Designing UI for VR Hand Tracking Applications
circuitstream.com
circuitstream.com
What is worth noting though is the Qualcomm release* last week on their XR plans. It is interesting because they are tying it to 5G. Mobile network operators who have spent billions on the infrastructure and now need to find compelling use-cases for customers are partnering up with them. This could mean you get a XR headset with your next mobile phone plan.
* https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2020/05/26/qualcomm-c...
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
Joke aside, such game mechanics, albeit with cursor gesturing rather than hand gesturing, have been tried many times before. See Arx Fatalis, Black & White, etc. Jonathan Blow has a pre-Braid prototype about that as well that he shows in some detail in a talk he gave.
The reality is that sure, it sounds cool when you describe it like that, but there are many design issues to contend with:
- how does the player remember all these obscure symbols ?
- how do you deal with the frustration when a symbol isn't recognized? When it's confused by the system with another symbol?
Etc. On top of that, there is the fact that drawing squiggles to cast spells is not a game mechanic that is inherently extremely fun. Why are people going to the bother of doing that vs pressing a button?
It's all a lot of work to make it make sense, and there is little reason to believe that gesturing with your hands instead of your mouse would solve some of the more fundamental problems.
Without a keyboard, it's cumbersome to switch between a bunch of spells. Gestures are both more immersive and functionally better. Maybe most people wouldn't memorize hundreds of spells, but a couple dozen are certainly feasible. There could be a spell "language," where the initial part of the gesture could correspond to the category of spell. Fireball, fire wave, etc...can start with the same basic gesture. All wave spells can end with the same gesture. Hundreds of spells can be constructed from permutations of 20-30 foundational gestures, kind of like how a core group of trilateral roots in Arabic and Hebrew can construct a much larger set of words (sometimes without previous knowledge of a specific word/permutation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_root
The grenade example is a good one, because throwing/flicking doesn't require much feedback, unlike say rotation or fine grained manipulation. Of course the interaction would feel nicer if you could feel the weight of what you're throwing - the physics of throwing objects always feels kind of off in VR games - but it still works well enough. Note that many games did this with the Wiimote, and there is nothing about that interaction that is singular to VR.
However, the moment you lose that affordance based in a real world object, and ask your user/player to make gestures in mid air based on recollection, things really do start to fall apart. There is a host of HCI literature/projects around this - e.g. check out papers/demos from the Kinect era. An RPG game like the one you describe could be made with Kinect, and I vaguely recall a few in development - but Kinect demonstrated well that the only kind of gestural interaction that works in long term sessions is dancing.
Btw, this is why if you go to e.g. the VR center in Tokyo, almost every booth has physical props for you to hold/grip/sit on while you're fishing/golfing/shooting a gun/riding a bike in VR.
The use of gestures has to appeal to hardcore gamers (in this case). The motion tracking needs to be sufficiently advanced. There can't be a swifter, dopamine enhancing alternative (like mashing buttons on a keyboard). A critical mass of developers need to make games with gestures as a core mechanic. Etc...
I offer Pavlov VR as an example. Pavlov is like Counterstrike, except many of the mechanics are gesture based.
- You grab your gun off your back
- You actually need to look through the scope for zoom, physically bringing your head and hands into alignment
- You have to reach over your left shoulder to activate the walkie-talkie for remote communication
- Reloading is a multi-step process and varies from gun to gun
You might say that I'm proving your point about gestures mapping to real-life, but that's not why I bring up Pavlov. I'm using it to illustrate the aforementioned emergent properties, because all of those gestures add up to something unexpected: even with subpar graphics and a low budget, it is fun. Not only that, but it is fun in an unexpected, novel way for FPS games. Suddenly, your kill count, headshots, etc...don't matter as much. The immersion as well as the social element of the game are huge. You are so zoomed in, so in the moment, when you are in a firefight, poking out your head out to snipe the sniper before rushing back below the barrier, in a way that you wouldn't be in a 2D game.
Microsoft could technically have made a Pavlov Kinect, but who would play it? Almost no one. People would complain that traditional controls make much more sense, and they would have a point. It's simply awkward to squirm around in front of a 2D screen. There's a disconnect between the input modality (3D gestures) and the display modality (2D screen) when using the Kinect. In VR, both the input and the display are in 3D harmony.
The issue is that “gestures” are not a binary thing that you do or not; they live on a continuum. What is waving vs raising your hand to swat a fly? Categorizing these “gestures” in a meaningful way and layering effective gameplay on top of it is the challenge, that pretty much no one solved despite the huge incentives.
Gestures on two-dimensional multitouch screens are not what we’re talking about here (and even then, you can’t expect people to remember much more beyond the 5/6 core ones).
Drawing squiggles isn't inherently fun. But dancing your spells now that's hecking fun.
Human culture already uses lots of weird hand symbols to cast all sorts of spells. You can say "hello" with a hand gesture. You can cast teh "I'm sorry spell". There's a great "I need your attention" spell, another for "I can't understand/hear" ... and let's not forget the wonderful repertoire of spells for "You're an idiot"
Hand and body gestures are a fantastic user interface. Computer recognition might not be quite sophisticated enough yet.
Games can ask players to do almost anything as long as they’re having fun in return - but that means that the more outlandish things you ask them to do, the more fun they must have.
This is true, but not in a a way that maps directly to the gesture. For example, reloading in Pavlov is not fun in isolation. It’s a relatively tedious process that mirrors reloading in real life. It is rewarding to successfully reload while you’re taking fire and then proceed to kill your enemy. As a result, reloading gesture > reloading button, even though you need to memorize a different reloading action for each gun (it becomes muscle memory).
I have an Oculus Quest, and the hand tracking is like the Kinect all over again -- without having physical buttons every interaction is slower because the software waits for you to keep a particular gesture/pose long enough at a particular location to register as a "click".
Obviously the tracking in Quest is more fine-grained than the Kinect was, so perhaps we'll see some interesting uses for the technology in the future. But right now I'm not sold on the tech.
While in the demo of the cat, you see all kinds of sliders being manipulated as well as rotations and pinches that seem instanteneous.I think they got it right by making the buttons virtual entities.
Perhaps this necessity with be the mother of invention.
1. battery issues. 2. weight issues. 3. quality issues. 4. VR is a niche market.
Quality wise, visuals are pretty amazing. Good enough on mainstream games like Half-Life Alyx, GTA5, Pavlov and Lone Echo to make me think and feel like I'm in the environment. As a private pilot let me tell you that flying in vr in X-Plane 11 is just amazing. 360 views and interactions with knobs/levers in the cockpit. Even more, utilizing more advanced setups in unreal engine and megascans/quixel goes to another level.
It's still not entirely accessible to everyone in terms of cost as it's not cheap. Especially if you want the "best" graphics which requires the headset and a computer with decent gpu. So I do agree with point 4 and being a niche market.
I wonder what "taking off" to most people is? It's definitely not Lawnmower Man/the matrix/ready player one yet. It's cumbersome when using a tethered setup and room scale is amazing but I don't exactly have a dedicated play space to wander within or a specialized endless treadmill.
It does however provide an interesting escape with unique experiences. Something as simple as google maps is mind blowing when traveling around the world. I was recently working on a house project and needed to figure out the remodel. I modeled the house in Maya, imported it into UE, and was able to put on my oculus and "walk" around the space.
For me it's hard to go back to "flat gaming" after vr. I really enjoy it and look forward to seeing how it continues to evolve.
I think we have surpassed Lawnmower man already. We are only missing the extra hardware, like the full body suits and moving beds/leonardo devices. And even then, not really: Lawnmower man happened at a well funded laboratory, the scientist just had some expensive company hardware at home. We have better quality headsets at home today.
Ready player one was... inconsistent. They handwaved the movement problems.
> if you want the "best" graphics
This will always be true, VR headset or not. If you want the 'best' graphics, you always have to for over a lot of money for specialized GPU hardware. The thing is, it's perfectly fine to use an untethered Quest to play something like Superhot or Beat Saber.
> For me it's hard to go back to "flat gaming" after vr.
This is why I think the market is going to explode. Every single person I've shown it has walked away impressed. Young, old, doesn't matter. Even non-gamers.
Oculus Quest and similar devices are on the right track.
> I modeled the house in Maya, imported it into UE, and was able to put on my oculus and "walk" around the space.
I'll definitely try this!
I wonder when 3d Modeling will be primarily done with a headset. Like, would it be useful to do the initial modelling in Maya itself?
I think the desired goal would help dictate if you use VR. For example, for the Lion King remake the world was entirely cg. To do the rough and final layouts of the environment multiple people (director/art director/modelers/set dressers/dp) all went into vr (sometimes together) and used tools in UE to place/scale/rotate objects. This made a lot of sense b/c they could more accurately place and model the environment within it.
It could be quite useful when modeling but I wonder at what point make sense. I've done a fair bit of modeling which involves a lot of manipulation of points and faces and also involves lots of object tumbling, which might prove tiring in vr. But I think it ultimately makes sense b/c it allows for a 3dimensional view of what you're doing.
I didn't know about that. This is amazing.
> I've done a fair bit of modeling which involves a lot of manipulation of points and faces and also involves lots of object tumbling
I've done some hobbist-level CAD. Very often I had to turn the object slightly in a couple of directions to get a better sense of perspective. That comes for 'free' with VR, and you can also move your head, or yourself, without turning.
Mind you, I'm picturing working while sitting down so as not to be too tiring. Fine vertex manipulation may still be tiring, but I'm thinking organic modelling would benefit. Also specially for CAD, when you want to visualize and "explode" your model. Normally it involves lots of camera moving around.
Curious, are you using Vorpx to play GTA V in VR? I need to give that a try.
My biggest issue with non-vr games in VR is that you don't get to use your hands to aim. Would be amazing if a mod could get that to work.
1- Battery? I use a Rift, it is fine, it takes power from my PC. For the portable Quest, you get 2 to 3 hours of constant usage. That's pretty good
2– Weight issues: headsets are not very lightweight today. They are not ridiculously heavy either. Have you even tried one? My mom has, she's a senior. It's fine. They should be lighter if we are expected to throw away our monitors and use them exclusively on a day job. For normal usage? They are fine. If anything, the heat (and associated sweat, specially with physical activity) is much more of a problem. Again, I doubt you have tried one. For me, the main problem is using with glasses, it is not completely straightforward to put them on.
3– Quality issues, what quality issues? Do you mean QA or resolution? If it is resolution, it's already pretty good unless you are doing lots of reading (and even then YMMV, there are people coding with them already). There are many other things that need to be improved before resolution becomes the main factor. The fresnel lens used in some headsets have some strange aberrations, specially with primarily dark scenes.
4– This objection is straight from the Millennium Bug era. It's mostly(not only) used by a subset of the gaming market, but that in itself is huge. There are entire industries in other fields which are smaller than the current VR market.
Yes, improvements are needed. They are coming, if headsets for professional applications are any indication. VR could be said to be 'niche' when headsets cost multiple thousand dollars. Now? You can get decent ones for the price of a good monitor – and the thing actually has two monitors running at a much higher refresh rate, plus a whole lot of extra hardware.
1. battery issues. 2. weight issues. 3. quality issues. 4. mobile computing is a niche market.
Why do I not have a system?
It is not cost. It is not building the system.
I would say the main reason is I don't like video games.
There is just something so lacking with VR if you don't want to play games.
I remember the old MIT media lab mobile computing devices and videos in the 90s. They were nothing like a smart phone. More like the failure of google glass.
I do wonder if the headset is simply a wrong path.
Yes, it's lacking more apps. Which is rather a Catch-22. There has to be demand for them. Games are just an 'easy' (relatively speaking) medium to get into.
There are a few practical concerns of course. In a work environment, your manager can no longer easily interrupt you. They can't easily keep tabs on what you are doing either. This is enough to kill it at a workplace – maybe an exception for some engineering/medical settings.
If you want to experiment with something that's not a game, take a look at this: https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula