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Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

I really wish that Valve would move past the idea of controllers altogether. A controller with buttons will always necessarily constrain you to thinking about gameplay and experiences in terms of what has been done for 2D games, rather than freeing designers to build novel mechanics. The only true solution for VR is cloth gloves with perfect finger tracking. As someone who has spent thousands of hours in VR, anything else becomes extremely clunky and annoying to use long term. Something along the lines of ManusVR (https://manus-vr.com/) is definitely the way forward.

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As someone who probably spent as much time as you developing for VR, I disagree. See http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi... for why touching things in midair isn't good because of lack of feedback.

The point of that article wasn't that touching things in air isn't as good as touching buttons, it was that hands offer a huge range of interaction and sensory experiences, and yet we keep focusing on interfaces that totally ignore this. I don't think it applies much less to keyboards, mice, and gamepads than it does to screens, as you still are getting very little feedback/use of your hands beyond knowing where your fingers are positioned relative to what they're over/holding.

I agree that the ManusVR gloves don't give you much more feedback by themselves than a standard VR controller, but I think it allows your hand to be used to a fuller extent, and doesn't restrict you to as narrow a set of interactions.

The only additional feedback VR controllers give you is in how much you're pressing a button/thumbstick/trackpad and maybe some vibrations. Knowing if you've squeezed a trigger enough to shoot a gun in a game is good, but you could also accomplish that while wearing some VR gloves by holding a toy gun in your hand, which then gives you the added feedback of the shape and weight of a gun. Before we have some sort of setup for providing actual feedback based on the virtual world you're interacting with, it seems like this kind of setup (smart gloves coupled with simple dumb-props) would be a more desirable user experience than controllers with some buttons & sticks.

(That's one of my all-time favorite articles btw!)

> The only additional feedback VR controllers give you is in how much you're pressing a button/thumbstick/trackpad and maybe some vibrations. Knowing if you've squeezed a trigger enough to shoot a gun in a game is good, but you could also accomplish that while wearing some VR gloves by holding a toy gun in your hand, which then gives you the added feedback of the shape and weight of a gun. Before we have some sort of setup for providing actual feedback based on the virtual world you're interacting with, it seems like this kind of setup (smart gloves coupled with simple dumb-props) would be a more desirable user experience than controllers with some buttons & sticks.

I agree with this. In theory, with a smart enough glove you could use any tool in VR. I haven't seen any in practice that allows for such fidelity in object/finger detection (e.g. is your hand on the trigger, or squeezing it? Are you holding the object or did you drop it?). Also, it would mean that toy guns would need to be standardized (3d printing looks good in this area).

The current approach, combining SteamVR trackers (https://partner.steamgames.com/vrtracking/) with physical objects seem like the best bet for the foreseeable future.

A thousand euros for a pair of VR gloves?

It's a dev kit. Consumer gear is still years away.

That's the future, but not the way forward.

Controllers give you primitive resistive haptics, making you feel you're actually holding and manipulating something. A glove that does that dynamically would be ideal, but we're not there in terms of hardware or software.

Everyone doing full finger tracking on open controllers comes first.

definitely agree. Haptic feedback gloves would be great but clunkyness level is here right now: http://www.roadtovr.com/exos-haptic-vr-exoskeleton-glove-aim...

omg that's too big

Oh boy, another comapny that can't into business:

https://manus-vr.com/order.php

Hint: if your fucking devkit costs a grand, charging an additional half a grand for the SDK to _use_ it does not encourage adoption.

Seriously, what the fuck?

I couldn't believe it reading it, but holy crap, you're right - but it's worse - that's €1500 not even $1500...

I agree, although the controllers are great because they can also create the feeling of holding a tool or weapon. With these controllers you have the freedom to feel something physical or relax your grip and pretend like nothing is there.

What we'd really need are gloves that can provide resistance to the fingers, so that it won't let you close them all the way as if there was some object in your hand. Obviously that's not simple problem to solve, but it'd make VR so much better.

I agree with that as well. But a glove has it's own problems. It has to fit various hand sizes. It needs to breathe and ventilate to prevent sweat & heat buildup. Combining the requirement for mechanical resistance with breathability is a considerable challenge.

The thumb touchpad on the Vive controllers is something very useful that the ManusVR appears to lack. Sure, you could move your thumb around the same way, but it'd be harder without a touchpad to feel the shape of and be able to rest against.

I fell like there's a lot of potential with ultrasound haptics, once the transducers get small enough to mount on a glove.

I'd guess the real future will be some kind of implant. then you could simulate feedback as well. Would also be a great mechanism to fund better developments for prosthetics as well. My guess the biggest impediment is people do not have quite enough trust in the technology or the owners of it.

Have you used these gloves? And have you used them for different types of VR activities?

Ever try leap motion lately?

How is it lately? I have the original one from the Kickstarter. I played with it a bit because I had some crazy ideas about recognizing ASL, but I found that, while it was super great at instantly recognizing orientation and open vs closed hands, it utterly failed to capture complex handshapes ("this hand is making a fist except the thumb is poking out a bit between the middle and ring finger").

The whole software stack has since gotten an overhaul and works more reliably now. Still an occasional trouble with particular finger poses, but, it's really nifty on a VR headset.

Orion might work a little better, but it's still not objectively good. It's been over a year since the beta was released and still no final version. I don't think we are ever getting a working Leap Motion, as the company has said they aren't building consumer devices anymore and only focused on partnerships with headset vendors for integrated solutions.

I tried Vive plus Leap and it is quite fun to play with, but surely lacks a second camera position to avoid occlusion and your hand have to be in a narrow field of view aligned to your head, not torso, if mounted to the headset.

Had someone tried mounting the Leap Motion to a Vive Tracker yet, like facing upwards from belt buckle level?

Something like Manus will always be some niche market thing. If you have to put on extra gear every time you want to play the time, friction is simply to high to get anywhere near console sized markets. PlayStation VR already has way less friction with the headset mounting process.

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