Body presence in VR has been one of those topics that folks knew could be achieved but really “had not gotten” around to working on. Steve Bowler at Cloud Gate Studio seems to be making strides towards this direction. He recently posted on tweeter a video with himself with hand and feet controllers as demonstrated in this video.
What’s cool about Steve’s implementation is that he is using two Vive’s on Two Computers to track the participant. Based on the amount of control he had I would say he is holding the controllers in his hands; as shown in the videos. But he also has pretty good control of his ankles which means he has mounted the controllers on each of his feet. This means he is approximating waist position and probably using simple IK for Knee and elbow position. He admits on the video that he doesn’t have good control over the waist. By the looks of the video his wrists are detached from his arm. He probably is approximating the pole vectors for the elbows and knees as well.
The iMyth experience used two Vive’s in tandem to track the participant as well as the interactor. It’s great seeing someone hook up two Vives on the participant to see what happens. In the future, iMyth will need to use multiple trackers on one character. If combined with some IMU hand tracking device such as the Manus Glove then I think all that would be necessary would be trackers at each wrist. Trackers would then need to be added for each foot and waist. I Think in order to get the leg rotation correct, trackers would be necessary for the knees. I’m not sure about the elbows at first. Somewhere down the liner they will be a necessity. However, since elbows are not a particularly popular point on the body to touch, I think their priority can be dropped.
It will be exciting to see how much the Vive tracking pucks cost. Either iMyth will need to incorporate those pucks or create its own, home brewed version.
