While everyone has their eyes on VR and the Rift headset, another item, the Oculus Touch, a controller of sorts designed with grabbing in mind, was quietly announced. Oculus Touch will be the artificial hands in a virtual reality.
Touchy-Feely
Once immersed into virtual reality, you want and need to interact with the world around you. While certain games genres like flight sims already have pre-designed controllers and layouts to give a sense of reality, other games do not. In order to give the user a unique experience, a new set of controllers had to be developed.
Enter the Oculus Touch
This new controller shares its designs with the Nintendo Nunchuck, but that is where the comparison ends. Its half-moon bracelet design has sensors to track your every movement, giving the user untold access to the virtual world.
LED’s Make It Possible
Like the headset itself, tiny infrared LEDs will let the sensor know exactly where you’re facing and what you’re grabbing. These help render the world in 3D just the way MoCap suits bring animations to life.
Selection of Buttons
The controller consists of an analog stick and two buttons on top, along with a traditional trigger and middle finger button for grabbing objects. The controller can sense whether or not your fingers are present for another layer of immersion.
You’re in Control Now
We can’t wait to try out this new design. It will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of this level of control. Having separate, yet identical controls means you might be able to interact with one hand, while shooting with the other. I can imagine the excitement of defusing a bomb while defending your spot, or handling complex movements to solve an in-game puzzle. Or being a Wild West gunslinger firing off in two directions at once, the possibilities are endless.
Better Controls for Better Games
While standard controllers will continue to work and be great for those legacy games, having virtual hands means we can expect a whole new generation of games to give users and developers many options for better gameplay.
How Would You Control Oculus?
What games do you want to play on Oculus, what kind of games do you want to see developed to truly take advantage of this tech? What kind of control do you want in your virtual world?
