trackpads, dying base stations and esp lack of quality Vive / Steam VR software directly linked with valve. Their games are probably going to be out by gen 2... or 5. 😉

For all of facebook's inherent faults elsewhere in the company, with the rift it's clear they have put 110% into the package and the product and have reduced prices and paid for/driven up quality of software to seed the VR industry. I know facebook aren't doing it for the good of humanity, it's facebook, but what are HTC doing exactly other than selling sub-par consumer product STILL at double the price knowing full well it has many weak spots and expensive spares + a janky strap/ergonomics that they should be ashamed of after checking out PSVR and Rift (and not bundling DAS or a similar cheaper strap). 

I think if HTC had any morals they would withdraw Vive from sale immediately and stop nickle and diming customers at that stupid price and at least wait till they address all the problems and deliver a much better gen 2. Hopefully LG, if not oculus, will light a fire under their ass or it's game over for HTC come next gen. Pepperidge farm rem... oh never mind. 😉

EX DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/PSVR2 | Currently Quest Pro (PCVR) | VR developer
RTX 3080 FE / 12900k / Windows 11 Pro

Anonymous
Not applicable
Unfortunately HTC don't have much choice in the matter, they have to 'nickel and dime' customers if they want to keep their lights on. Their financial position is one of the many reasons why I got a Rift instead of a Vive. I'm convinced that their Vive sales and Viveport subscriptions are the only things keeping them in business. They have to be making a decent profit on every Vive sold right now, but expect a permanent price cut of around $100 before Christmas.

Mind you, when they do that we'll probably see the Rift coming down in a Christmas sale in November/December back to $400 again, with that $400 price cut being permanent early next year...so around Christmas we'll see the Rift being $300 cheaper and going back to 'only' $200 cheaper until early next year (probably April or May) when it will go back to being $300 cheaper permanently.

And HTC will also be screwed when the LG headset originally releases too because LG make their own displays so they'll save a good few quid on the displays for their headset, meaning it'll also be cheaper than the Vive.

JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
I'd like to revive this thread 🙂

Even though I like the Oculus Touch controllers WAY more than Vive's controllers, I'm half-tempted to dump Oculus so I can start using Tracker-leveraged  games that are finally starting to roll out on Vive. I'm just getting impatient. 

I do like what I'm seeing from Cloud Gate, using 3 trackers to render out a full body experience. I agree with what the guy says in this video. This kind of thing is a game changer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGWFqYoh-3E

Meanwhile, as with the Wii, sports games are a perfect playground for trackers. I am blown away by the realistic physics in ELEVEN (the Table Tennis game) and Racket Fury isn't to bad either. I play table tennis in the real world, and these games would provide a great way to play at home and train to be a better player IF we could actually play with an actual paddle. An attached tracker puck could enable that, or (in Guitar Hero fashion) an actual paddle with a tracker embedded in the handle. I think ELEVEN is working on enabling Vive trackers.

I firmly believe, trackers combined with the right games are going to take VR to a whole new level and draw in more users of this technology. 

So, I await the killer apps that are going to open people's eyes, and hope that one day, each Oculus Touch package will include, say, 3 trackers pucks. 


JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
The price isn't going to drop 'til either there's more demand or there's an obvious killer app and a CEO (like Zuckerberg) takes a leap of faith on it. I do think they should take a leap of faith. 

Meanwhile, here are trackers being used with the amazing Infinadeck:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foHmSC-MeGA

Anonymous
Not applicable
Is HTC making and selling these things, I can't remember? If Valve are making and selling these things don't expect the price to come down because Valve are a bunch of cunts. And if HTC are making and selling these things don't expect the price to come down because Valve's licencing fees are over the top because Valve are a bunch of cunts.

Tldr; The price won't come down because Valve are a bunch of cunts  😄

JimmyMcVideo
Explorer
I didn't realize they had a ping pong paddle already.  I think I'm going to move to Vive. 

 https://www.vive.com/us/VR-racket-sports-set-with-tracker/