[Feature Request] Finger touch input.

[Reru01]

I would love it if you could use finger input to interact with items in OVR Toolkit, it would make things a lot nicer for people who have it. I have full finger tracking and would like to be able use OVR Toolkit without needing to click a button or pull a trigger, This would be really nice for controllers input and integration.

[CurtisVL]

Hi there!

It's 'kind of' possible, but it wouldn't feel right!

SteamVR's overlays display on top of all game geometry, meaning your hand in a game for example can't be display in front of OVR Toolkit's overlays, it'll always appear behind them even if your hand is in front.
I could look into putting some 2D overlays that always face you on your Index finger to provide the 'feel' of a hand, but that's about the best that I can do with overlays, and even though SteamVR doesn't sort overlays very well! You'll notice that issue if you've ever had overlays very close together in OVR Toolkit and one renders in front of another even if it's behind. :)

TL;DR - SteamVR's overlays work in a funky way and are rather limiting unfortunately!

[Reru01]

Could you have an enable disable button for a hand you put in, and if the game has a hand they can disable the OVR hand visual, but it would still work to touch the screen? I have tried quite a few times instinctively to interact my touching the toolkit screen, but then get reminded that I can't. I don't mind if the hand visual is phasing though the screen... or is that not what you are meaning?

[CurtisVL]

Originally posted by AIMillieSweet:

Could you have an enable disable button for a hand you put in, and if the game has a hand they can disable the OVR hand visual, but it would still work to touch the screen? I have tried quite a few times instinctively to interact my touching the toolkit screen, but then get reminded that I can't. I don't mind if the hand visual is phasing though the screen... or is that not what you are meaning?

Remember OVR Toolkit can only display 2D overlays, not a 3D visual of a hand! This is a limitation with SteamVR overlays. :)

The biggest issue is that games don't provide any info about their world or geometry to SteamVR, and in turn OVR Toolkit can't know what the hand in game looks like or where it is.

The issue is with the hand clipping through overlays is worse than you think, it makes it hard to understand when you're touching something. Humans are pretty bad at depth perception when looking at something directly, so having that combined with the hand being behind something but looking like it's in front... It creates a bit of a mess!

I really do intend to look into this and see what I can do though! It'd be cool if I could figure something out for this.

[Void]

Aww, I was thinking the same (even though I have wands, but forward-thinking for upgrades), mostly for use with keyboard actually. Would be amazing with 3D fingertracked keyboard for the overlay, with haptic feedback (even if it is only for the hand), but I see what you mean from a technical standpoint.

[Reru01]

I wish steam would just intigrate all of this into their UI like oculus hads... that what the saddest part from the upgrade from oculus rift to index.

[Amplified]

Originally posted by CurtisVL:

Hi there!

It's 'kind of' possible, but it wouldn't feel right!

SteamVR's overlays display on top of all game geometry, meaning your hand in a game for example can't be display in front of OVR Toolkit's overlays, it'll always appear behind them even if your hand is in front.
I could look into putting some 2D overlays that always face you on your Index finger to provide the 'feel' of a hand, but that's about the best that I can do with overlays, and even though SteamVR doesn't sort overlays very well! You'll notice that issue if you've ever had overlays very close together in OVR Toolkit and one renders in front of another even if it's behind. :)

TL;DR - SteamVR's overlays work in a funky way and are rather limiting unfortunately!

what if you had a toggleable setting where whenever your desktop isnt being hidden a hand model is added to the overlay. it would be different from your in game hand but it would also probably make it more accurate

[CurtisVL]

Originally posted by Amplified_1:

Originally posted by CurtisVL:

Hi there!

It's 'kind of' possible, but it wouldn't feel right!

SteamVR's overlays display on top of all game geometry, meaning your hand in a game for example can't be display in front of OVR Toolkit's overlays, it'll always appear behind them even if your hand is in front.
I could look into putting some 2D overlays that always face you on your Index finger to provide the 'feel' of a hand, but that's about the best that I can do with overlays, and even though SteamVR doesn't sort overlays very well! You'll notice that issue if you've ever had overlays very close together in OVR Toolkit and one renders in front of another even if it's behind. :)

TL;DR - SteamVR's overlays work in a funky way and are rather limiting unfortunately!

what if you had a toggleable setting where whenever your desktop isnt being hidden a hand model is added to the overlay. it would be different from your in game hand but it would also probably make it more accurate

Remember the overlays are only capable of displaying 2D images, not 3D models such as a hand! :)

[eron]

Hey! How about we revisit this suggestion now? With the new SteamVR update, handtracking + OVR would be fabulous.

[CurtisVL]

Originally posted by eron:

Hey! How about we revisit this suggestion now? With the new SteamVR update, handtracking + OVR would be fabulous.

As it stands the exact same limitations are still in place, but, I've thought about doing something like a circle that shrinks as you move your finger closer to an overlay, then goes green or whatever as you're touching it? Maybe that's a way to show how close your hand is to the overlay?

I'm just not sure how it'd feel until I try it, there's still no way to display your hands really.