Oculus "Touch" instead of visible keyboard

[florate]

Several have mentioned the inconvenience of not being able to see the a keyboard using Oculus. Would Oculus "Touch" work better than a visible keyboard if it were implemented in DCS?

Has anyone reported trying to use"Touch" to move levers, turn knobs, flip switches and mouse clicks in DCS cockpits?

Thank you, florate

[Wolf8312]

No in my opinion because using hand controllers and a HOTAS would not be possible.

 

Maybe you could choose one or the other but personally I'd go for Hotas every time. The keyboard thing is something you can get better at too and you can also try to map important things to buttons that are easy to find such as spacebar or buttons on the furthest corners.

 

There will be VR gloves out one day though pretty sure of that!

 

Funny thing is if you turn on a vive controller in a DCS cockpit a ruddy great brown boxing glove appears that does precisely nothing. It's funny though marveling at how off scale it is, and would be, if I even could use it.

[Goblin]

Like the Wolf mentions, DCS doesn't support cockpit interaction with VR handcontrollers yet.

I'm not as eager to dismiss hand controllers though. I use a trackball to interact with the cockpit today, and that means letting go of the HOTAS to use the trackball. It would be more or less the same with hand controllers, but maybe more intuitive... We'll see when the function is fully implemented.

Now being able to track you own naked hand, or using thin VR gloves, would be superior. But technology isn't quite there yet. And a possible problem with that is the tracking of individual fingers would have to be very precise in order to track the small movement of flicking a switch, or pressing a button. Here the handcontrollers have an advantage, IMO, since they have buttons.

[Wolf8312]

Like the Wolf mentions, DCS doesn't support cockpit interaction with VR handcontrollers yet.

I'm not as eager to dismiss hand controllers though. I use a trackball to interact with the cockpit today, and that means letting go of the HOTAS to use the trackball. It would be more or less the same with hand controllers, but maybe more intuitive... We'll see when the function is fully implemented.

Now being able to track you own naked hand, or using thin VR gloves, would be superior. But technology isn't quite there yet. And a possible problem with that is the tracking of individual fingers would have to be very precise in order to track the small movement of flicking a switch, or pressing a button. Here the handcontrollers have an advantage, IMO, since they have buttons.

 

One thing I find helps immensely is to map mouse buttons to HOTAS and not the mouse. Haven't really done so for some more involved modules (black shark, HOG) because there is simply no room and other functions I find more important.

 

Mig 21 though with mouse buttons mapped to a HOTAS makes things much easier than using a mouse and is perhaps easier than a glove would be as you never need to take your hands of the HOTAS.

[NeilWillis]

Voice activated commands - simple, cheap, and effective. They allow you to keep your hands on the HOTAS, and perform any function.

 

You can map any single. or combination of, key press to any key word or phrase.

 

Take a look at programs like Voice Attack.

[Goblin]

Oh, absolutely! I concur.

I also use HOTAS buttons and look at switches, and I'm sure voice control would be perfect for many key combos. I just haven't tried that yet.

But I was commenting in relation to using hands in VR. Compared to using a mouse or trackball, hand controllers might not be so bad. I think the biggest problem will be where to put them when you need your hands on the HOTAS. It's not a problem finding them, as the depth perception in Vr is excellent, so I just reach for where the controller is in VR. And, ED need to make the hands less obtrusive. Maybe see through, like in Oculus home.

Another possible problem with using hand controllers will be if there is something physical, like your HOTAS, situated where you need to move your hand/controller in VR...

[NeilWillis]

Support will be a little sketchy at present too I imagine.

 

As long as you can reach out and find the controllers, and can get along with the need to remove your hand from the HOTAS. It is certainly an area to keep an eye on.

[johnco61]

I don't have a problem with using the keyboard now, I use a HOTAS and thrustmaster MFDs for most things, I have small rubber grommets stuck on certain keys like F1&F5 for instance and one on the enter key and a few more. I can find my way around then, this seems to work well for me. I think if your using a HOTAS, Touch wouldn't help much, I also use a track ball instead of the mouse but only have to put my hand on that it stays in the same place all the time, I think that picking up the touch controller and putting it down then trying to find it again would be a bit of a pain but that's my opinion

[blksolo]

I think touch has huge potential for DCS especially if we're talking A-10C with all the switches and knobs. As far as finding the controllers it's easy, you can see them virtually even when you sit them down, and when you go to pick them up they are exactly where you expect them to be. In one of the sports games on Oculus Home I can toss a football back and forth between hands and it feels very natural.