Re: [VR Geeks] Oculus Touch review

[Andrew Ayers]

Jan, thanks for that great review!

I don't pay much attention any more to what Oculus is doing, despite being an original backer of their KS. I'd heard mention about the Touch, but haven't looked much at it. 

They basically lost me when they dropped Linux support. I'm tired of this dumb game hardware companies play relegating our platform to second-tier status, especially when support was there at the beginning. I wouldn't hold your breath on gaining that support for the Touch.

Andrew

On Dec 8, 2016 1:47 PM, <vr-g...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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• Oculus Touch - 2 Updates

Oculus Touch

Jan Ciger <jan....@gmail.com>: Dec 08 02:55PM +0100 Hello,   I have finally received my Touch today. Whoa Batman, this is really what Rift should have been released with back in April!   What's in the box:   - "Sensor" (aka another IR camera) - Controllers - 2 AA batteries (one for each controller, hopefully they will work with rechargeables) - A plastic "ring" gizmo - which is apparently a Rockband VR guitar controller (haven't seen that one mentioned before) connector. The thing is completely plastic and doesn't have any wires, batteries nor anything to it, so I suspect it is only some sort of adapter piece, but who knows - has anyone seen the guitar controller?   Install   - Didn't have much trouble with it, you pair the controllers, then calibrate the work space. If there are troubles with the "poor quality tracking" or "sensor not detected", it is likely a USB bandwidth problem and you may have to move one of the cameras to another (even USB 2.x) port. I am using a USB 3 hub and it didn't work with both cameras and the HMD on it. Had to move one of the sensor to another USB host controller on my PC. Also this test seems to require that the HMD is in view of the sensors - something the prompt on the screen *does not* tell you! There is a part where the setup prompts you to turn the sensors back and forth until it is happy, that is a bit fiddly because there is little feedback about what you are doing, unfortunately. - The Guardian (= Chaperone) setup is the same as with Vive - you take the controller and draw the boundaries of your space with it.

Jan Ciger <jan....@gmail.com>: Dec 08 03:35PM +0100 ... continued (stupid fingers hit SEND before finished!)   Use   - The tracking - well, I am not going to repeat stuff on the range, occlusions and other problems the tracking system has, enough has been written about that. Vive has better tracking, no discussion about that. That said, the tracking works well enough, certainly beats the pants off my Hydra I have been using with my Rift before. I had it setup for the front, 180deg angle (have only 2 cameras) and didn't really have problems unless I was really having my back towards the cameras. Of course, if the content is not designed for this kind of setup, the experience will be less than ideal.   - The ergonomics ... is interesting. It fits in the hand really well and someone has obviously put a lot of thought in the design of the controls - the palm trigger and the finger sensing is pure genius. It is obviously not comparable with a data glove, the finger sensors are only on/off and only for thumb and index fingers. However, even that allows to point naturally and to grab things by closing the hand into a fist. The Vive controller feels like a controller. Touch is trying very hard to convince you that that is your hand in the world and not a controller. It is not quite there yet, but it really feels good. Really big thumbs up to Oculus for this idea, this is trully innovative and I expect VR vendors to widely copy it - it simply works and likely costs peanuts to implement as almost every microcontroller today has a capacitive sensing support.   The software   - I am not going to review the games, there will be enough reviews in the days to come, I am sure. But the introduction/tutorial in the "crazy scientist" workshop like straight from the Return to the Future, with the funny robot and "floppies" you have to insert to trigger the various interactions and to learn how to use the controllers is great. This is really what Oculus should have been released with, not those ridiculous non-interactive demos in the Dreamdeck. With that silly demo alone you can have fun for good 30 minutes.     To conclude, I think Oculus has a winner with the Touch. It costs a lot, but hey, Hydra did cost about the same - and it is much much less capable. I only hope that they release support for Linux, so that I can actually develop with it.   Regards,   Jan

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[Jan Ciger]

Hi, 

On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 3:39 PM, Andrew Ayers <junk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Jan, thanks for that great review!

I don't pay much attention any more to what Oculus is doing, despite being an original backer of their KS. I'd heard mention about the Touch, but haven't looked much at it. 

They basically lost me when they dropped Linux support. I'm tired of this dumb game hardware companies play relegating our platform to second-tier status, especially when support was there at the beginning. I wouldn't hold your breath on gaining that support for the Touch.

Andrew

It is very much the same for me. I wouldn't have considered putting the money into it if Oculus didn't send me a free CV1 (I am also original KS backer). I haven't considered buying the Touch neither but finally I have decided to get it - if I decide to sell the CV1, it will be easier with the controllers than without and the 200 euro was still manageable. 

The lack of Linux support is really annoying, because without that the device is very much an expensive paperweight for me. I have enough of battling Windows and Unity at work, I am not going to do that at home on my own time too. There is some very rudimentary CV1 support in the libOpenHMD, but only orientation tracking and the display turns on. Basically DK1 level of functionality. Unless someone manages to reverse engineer the RF synchronization protocol and all the USB communication, I don't think a Linux driver will happen. I pretty much gave up on Oculus ever supporting Linux officially - there is little money even in the Windows game market so Linux isn't even on the radar. And they don't really seem to care about the professional market at all (unlike Valve) where Linux has a certain niche in VR/simulation and visualization, so it is unlikely to happen. 

Well, at least in the case of Rift the reasons why there is no Linux/Mac support are only commercial, not technical. The lack of asynchronous time warp and such in the GPU drivers doesn't prevent to have a basic SDK working and those features won't happen if there is nothing that can use them anyway. I am tinkering with the Hololens now and that thing is completely hardwired into the Windows UWP/Windows Store walled garden. You literally can't use it without it. So development outside of Visual Studio/Windows 10/Windows Store isn't happening. The device itself seems to be an x86 PC with 2GB of RAM running some version of Windows RT. 

Jan