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Valve: Awesome SteamVR Skeletal Input. Portal-universe Tech Demo. And Knuckles EV2!

Durante

Durante

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Oct 24, 2017
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SteamVR Skeletal Input

Full blog post here.

Basically, it's a hardware-developer-side on the one hand (ha!) and game-developer-side on the other hand API for providing information about hand poses to VR games.

It's designed in a way that I deeply appreciate, because it embodies exactly what I think is one of the very finest aspects of the PC platform that should be supported above all else: forwards and backwards compatibility, and and experience that continues to improve with improving hardware without requiring new development effort. The anti-remaster technology, if you will.
The Skeletal Input system will allow controller makers to capture the pose of the user's hand as accurately as their sensors are able, and provide it as a stream of animation data to the running app. App developers can then use this stream to animate the hands of the user's avatar on its own or in combination with their own animations.

What this means for users is that they will be able to get the full benefit of their investment in new VR controllers in their favorite games without the need for the developers to release a patch to support the new controller. App developers will not need to create unique animations for each controller they intend to support when their game is released, or issue patches to support new controllers. And hardware makers can continue to innovate in this space, and write their drivers so that their controller will work with any game that supports the new Skeletal Input system.
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HTC Vive Wands
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Oculus Touch Controllers
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Knuckles EV2
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Knuckles EV2

Full information here.

Summary from the blog post (but read the entire thing):
  • Improved industrial design and ergonomics
  • Updated input set and layout
  • Improved strap fit and feel for more hand sizes
  • New sensors, enabling new interactions
  • Improved battery life, USB-C charging port
  • Added support for SteamVR Tracking 2.0

Moondust demo

Playable knuckles tech demo in the Portal universe, using all the various inputs.

 
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Deleted member 35011

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Holy shit. I've been working on a fencing training tool for VR as a hobby and this is mindblowingly useful.
 
low-G

low-G

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Oooh those Knuckles fidelity. Holy shit. Imagine being Gordon Freeman picking up your crowbar with that hand.

It's stuff like Knuckles that could potentially draw me from Oculus at some point.
 
Sleeping Lesson

Sleeping Lesson

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Oct 25, 2017
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The fidelity of finger tracking in the Knuckles controllers is amazing. They really have something special with those and I hope we see a retail product this year.
 
Bomblord

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low-G said:
on Freeman picking up your crowbar with that hand.

It's stuff like Knuckles that could potentially draw me from Oculus at some point.
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IMO Knuckles is honestly the biggest generational leap in consumer VR tech I've seen so far. As much as I'de like 4k headsets with improved optics and eye tracking it seems like they're all in the conceptual stages at best and relegated to nifty tech demos or products that somehow screw up something else.
 
GhostTrick

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Oct 25, 2017
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This is huge.
I love what they're doing with their APIs that override the game to compensate what developpers didn't do in the first place. Steam Controller API and now this.
 
1-D_FE

1-D_FE

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Oct 27, 2017
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Wollan posted an actual video in the SteamVR thread and it definitely looks like it's a consumer grade prototype. Could be close to release if it passes muster with dev testing (ie late 2018).

 
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Durante

Durante

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Ugh, there's so much awesome information in this post that it would need another thread.

I'll try to add more to the OP and get a title change to reflect that.
 
Nzyme32

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Oct 28, 2017
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Veeeeeeery nice. The fidelity has improved drastically since I last saw knuckles demoed. Kinematics actually kicked into gear with things like this.

Looks like there is a lot of reading to do!

Edit - Incorporated into OpenVR, is the icing on the cake I think
 
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Durante

Durante

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Nzyme32 said:
Veeeeeeery nice. The fidelity has improved drastically since I last saw knuckles demoed. Kinematics actually kicked into gear with things like this.

Looks like there is a lot of reading to do!

Edit - Incorporated into OpenVR, is the icing on the cake I think
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Yeah, the new hardware capabilities are amazing of course, but I think the software design for enabling developers to easily take advantage of any current (and future) hardware capability by any manufacturer is just as important.
 
Heid

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1-D_FE said:
Wollan posted an actual video in the SteamVR thread and it definitely looks like it's a consumer grade prototype. Could be close to release if it passes muster with dev testing (ie late 2018).

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Is the thumbstick comfortable there...? Something about that layout doesn't look right. I feel like my hands might be too small for it lol
 
Nzyme32

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Durante said:
Yeah, the new hardware capabilities are amazing of course, but I think the software design for enabling developers to easily take advantage of any current (and future) hardware capability by any manufacturer is just as important.
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Yeah absolutely. Just the waiting game now to see when we can see how third party variants can improve / iterate upon it. Hopefully there is more to come from OpenVR's input options and features

Heid said:
Is the thumbstick comfortable there...? Something about that layout doesn't look right. I feel like my hands might be too small for it lol
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The thumbstick should be the secondary input methodology, so offsetting it slightly is not the worst thing, but yes comfort will still be important and I want to see what that is like.

Looks like the whole point of Knuckles is to start to enable direct manipulation of the world / objects etc. With this in mind, the touchpad and it's force sensitive nature is a big win. Combined with the Cap Sense stuff and the trigger, there should be enough fidelity to do complex manipulation (squeezing, twisting, rolling between index finger and thumb, assisted by other fingers etc).

A thumbstick serves no purpose in this - but has a ton of value for standard gameplay mechanics (movement / controlling the buggy in the above demo etc)
 
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Durante

Durante

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Heid said:
Is the thumbstick comfortable there...? Something about that layout doesn't look right. I feel like my hands might be too small for it lol
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Well, in the industrial design part of the full article they specifically mention that
  • The handle has been sculpted to be more comfortable for a wider range of hand sizes (we are targeting hands in the 5th to 95th percentiles).
  • The strap can now be adjusted for different hand sizes, and it's made with an easy-to-clean anti-microbial material.
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So it sounds like they accounted for most hand sizes in the design.
 

Deleted member 2620

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I don't think I could want much more from a generalized video game input device. I'm so, so excited for this.

And the skeletal generalization is amazing, too, and deeply helpful to VR in general.
 
Bomblord

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Durante said:
The whole thing is a stacked with sensors.

It senses the distance of your fingers when they are off the controller, and the grip strength in individual locations when they are on it.
Technology!
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Technology Indeed! I'm getting dizzy imagining the possibilities seeing that makes my old Vive wands feel like antiques.
 
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Durante

Durante

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I still think the single-large-touchpad and symmetric buttons design of the old version is better, at least for the things I like to play in VR and how I like to play them, but hey, I'll take that shitty thumbstick so we can finally start talking about the actually interesting stuff rather than arguing about legacy controls :P

And of course all the other improvements are awesome. It also looks much more like a finished product overall (or maybe that's wishful thinking).

Bomblord said:
What is that button looking thing on the bottom? There's no way you could actually hit that.
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It's probably for fastening/unfastening the hand strap.
 
Qassim

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This is really cool stuff. Really looking forward to these, the controllers for the Vive and Rift have been so vital for my enjoyment of VR.

If we had accepted that 'seated only, traditional controller' experiences were all that was worth shooting for on the initial release, as Oculus were ready to do, VR really wouldn't be interesting for me.
 
Metal B

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Watching the assemble part of the demo, shows one simpel but great aspect of interaction with different parts of an object. Since the knuckle controller can distinguish between closing your hand or just your thumb and index finger, the software can know, if you want to move the object or just want to take one part out of it.
It sounds obvious, but in many VR tools you would need to manual change to different tools to change your interaction with an object. This new methods help to make UIs simpler and interaction feel more natural.
There were also many times in games, were i wanted to use an object or move just a part of it and were instead picking them up completely.
 

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Metal B said:
Watching the assemble part of the demo, shows one simpel but great aspect of interaction with different parts of an object. Since the knuckle controller can distinguish between closing your hand or just your thumb and index finger, the software can know, if you want to move the object or just want to take one part out of it.
It sounds obvious, but in many VR tools you would need to manual change to different tools to change your interaction with an object. This new methods help to make UIs simpler and interaction feel more natural.
There were also many times in games, were i wanted to use an object or move just a part of it and were instead picking them up completely.
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The vive knuckles solve a very important problem with all attempts at grip controls prior -- what happens to the controller when you release all your fingers. That's not really possible on either the vive wands nor the oculus touch controllers. Lifting up all your fingers will cause the controller to drop from your hand. The strap on the vive knuckles is the biggest improvement, IMO.
 
TheRed

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Looks so good. Can't wait, I will buy those controllers day 1. Thanks Valve, you're amazing! Even if people don't appreciate it lol
 
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Durante

Durante

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Krejlooc said:
The vive knuckles solve a very important problem with all attempts at grip controls prior -- what happens to the controller when you release all your fingers. That's not really possible on either the vive wands nor the oculus touch controllers. Lifting up all your fingers will cause the controller to drop from your hand. The strap on the vive knuckles is the biggest improvement, IMO.
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Yeah, I agree. All the sensors are amazing of course, but the best improvement is the simple mechanics of it.
 
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