Oculus Rift (VR Headset)

[Venice Cull]

As I said, imagine you're surrounded by a wall (or sphere, if you like) of computer monitors. It would be exactly the same as that. You can look all around at them, but the crosshair is always on the front monitor facing forwards.

..but the right stick still changes the viewpoint... so, for example if you are aiming at a 'flying creature' in the sky using the right stick, tilting your head back would send your viewpoint even further back (completely backwards in some cases).

Could be kind of strange.

[robdood]

A crosshair or ironsights. You could conceivably shoot forwards whilst looking around to all all sides; of course you'd probably need to keep your head facing forwards most of the time, to see what you're shooting at. Still, that little bit of head wiggle, particularly during non-shooty bits, could add a huge sense of immersion.

I don't think you need to add any "aim using your head" controls to make it work effectively.

Just using a crosshair would do it wouldn't it?

Essentially, twin sticks as normal, but your viewpoint now truly represents where your head is looking - nothing to do with movement at all.

Edit: Exactly as how Sprites described it.

I don't think a crosshair would work, as it is effectively a straight line to infinity; if your viewpoint is not completely in line with the aim line then you can't use a single dot to represent it.

Imagine you are holding a pencil in front of your face in exactly the same direction as you're looking; i.e so all you can see it circular shape of it from the top (this is our crosshair dot). If you rotate your head 45 degs to the left or right, then move your eyes to look at the pencil, you can now see it stretching off into the distance (not longer a dot!)

You'd have to use some sort of in-game gun model or something, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

And I dunno if I like the idea of having mouse camera movement on top head tracking, seems to be missing the potential.

[DocG]

I need to try this. I need a friend to spend the money, sacrifice the cash, and bellyflop onto this particular gadget grenade so I don't have to. But based on a survey of my well-off and nerdy friends, I think it's my turn on the grenade.

[Sprite Machine]

So, imagine going through a fling on Portal; entering a portal travelling vertically, but coming out horizontally, say. That's disorientating enough on a screen with a joypad. Would it be better or worse on the Rift?

Everything's relative in Portal, so I don't think it would make any difference. You'd go through a hole and come out of a hole. The view-correcting / re-centering thing might need to be tweaked, though.

..but the right stick still changes the viewpoint... so, for example if you are aiming at a 'flying creature' in the sky using the right stick, tilting your head back would send your viewpoint even further back (completely backwards in some cases).

Could be kind of strange.

I get what you're saying but I don't think that would be all that difficult. It might mean people keep their heads still when they first start playing, until controlling view and movement together becomes more natural.

I guess we'll see what happens.

[therearerules]

Can't crosshair movement be completely divorced from where you're looking?

[robdood]

So, imagine going through a fling on Portal; entering a portal travelling vertically, but coming out horizontally, say. That's disorientating enough on a screen with a joypad. Would it be better or worse on the Rift?

Ha, it'll be even more so, because your brain will be even more convinced you're actually sideways / upside down, despite having no gravity to use as a point of reference.

[Venice Cull]

You'd have to use some sort of in-game gun model or something, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

Well, yeah - it would be 'gun and crosshair' as normal, absolutely.

[DocG]

Can't crosshair movement be completely divorced from where you're looking?

If it is, how do you do a 180 degree turn and head back the way you came? Assuming you aren't sat in a spinny chair, as I fatuously suggested above.

[Venice Cull]

Can't crosshair movement be completely divorced from where you're looking?

Yep - that's the 'solution' me and Sprites are getting at. There are some problems with that though, mainly surrounding players still have TWO ways to change their viewpoints which could confuse things.

If it is, how do you do a 180 degree turn and head back the way you came? Assuming you aren't sat in a spinny chair, as I fatuously suggested above.

You'd still be using the right stick or mouse for turning movement.

Edit: Think of it as the right stick / mouse controls the players body turning, but the Rift controls where your head is looking.

[NecroMorrius]

They can do it either way. Head movement moves the crosshair (like shooting laserbeams out of your eyes) or mouse or stick movement moves the crosshair and you're free to look around. In a PCGamer podcast they talked about playing Skyrim or something by using the left stick to move and 'aiming' by looking around, and said it was really good. Control scheme is just one of the challenges they're hoping people can help to figure out in the dev release. I would imagine when you've got Valve and Carmack working on something, you'll get there before too long.

[NecroMorrius]

Or a leap motion and a toy gun?

[DocG]

I think there's mileage in convincing a Rift with something like the PlayStation Move for hand tracking, yes. I wonder if anyone's trying that out.

[Nicky]

most definitely but with better tech than the PS Move. they're surely working in development with "power gloves".

[Sprite Machine]

What about a wiimote? Do you reckon that'd be worth trying? I've never used one myself but that might work for the "head for looking, controls for aiming" approach. Might feel more natural than a mouse or pad.

I'm not sure that would be any better. Floating pointers like the Wii remote or Move controller require a bounding-box if you want to use them for turning in an FPS, which means keeping a crosshair on the screen (regardless of where you're looking) or basically using the pointer as a floating analogue stick.

[errollw]

I think there's mileage in convincing a Rift with something like the PlayStation Move for hand tracking, yes. I wonder if anyone's trying that out.

I'm planning on combining kinect depth data with the Rift for body-pose tracking to get absolute head position (something they struggle to do with sensor fusion), and enable self-animated self-avatars. I wan't to get full hand pose tracking too, but desperately don't want people to have to wear sensor gloves or hold trackers.

I'm toying with the idea of wrist-mounted or head-mounted Leaps to track hand pose, but it just wouldn't work as well as a sensor glove.

[robdood]

Well, yeah - it would be 'gun and crosshair' as normal, absolutely.

But you can't have a crosshair!! Once you're not looking exactly the same way as you're aiming, there is no longer a single 'point' at which you're aiming, it's more of a beam. I'm not explaining it very well.

[Venice Cull]

But you can't have a crosshair!! Once you're not looking exactly the same way as you're aiming, there is no longer a single 'point' at which you're aiming, it's more of a beam. I'm not explaining it very well.

You can - but you don't necessarily have to be 'looking' at the cross hair. The cross hair merely represents where your bullets are going to go to - completely divorced from where your viewpoint is.

Where your gun is pointing, and where your head is pointing would be two different things.

Edit: I kind of think I know what you're getting at.... will have a think....

[Sprite Machine]

But you can't have a crosshair!! Once you're not looking exactly the same way as you're aiming, there is no longer a single 'point' at which you're aiming, it's more of a beam. I'm not explaining it very well.

I get ya.

It would work in 2D, as per the "surrounded by monitors" example I gave, but in 3D, the 'crosshair' would have to positioned in 3D space, and the only way that would work is if it was infinitely distant, so that it's always as distant as the horizon, but naturally that would look proper weird passing through things and stuff.

So, basically, it would need ironsights or some sort of 3D crosshair / laser sight type thing to work.

Or, get this, a game NOT about shooting things!

[NecroMorrius]

Get out.

[Venice Cull]

Yep - I get what Dood is on about now. How about the cursor is a physical object floating 20 feet (or whatever) from the player? Any objects that come between the player and that 20 feet distance would cause the cursor to be 'projected' onto the object.

I think Killzone did something similar when it was played in 3D mode.

[Sprite Machine]

Yep - I get what Dood is on about now. How about the cursor is a physical object floating 20 feet (or whatever) from the player? Any objects that come between the player and that 200 feet would cause the cursor to be 'projected' onto the object.

I think Killzone did something similar when it was played in 3D mode.

To be honest, I don't know how FPSs handle crosshairs in 3D, but I imagine that's about right, yeah.

The problem with adding in headtracking to the equation is that you would then be seeing the crosshair from different angles, so it would no longer function as a crosshair. That is, if your crosshair is positioned over an enemy when you're looking straight ahead, turning to one side would place the enemy further over to one side than the crosshair (which is closer to you than the enemy is). Thus, the "crosshair" itself either has to be a long line of sight like a laser beam, or using a standard 2D crosshair would have to light up or somehow signal that it's currently 'accurate' (only when you're looking straight ahead). Or, like mentioned above, an 'ironsights' button to lock crosshair and view together temporarily for aiming.

Wheee! Discussion hasn't been this much fun since we talked about controlling Mario 64 like Goldeneye.

[Chooch]

The big question you are all avoiding is will I be able to look one way and shoot another, like Robocop?

[Nicky]

NA NA NA NAAAAA NAAAH. NA NA NA NUUURR

[NecroMorrius]

To be honest, I don't know how FPSs handle crosshairs in 3D

Same as the HUD, it's layered right on top normally.

[Alex W.]

Here's the way it's got to be:

The keyboard and mouse moves and turns your gun through the environment. There's a person attached by implication but we can ignore that. Same as it ever was. The way you are aiming is soley decided by where your mouse and keyboard tell the gun to point.

The headset moves your view around but with a 1:1 mapping. If you're looking forward in your chair you're always looking at where the gun is pointing. It's easy to find the crosshair. Small deviations in where you are looking act as a real world analogue to view bobbing but don't change your aim.

Suppose you look right with the headset. You see a guy. You use the hand controls to turn your "body" towards him and simultaneously turn your head back to "straight on" with the headset. Perfectly natural.

[DocG]

Thus, the "crosshair" itself either has to be a long line of sight like a laser beam

This seems like the most obvious model to me. It'd work like a laser pointer or red dot sight: an invisible beam projected out of your gun, painting a red dot onto whatever is going to get hit when you fire.

[Nicky]

Here's the way it's got to be:

The keyboard and mouse moves and turns your gun through the environment. There's a person attached by implication but we can ignore that. Same as it ever was. The way you are aiming is soley decided by where your mouse and keyboard tell the gun to point.

The headset moves your view around but with a 1:1 mapping. If you're looking forward in your chair you're always looking at where the gun is pointing. It's easy to find the crosshair. Small deviations in where you are looking act as a real world analogue to view bobbing but don't change your aim.

Suppose you look right with the headset. You see a guy. You use the hand controls to turn your "body" towards him and simultaneously turn your head back to "straight on" with the headset. Perfectly natural.

Falls apart when you need to go beyond the ~180degree field of view. you'd either need a zone towards your vision boundaries which act as a quick rotate, or a "shift" like button where you can quickly press to use the mouse to quickly engage a flick of a look.

[Alex W.]

Effing point-and-click gamers.

Best option would be a holographic version of actual gunsights, no? Two things you line up to know that you're "true".

Falls apart when you need to go beyond the ~180degree field of view. you'd either need a zone towards your vision boundaries which act as a quick rotate, or a "shift" like button where you can quickly press to use the mouse to quickly engage a flick of a look.

Are you an owl?

[Nicky]

i can move my head almost 180degrees like i imagine most people can Alex.

you could too if you took your space helmet off.

[Alex W.]

Oh, I see.

If you want to look behind you with the Rift, you would use the mouse to turn around. Like you turn your body to look in real life.

Like real life I imagine that people would look around with a combination of body (keyboard and mouse) and head (Oculus) movements.