Deckard's Roy controllers leaded in SteamVR drivers

[Mindweaver]

Brad Lynch found new rendermodels of the upcoming VR HMD that Valve is working on in the new SteamVR drivers. Brad has a good record of finding these hardware leaks while data-mining VR updates from Valve, Meta to name a few. This is pretty exciting. Let's talk about it.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861544752421670925

More tweets with pics.

Spoiler: CLICK for more

Different angles

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861545269449400626

Render-models compared

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861565495603773511

Also, new Steam controller

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861543924470251771

 

[yfn_ratchet]

Cagey about these designs if true. I imagine this is meant to be very much similar to the Quest 3/Pro controllers in terms of hand feel and would suggest that it's likely meant to compete at that level (entry level tethered VR mayhaps?) and I like the addition of buttons/d-pad, but I REALLY liked the Knuckle controllers for how intuitive they were for the VR experience, especially the (albeit a little sucky nowadays) individual finger tracking and natural grip.

This is losing much of what I love about those controllers for, likely, price and durability. I would rather they just refined the Knuckles and switched the trackpads for buttons (those never did pan out, except maybe in H3VR).

 

[Mindweaver]

Cagey about these designs if true. I imagine this is meant to be very much similar to the Quest 3/Pro controllers in terms of hand feel and would suggest that it's likely meant to compete at that level (entry level tethered VR mayhaps?) and I like the addition of buttons/d-pad, but I REALLY liked the Knuckle controllers for how intuitive they were for the VR experience, especially the (albeit a little sucky nowadays) individual finger tracking and natural grip.

This is losing much of what I love about those controllers for, likely, price and durability. I would rather they just refined the Knuckles and switched the trackpads for buttons (those never did pan out, except maybe in H3VR).

Bradly said, "I’m getting the impression from every other piece of evidence that any hand tracking will be heavily done by camera tracking + all the capacitive sensors on the safe buttons/triggers". The steam controller 2 is just the next controller. I don't know about the trackpads not panning out, because they are on the Steam deck and work really well. I very much like the trackpads for fps games.

Here is some more renders.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861558632443269151

 

[yfn_ratchet]

Bradly said, "I’m getting the impression from every other piece of evidence that any hand tracking will be heavily done by camera tracking + all the capacitive sensors on the safe buttons/triggers". The steam controller 2 is just the next controller. I don't know about the trackpads not panning out, because they are on the Steam deck and work really well. I very much like the trackpads for fps games.

Here is some more renders.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1861558632443269151

Optical tracking is... meh, for me. It's solving an issue of less capable VR controllers with more capable optical tech, with all the same occlusion issues and random scruples of visual/IR tracking. Optics are best suited for inside-out tracking; tracking other objects in space, especially objects that easily occlude themselves from a narrow angle, is going to be frustrating to work with/around.

As for the Deck's trackpads, yeah, those are a lot better suited to the handheld, especially since it can comfortably fit a flat, squarish pad. The Knuckles had a tiny well with center/edge buttons, and the only use I've had for it is either for the various bindings in H3VR for firearm handling and as a dedicated space drag button. That's all it does. Scrolling motions were a nightmare since it was practically a linear up/down and the variable contact patch with your thumb from the ergonomics would usually cause the virtual scroll wheel to 'bounce' in overlays. That much I could let go of, good riddance IMO.

 

[Mindweaver]

Optical tracking is... meh, for me. It's solving an issue of less capable VR controllers with more capable optical tech, with all the same occlusion issues and random scruples of visual/IR tracking. Optics are best suited for inside-out tracking; tracking other objects in space, especially objects that easily occlude themselves from a narrow angle, is going to be frustrating to work with/around.

As for the Deck's trackpads, yeah, those are a lot better suited to the handheld, especially since it can comfortably fit a flat, squarish pad. The Knuckles had a tiny well with center/edge buttons, and the only use I've had for it is either for the various bindings in H3VR for firearm handling and as a dedicated space drag button. That's all it does. Scrolling motions were a nightmare since it was practically a linear up/down and the variable contact patch with your thumb from the ergonomics would usually cause the virtual scroll wheel to 'bounce' in overlays. That much I could let go of, good riddance IMO.

Yeah I agree, I know it won't be as good as the Index controllers for sure. Hopefully, we hear more before the end of the year. I don't think Valve fully utilized the Index controllers either. I think I'd settle for eye tracking for the use cases that I've seen from the Vision Pro.