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Proposal for a new Mobile VR control scheme

Proposal for a new Mobile VR control scheme

by Kbeam on Jun 7th, 2015 10:17 AM

Hi all, by now, I have tried quite a few mobile VR apps. What struck me was the total lack of support for motion controls, not even at a rudimentary level. I experimented a bit and I think that a cheap gyro mouse/joystick can be a good cheap and very low-latency solution. I put below a set of two videos as a proof of concept of a simile but effective mobile VR control scheme using a 15 EUR airmouse. I did a video with the unity player to show a crisp image with screen capture and demonstrate the interaction capabilities that such small addition opens to developers (the "look to shoot/operate" control scheme that is now almost everywhere is so limiting and unnatural). Here is the video of the Unity Player https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz25fAeCC0s. I also did a very amateur video with an old android phone (sorry for bad quality) showing the airmouse working on a Kindle Fire HDX with decoupled hand/head orientation (actually, I have 2 sub-schemes toggled with a button) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbV1rUXUFXI. Now, there are limitations, since the airmouse hardware is not designed for such operation: (1) Unlike Windows, Android does not have a native DirectInput support, so once your cursor reaches the edge of the screen, tracking is lost; this can be alleviated by lowering the pointer sensitivity in Android, but this is unfortunately not available in Kindle Fire OS; the best way of solving this would be at driver level where the airmouse would not output mouse, but gamepad to Android, thus unlimiting the virtual axes; (2) Again, unlike Windows, Android does not let you hide the cursor which might be annoying at first, but you can get used to it; the OUYA custom Android ROM can switch off the cursor, but not in Android; again, the solution is to make the airmouse output gamepad control to Android instead of mouse; (3) from the airmouse hardware you are limited to 2 axes - horizontal and vertical, so you cannot replicate all movements and have to use buttons instead, it is still better than nothing; (4) button placement is very inconvenient for VR, ideally it should be in the shape of a Wii Nunchuck with 4-5 buttons and everything else can be with VR menus, I may experiment with VR menus, but it was not a priority for me so far. And this is the link to the app https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7L0f ... sp=sharing

Kbeam

Posts: 4

Joined: 28.07.2014


Re: Proposal for a new Mobile VR control scheme

by Torben on Jun 22nd, 2015 09:48 AM

Hi Kbeam!

Wow nice! Very impressive!!! Which cheap airmouse are you using, if you don't mind to share :)
I've also tried something with with teensy raw hid and mpu 6050 to circumvent
android's relatively stupid mouse "features". Works super nice on Windows and Linux, but I'm having a little trouble porting it to Android...

Torben

Posts: 63

Joined: 26.03.2014

dive-owner


Re: Proposal for a new Mobile VR control scheme

by Susuninja on Dec 14th, 2015 10:38 AM

The new knowledge that I need to know.




gclub

Susuninja

Posts: 2

Joined: 14.12.2015


Re: Proposal for a new Mobile VR control scheme

by Kbeam on Feb 21st, 2016 09:13 AM

"Torben" wrote:
Hi Kbeam!

Wow nice! Very impressive!!! Which cheap airmouse are you using, if you don't mind to share :)
I've also tried something with with teensy raw hid and mpu 6050 to circumvent
android's relatively stupid mouse "features". Works super nice on Windows and Linux, but I'm having a little trouble porting it to Android...


Hi, sorry to answer only now, I had forgotten that I had posted here too. Just go to Aliexpress and type gyro mouse and you would find plenty of choice around 10 Eur :) I would recommend one with a USB dongle (bluetooth mice often drop connection with many phones), I think the gyros in iPazzPort are quite good, but you should wait for a promotion around 15 Eur. In the meantime I did a more detailed video here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... BzuAMJjREC and a separate experiment with multimarkers here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL9dDFq_o4U

Kbeam

Posts: 4

Joined: 28.07.2014