Valve company, headed by the notorious Gabe Newell, is very keen on the idea of virtual reality. Today in the walls of internal studios Valve developed several major VR gaming, and engineers are constantly improving existing technology in all respects. Last year it became known that the company is developing its own VR controller, codenamed Knuckles. But only now in the Network appeared new and very interesting details of this unusual device.
New information has become available, thanks to the documents for software developers, published on the official portal page that is part of the service SteamVR. The most unusual news is the fact that the controller is able to independently monitor the position of all five fingers of the human hand. Perhaps this was thanks to the touch surfaces, covering most of the surface of the body. Thumb tracked the main touch surface, which is, among other things, button. The index finger is tracked touch trigger. And the middle, ring and pinkie fingers are tracked by sensors surrounding the handle of the controller.
Given that the controller is equipped with a handy strap for attaching to the palm, the user can freely compress and unclench fingers of the hand without fear of dropping the device. And this, in turn, gives developers tremendous opportunities. You can freely pick up virtual objects and manipulate mechanisms with individual fingers, to show his opponents obscene gestures (you would only knew how often people who play VR games, I want to show the enemy the middle finger, but they have no such possibility), to communicate in online games by gestures and much, much more. In this regard, the controller Knuckles easily beat Oculus Touch and especially the PlayStation Move.
The system works very cleverly. All the fingers, in addition to large, are tracked in several positions. For example, if you have just a little bulge ring finger, the touch surface will calculate the rest on the handle of the controller of the phalanx and bent to project the image of the finger in the virtual world. If you fully straighten your finger – it is fully straightened and the inside of the VR. So, without using additional cameras and sophisticated technology Valve managed to solve one of the main problems of virtual reality. Before each game, the user must calibrate the system so that it studied the structure of his palms. To do this, just need several times to squeeze and unclench your fingers. Built-in battery of the controller Knuckles in the current model of the controller is enough for three hours of the game, and it recharges via Micro-USB cable. It is unknown exactly when the Valve controller will go on sale, however, it is clear that it will happen soon enough.
A new VR controller Valve tracks all five fingers of the hand
Sergey Grey