why no real motion controller support? It is so easy to develop

[crabo0om]

Small Team? Frontier games has over 560 employees... That´s everything but small. The do have the cvapacities to do it, they are just lazy!

The Team i am working with is small, we are 4 People And we have made over 60 VR Apps by now for customers within the last 6 Years and all of them have full motion controller support.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

No Man's Sky is not a good example of virtual HOTAS implementation - it's like trying a knackered second-hand Thrustmaster X and then dismissing all HOTAS systems as awful

I've knocked up a quick video showing NMS spongy stick and 3-speed throttle compared to the precision of VTOL VR - I'm still learning the F-35 knock-off so my acrobatic skills aren't too good as shown in the vid, but my vertical landings on moving carriers are getting better (for a future video once I've got the AP assist figured out )

Source: https://youtu.be/R0jMPzhOFBQ

Sorry, I'm not convinced (yes, I know it wasn't the intention of your video anyway ). I recognize I might not be the target audience for this, or I might be too old, stubborn or conservative to switch away from what I know and like. And no, I have not tried it. I don't want to. I choose to remain very sceptical.

I have a few issues with using motion controllers in ED that make me think "nah, pass". If there was any dev time spent on ED VR, I'd rather see it spent on fixing some of the glaring visual bugs like ship shadows dissapearing, light bleeding and flickering and the like. Also, I'd rather see the dev time spent elsewhere than VR - general performance optimization, bugfixes, having working AA, that sort of stuff, which might get the performance closer to getting viable for on-foot-VR. And finally, even if the technical implementation into the game might be easy (which I still doubt), getting it into a well working human interface will be a challenge in my opinion (this is also true for on-foot-VR).

If you care and still read on, here are my issues: I can just about imagine a virtual stick for the rotational degrees of freedom. What I cannot imagine is the lack of feedback. If need be, I can twist and move my stick with my fingertips against the springs of the stick (which I can adjust to my liking). How do you replicate that with... air?

Also, this VR mod allows you to place virtual buttons for ship control functions (I still maintain that motion controllers have too few physical buttons to fly a spaceship). With a physical interface, I can rely on muscle memory and do everything blindly. I have like 20+ ship functions on the tip of my right thumb alone, and I don't need to move my hand. With buttons in the air, they either need to be really spaced apart, or I have to look at them. Which I don't want. In a real cockpit, you probably can do it blindly (after all we do have a pretty good and precise muscle memory), but there the buttons are physical and provide touch feedback. I seriously doubt it will be that way in VR with buttons in the air.

As for a more device related thing, I think this is not going to work on headsets like my Reverb G2 for one simple reason: If you place your hands comfortably on your lap or the table, the headset will lose tracking. Rule of thumb: If I cannot see the controller, the headset can't either. I know the Meta headsets are better in that regard as they have tracking cameras on the bottom, and with proper placement it's not going to be an issue for external tracking systems. But it's at least an issue for me.

Also, the WMR touch controllers just suck. The buttons are all spongy, the placement is questionable at best. and they eat batteries like crazy (as I practically only play ED and Project Cars 2 in VR, I haven't turned on my motion controllers in weeks). I take a quality flight stick / HOTAS over VR "immersion" every day.

But then I'm old and cranky, so what do I know .

 

[crabo0om]

Sorry, I'm not convinced (yes, I know it wasn't the intention of your video anyway ). I recognize I might not be the target audience for this, or I might be too old, stubborn or conservative to switch away from what I know and like. And no, I have not tried it. I don't want to. I choose to remain very sceptical.

I have a few issues with using motion controllers in ED that make me think "nah, pass". If there was any dev time spent on ED VR, I'd rather see it spent on fixing some of the glaring visual bugs like ship shadows dissapearing, light bleeding and flickering and the like. Also, I'd rather see the dev time spent elsewhere than VR - general performance optimization, bugfixes, having working AA, that sort of stuff, which might get the performance closer to getting viable for on-foot-VR. And finally, even if the technical implementation into the game might be easy (which I still doubt), getting it into a well working human interface will be a challenge in my opinion (this is also true for on-foot-VR).

If you care and still read on, here are my issues: I can just about imagine a virtual stick for the rotational degrees of freedom. What I cannot imagine is the lack of feedback. If need be, I can twist and move my stick with my fingertips against the springs of the stick (which I can adjust to my liking). How do you replicate that with... air?

Also, this VR mod allows you to place virtual buttons for ship control functions (I still maintain that motion controllers have too few physical buttons to fly a spaceship). With a physical interface, I can rely on muscle memory and do everything blindly. I have like 20+ ship functions on the tip of my right thumb alone, and I don't need to move my hand. With buttons in the air, they either need to be really spaced apart, or I have to look at them. Which I don't want. In a real cockpit, you probably can do it blindly (after all we do have a pretty good and precise muscle memory), but there the buttons are physical and provide touch feedback. I seriously doubt it will be that way in VR with buttons in the air.

As for a more device related thing, I think this is not going to work on headsets like my Reverb G2 for one simple reason: If you place your hands comfortably on your lap or the table, the headset will lose tracking. Rule of thumb: If I cannot see the controller, the headset can't either. I know the Meta headsets are better in that regard as they have tracking cameras on the bottom, and with proper placement it's not going to be an issue for external tracking systems. But it's at least an issue for me.

Also, the WMR touch controllers just suck. The buttons are all spongy, the placement is questionable at best. and they eat batteries like crazy (as I practically only play ED and Project Cars 2 in VR, I haven't turned on my motion controllers in weeks). I take a quality flight stick / HOTAS over VR "immersion" every day.

But then I'm old and cranky, so what do I know .

The first point you made i aggree partially. Yes it is right that fixing problems must always be first priority. But, i mean, the game runs pretty good i would say and it´s also visually stunning, for me persponally everything visually is very good, yes there are some issues, like anti aliasing in VR is not that good but is is good enough, better than many other games already.

To your second point. This depends on how you prefer to play. For me, i play these kind of games cause of the immersion. For me it is not so important to have instant access to every button, in a real ship i wouldn´t have that too, there will be buttons everywhere, for example the keyboard that´s in the cockpit. The dude sitting in there normally would have to put that thing in front of him if he wants to type and put it back when flying (cause don´t type and drive ). Having buttons in the cockpit makes it so much more immersive than having everything as a keyboard button flat on my desk. It´s boring like that, for me personally, i need that immersion to play these kind of games to have fun in it. I didn´t even play the game without vr, i only bought it for that and now i´m pretty disappointed that ithe VR in this game so ty eveloped.

What you said about the joystick not physically there, having no feedback, just air. Yes you are right, but after a few hrs you almost forget about that and it is really fun. At first it is really hard Your hands just flail around and doin weird stuff, but you get used to it and it really immerses you in the game. Having HOTAS, wich i now have, mine arrived yesterday but didn´t try yet, will be better i think but not everyone want´s to invest in such expensive stuff for a game. And, after watching several videos on HOTAS vs Mouse, also HOTAS aren´t that precise as a mouse, and still people are using them cause it´smore immersive.

There are different types of players, you, if i am allowed to guess seem like a competetive player, against me, i´m playing for chill and immersion, i want no competition at all.

I hope this makes it a bit clearer for you why full VR Support with motion controllers is a thing and should be in this game.

PS: The problem with the lighthouses and the VIVE or steamVR, yip, it´s , 6dof does make the job way better. But you can always face away from your desk to play in VR, wich i do in most games. I don´t like having the desk in front of me in VR.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

you are objectively very wrong on one account... I'm as far from a competitive player as you can possibly imagine . For the other stuff... yeah. Difference of preference . Apart from that I don't like VR at the desk either. I play in the center of my room in an IKEA Poäng. Most comfortable gaming chair ever invented . My first priority is comfort, "immersion" (I hate that term) come second, so I love my HOTAS setup.

 

[Arioch]

Sorry, I'm not convinced (yes, I know it wasn't the intention of your video anyway ). I recognize I might not be the target audience for this, or I might be too old, stubborn or conservative to switch away from what I know and like. And no, I have not tried it. I don't want to. I choose to remain very sceptical.

No problems - just trying to show something similar to dismissing your comfortable IKEA Poäng because I’d once sat on an IKEA Marius

If you care and still read on, here are my issues: I can just about imagine a virtual stick for the rotational degrees of freedom. What I cannot imagine is the lack of feedback. If need be, I can twist and move my stick with my fingertips against the springs of the stick (which I can adjust to my liking). How do you replicate that with... air?

There is tactile feedback - through use of the controller rumble function. Pressing MFD buttons and flicking switches gives a very definite “click” feeling, while any movement of the stick or throttle has a very delicate rumble that lets you know there’s input occurring. I’d toyed with the idea of getting a printed joystick base for the Touch controller (it uses 4 elastic hair ties to provide resistance) but I’m happy enough with the controls. What I lose in the (minor) loss of stick springs is more than compensated by being able to do this:

Source: https://youtu.be/1i-dUP8yg7Q

That said, I’m not convinced it’d be a good match for Elite in anything less than a full-VR motion controller upgrade to Odyssey (so we don’t have to faff with multiple input devices) - and as I’ve said before, I don’t believe that will ever happen.

I too have my fingers crossed for outstanding VR bugs and performance to be addressed, and if we ever get on-foot VR I’d be more than happy with the standard-controller type gameplay seen in SubnauticaVR and several VR mods to flatscreen games.

 

[rootsrat]

You’d then have to consider the holo panels - interact with them with a virtual laser pointer or make them touch screens? These vary in size and distance over Elite’s many ships so that could be a lot of work.

So not that easy to implement then and quite a bit of additional development.

No thanks then, lets put that effort into something more meaningful for the whole game, rather than a small offset of players (And I say that as a VR player).

 

[Arioch]

So not that easy to implement then and quite a bit of additional development.

…hence my next sentence

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

For VR controllers to work best in ED there would need to be VR hands. People saying VR controls don't work as flight controls are just completely wrong.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

So not that easy to implement then and quite a bit of additional development.

No thanks then, lets put that effort into something more meaningful for the whole game, rather than a small offset of players (And I say that as a VR player).

Come on, it's as simple as the thumb sticks controlling the menus.

 

[rootsrat]

Come on, it's as simple as the thumb sticks controlling the menus.

Come on, it's not really though is it? (I can play forums tennis all day )

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Come on, it's not really though is it? (I can play forums tennis all day )

It's just a controller button/stick that you assign. There's nothing difficult about it, unless you insist on overthinking it. One man band games developers can manage this.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

No problems - just trying to show something similar to dismissing your comfortable IKEA Poäng because I’d once sat on an IKEA Marius

yeah.... I have Markus at my desk for years . It's the perfect desk chair in the one case that you have the correct height and leg/torso proportions for it... which I do. I used to do a lot of furniture shopping at IKEA, in case you could'n tell .

There is tactile feedback - through use of the controller rumble function. Pressing MFD buttons and flicking switches gives a very definite “click” feeling, while any movement of the stick or throttle has a very delicate rumble that lets you know there’s input occurring.

That's not what I meant. What I did want to say is I need / want a physical object to interact with, especially with, say, a row of buttons. I can touch them and feel which is the first, second, third, without looking. I have a streamdeck next to my throttle that gives me that, but then I am not one of those who are bothered by the VR representation of myself and the controls around me don't match the physical realm. I've read that some people are really freaked out by virtual arms (like in lone echo) because their elbows don't match... I don't care about that.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

yeah.... I have Markus at my desk for years . It's the perfect desk chair in the one case that you have the correct height and leg/torso proportions for it... which I do. I used to do a lot of furniture shopping at IKEA, in case you could'n tell .



That's not what I meant. What I did want to say is I need / want a physical object to interact with, especially with, say, a row of buttons. I can touch them and feel which is the first, second, third, without looking. I have a streamdeck next to my throttle that gives me that, but then I am not one of those who are bothered by the VR representation of myself and the controls around me don't match the physical realm. I've read that some people are really freaked out by virtual arms (like in lone echo) because their elbows don't match... I don't care about that.

A lot of VR users overthink things.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwn1w7MJvk


Your brain will quickly adopt the VR avatar as its own. People who worry about misalignment are just being stupid.

 

[Arioch]

That's not what I meant. What I did want to say is I need / want a physical object to interact with, especially with, say, a row of buttons. I can touch them and feel which is the first, second, third, without looking. I have a streamdeck next to my throttle that gives me that, but then I am not one of those who are bothered by the VR representation of myself and the controls around me don't match the physical realm. I've read that some people are really freaked out by virtual arms (like in lone echo) because their elbows don't match... I don't care about that.

Well, each to their own - but I prefer not having to feel for buttons without looking Just reaching out and interacting with the in-game switches and MFDs is enough for me

I’m glad I’m not bothered by any slight inverse kinematic elbow mis-match in VR - I prefer full body presence if possible. SkyrimVR using the VRIK, (and more recently) Planck and Higgs mods has been one of my top gaming experiences, along with the two Lone Echo games. The brief period early on in Odyssey where we could glitch the vanity camera into our CMDRs heads, look down in full VR and watch my feet leaving prints in alien soil…

 

[Northpin]

i am an unreal engine dev .

Which means that you are as proficient in Cobra engine as is the guitar dude

And to answer the question Why? it is simple.
It costs money and apparently the vr player base in not big enough for them to have a good return of investment, else they would have had Odyssey running full VR
And no, it might not be as simple as you think it is. It never is.

 

[Drannon]

FDev isn't even proficient in Cobra. All those original devs and engineers are long gone. Since ED is a one-time buy that offers flat screen and VR that plays both sessions concurrently there's no real proper way to gage the active VR audience. It's implementation was likely just a gimmick meant to raise sales for that FY with no real intention of moving forward with it.

 

[Northpin]

Since ED is a one-time buy that offers flat screen and VR that plays both sessions concurrently there's no real proper way to gage the active VR audience

Is it?
I thought one has to start the game in VR in a particular way, that can be tracked by FDev (either by using steamvr or a particular setting in options>graphic)

I do think FD has a lot of metrics regarding their game.

 

[crabo0om]

So not that easy to implement then and quite a bit of additional development.

No thanks then, lets put that effort into something more meaningful for the whole game, rather than a small offset of players (And I say that as a VR player).

Why are you thinking this? It is NOT!


The thing with laserpointer is that they are simply line traces wich interact with something the developers say they should interact with. It is nothing different then pressing the button with your mouse, wich already works.
It is really not hard to build man! The UI in the ships is already there and interacting with them already works with the mouse. Replacing the mouse click with a laserpointer is nothing more than adding a function to the code that implenents the line trace by object/channel/uielement or whatever they call it in ED, but the groundwork for that is already there.
You should read how stuff like this works or have done it before by yourself before making these statements because you are very wrong with this!

 

[crabo0om]

Cobra Engine, Unreal Engine, Unity, Frostbite, Cryengine... Under the hood they are all engines that do basically the same, most of them also are written in the same language, wich makes it not really hard to switch engines at all. I have worked with Unreal, Unity, Godot and Cryengine before and i must say they only differ in the way artists interact with them, but how you code in them is mostly the same. You even don´t code in the engines itelf, you mostly work in compilers like VSCode whatever you prefer, wich compile the code before you even open the engine So, from my standpoint my statement stays the same, it is easy to implement if you have access to the engine code and must not rely on third party tools and workarounds!!!!

 

[[VR] Mad Life Crisis]

Cobra Engine, Unreal Engine, Unity, Frostbite, Cryengine... Under the hood they are all engines that do basically the same

No they don't

I have worked with Unreal, Unity, Godot and Cryengine

If you had, you wouldn't have said the above.

I've worked down to the bones with computers. I know that software 'Engines' vary vastly, and the way they are implemented via whatever preferred language, coding wise, is not a simple transfer or swap over. Even the way 'Engines' adress memory, to free space elsewhere varies enough, to make it a challenge to skip into another engine. Jusy the way something like DX12 is implanted is different, let alone whether a game is coded for multi threaded, non threaded CPU's.