So I was messing around with the vr level editing feature and found that the two current forms of movement (throwing the world and warp) do let you move around and are both useful, but i’d like to request a third way…
I wish the analog pad on the left handed controller was an analog stick like you get on any current game controller… I’d like it to move in (forwards/backwards/strafeLeft/strafeRight) local space, so if you’re looking up and move forward, you’ll be moving up, etc…
The reason why I’m requesting this is because i’d like to be able to move around much more easily AND i’d like to be able to move around WHILE i’m transforming geo. Both of the current movement systems don’t allow that because they require trigger and/or side button presses plus controller movement/rotations and those would counteract your ability to be currently editing geo.
The other reason is that the two current movement systems take a little more time to execute than i’d like. For example, if you warp, your nose is now touching the wall you clicked on and so you have to move back, which usually consists of me throwing myself backwards two or three times consecutively. Or if you you throw yourself instead of warp, it usually requires a number of throws, anywhere from 2 to 5. so that’s also a little bit more time than i’d like to be spending.
I also kinda wonder if a firstperson heading rotate shouldn’t be merged into this new navigation control? Currently to do a heading rotate, you have to push down the side buttons on both controls and rotate both arms in a heading rotation, which of course is not easily doable, nor is it possible to continue editing your currently selected items while you’re doing that… Another interesting thing to note is that the heading rotate is actually more important than we might normally think, because if the user is in vr, all they have to do to get a heading rotate is just rotate their bodies, right? well that’s true, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. First off, you’re in a room with tons of junk all around you… your desk, your monitor, your sensors on little stands, etc etc. The problem i had when setting up the in my office is that i don’t even have enough clear space in the room to qualify as a “safe” environment. I think they want you to have a 6x6 foot area of clearance, plus more space if you consider how far your arms can reach, but in my office i’ve got 3x6 walkable space and an in some places another foot or two of clear arm space but in most areas, no clear arm space. so at any point, i could be punching the monitors on my desk if i’m not careful and this is where “how difficult is it for the player to just rotate their body?” comes in to play. I have to know where i am in the room to know where i can and can’t put my arms so i don’t knock anything off of my desks… If it was easy for me control the heading of the player without actually moving my body, i could then be able to edit the level much more easily without ever actually moving my feet. that’d stop me from ever losing track of where i actually am in the room and knocking stuff off my desks. The other really important point for why heading control by rotating your body is NOT all that friendly is because of the cable connected to your vr helmet. When you rotate around, that thing gets tangled around your legs! And when you walk around in vr, you’ve always got that potential problem of stepping on the cable and ripping it out from your computer… If we removed the need to actually rotate the body, that’d help with that problem as well.
So, how would this work?
I’d recommend that if the left handed analog pad is being pressed, it then moves you in that direction at that analog speed. Also, while the left handed pad is being pressed, any heading rotation changes of that controller is used to rotate the heading of the player.
As for whether or not the pad should be touched or pressed, that’s a good question because i see pluses and minuses to both. But after some thought i think it should be pressed (mostly it involves people wanting to rest their fingers on the pad while not moving/rotating but I can’t think of a good way for unreal to KNOW to ignore the heading rotations).
I also think it should be like some ipad games with their fake analog sticks where wherever your finger is when the button is initially pressed is considered the “center” of the pad because it’s near impossible to have your finger be on the exact center of the pad before you click and so you’d be getting movement pops.
Anyways, thanks again!
-seneca