December 2, 2014 at 15:05Monetization of Oculus Rift and Leap motion in quests in reality
Everyone who dreamed about the Matrix clenches their fists when they see “ready-made business” ads on avito - people sell oculus rift to show demos in shopping centers. We understand your pain, brother. You can not do it this way.
We are on the verge of great change. We do not know exactly how, but our world will change a lot. It’s criminal not to try to use the potential of virtual reality to the maximum.
I already wrote about our experience in using Oculus Rift in quests in reality. We were the first in Russia to make an independent entertainment product with virtual reality glasses. Cyberpunk opened in St. Petersburg in May, and there is still no product similar to ours on the Russian market.
Since then, we changed our glasses from DK1 to DK2, updated virtual reality itself several times, adding special effects and even added a live cat to it.
About technology
In the production of quests in reality, we initially relied on advanced technologies. The developments, which are full of media headlines, but which have not yet been massively implemented, are used by us. In addition to Oculus Rift, it is leap motion (gesture control), the neural interface MindWave (control the power of thought).
This path is thorny, and we will share our experience with you, if you suddenly thought about throwing away a computer mouse by watching a movie like this.
It would seem that here it is - gesture control of a computer.
However, despite the fact that Hewlett Packard is already selling laptops with built-in leap motion, the tool itself is far from ideal. In demos under leap motion, actions with an unpredictable result (disperse a swarm of randomly flying moths) look best. Mini-games work well, where the palm practically does not move, the fingers are not involved, and you, changing the position of the palm, say, indicate the direction of the airplane.
In demos with more subtle actions (take an object with two fingers, press a small button with one finger) - sooner or later the stage always comes when you simply wave your hands to achieve at least some kind of reaction. The level of irritation quickly reaches its limit.
Forget using finger gestures.
You show two fingers, and you see one, your fingers tremble unnaturally, the objects you touch also tremble, your hand turns inside out or disappears, and if you hold it with an edge to leap motion - anything can happen at all. These are the most common problems, and you cannot avoid them unless you write a super filter.
In addition, leap is sensitive to lighting.
What can be implemented?
In fact, swipe (moving the palm) to the right and left, circular motion and clenching the palm into a fist work adequately. (However, you can never use regular gestures at all and write your own detector.) In addition, you can determine the location of the hand and assign different actions to different zones. Those. the hand touches the door handle, and the door is already animatedly opened.
Another interesting topic is the visualization of the hands themselves. You can use ready-made hands, for example, skeletal, you can draw your own. And you can shoot real ones through the camera - see the video. Although there are some nuances.
Based on this experience, we are currently developing Cyberpunk 2.0, a new version of our quest in reality. In it, we completely redo the scenario of adventures in virtual reality and add leap motion.
We have already launched something with leap motion for commercial use. In our new quest “Lynch Court”, based on the work of David Lynch’s cinema genesis, players need to master telekinesis by moving certain objects with the help of passes with their hands.
Initially, we made this decision with Kinect, and here leap motion shows its main advantage. He tracks the position of his hand many times better. Although you have to sacrifice space (leap sees no more than half a meter, and Kinect sees the whole room), there are much less false positives.
Yes, and do not think that the purpose of this article is to criticize leap, we just write what we can really do at the moment, and what will happen in the future, we, like you, are looking forward to it. Yes, and not one “lip” we are alive, because you can make hands in virtual reality in other ways. But about this some other time.
PS By the way, we accept offers of cooperation from Moscow and other cities of Mother Russia and will be happy to help you make your own virtual quest.
We are on the verge of great change. We do not know exactly how, but our world will change a lot. It’s criminal not to try to use the potential of virtual reality to the maximum.
I already wrote about our experience in using Oculus Rift in quests in reality. We were the first in Russia to make an independent entertainment product with virtual reality glasses. Cyberpunk opened in St. Petersburg in May, and there is still no product similar to ours on the Russian market.
Since then, we changed our glasses from DK1 to DK2, updated virtual reality itself several times, adding special effects and even added a live cat to it.
About technology
In the production of quests in reality, we initially relied on advanced technologies. The developments, which are full of media headlines, but which have not yet been massively implemented, are used by us. In addition to Oculus Rift, it is leap motion (gesture control), the neural interface MindWave (control the power of thought).
This path is thorny, and we will share our experience with you, if you suddenly thought about throwing away a computer mouse by watching a movie like this.
It would seem that here it is - gesture control of a computer.
However, despite the fact that Hewlett Packard is already selling laptops with built-in leap motion, the tool itself is far from ideal. In demos under leap motion, actions with an unpredictable result (disperse a swarm of randomly flying moths) look best. Mini-games work well, where the palm practically does not move, the fingers are not involved, and you, changing the position of the palm, say, indicate the direction of the airplane.
In demos with more subtle actions (take an object with two fingers, press a small button with one finger) - sooner or later the stage always comes when you simply wave your hands to achieve at least some kind of reaction. The level of irritation quickly reaches its limit.
Forget using finger gestures.
You show two fingers, and you see one, your fingers tremble unnaturally, the objects you touch also tremble, your hand turns inside out or disappears, and if you hold it with an edge to leap motion - anything can happen at all. These are the most common problems, and you cannot avoid them unless you write a super filter.
In addition, leap is sensitive to lighting.
What can be implemented?
In fact, swipe (moving the palm) to the right and left, circular motion and clenching the palm into a fist work adequately. (However, you can never use regular gestures at all and write your own detector.) In addition, you can determine the location of the hand and assign different actions to different zones. Those. the hand touches the door handle, and the door is already animatedly opened.
Another interesting topic is the visualization of the hands themselves. You can use ready-made hands, for example, skeletal, you can draw your own. And you can shoot real ones through the camera - see the video. Although there are some nuances.
Based on this experience, we are currently developing Cyberpunk 2.0, a new version of our quest in reality. In it, we completely redo the scenario of adventures in virtual reality and add leap motion.
We have already launched something with leap motion for commercial use. In our new quest “Lynch Court”, based on the work of David Lynch’s cinema genesis, players need to master telekinesis by moving certain objects with the help of passes with their hands.
Initially, we made this decision with Kinect, and here leap motion shows its main advantage. He tracks the position of his hand many times better. Although you have to sacrifice space (leap sees no more than half a meter, and Kinect sees the whole room), there are much less false positives.
Yes, and do not think that the purpose of this article is to criticize leap, we just write what we can really do at the moment, and what will happen in the future, we, like you, are looking forward to it. Yes, and not one “lip” we are alive, because you can make hands in virtual reality in other ways. But about this some other time.
PS By the way, we accept offers of cooperation from Moscow and other cities of Mother Russia and will be happy to help you make your own virtual quest.