Bisher waren die Vive Tracker nur für Entwickler erhältlich. Nun hat HTC die Verfügbarkeit des Moduls auch für Endkunden angekündigt. Zumindest in Amerika soll es Mitte Dezember so weit sein. Hinzu kommen Bundles mit Zubehör wie der Hyper Blaster. Erst vor zwei Tagen tauchte das Racket Sports Set im Shop von HTC auf, verschwand aber nach wenigen Stunden wieder. Nun ist das Schläger-Set wieder da.
Vive Tracker: Hyper Blaster und Racket Sports Set
HTC hat eine eigene Seite für die Vive Tracker freigeschaltet. Sie kosten einzeln 99 US-Dollar. Außerdem gibt es mehrere Sets. Das Hyper Blaster Set kostet 149 Dollar und enthält eine Spielzeugwumme, den Tracker und das gelungene Spiel Duck Season. HTC verspricht für den Hyper Blaster ein realistisches haptisches Feedback beim Feuern. Als einziges Set vertreibt HTC den Blaster über Amazon, das Veröffentlichungsdatum soll der 12. Dezember sein.
Das Racket Sports Set enthält zwei Schläger, die an Badminton- und Tischtennis-Schläger erinnern. Das Bundle für 149 Dollar bringt zudem den Tracker sowie das Spiel Virtual Sports mit. Das Spiel kostet allein 20 Euro und bringt eine Tischtennis- und Tennis-Simulation mit. Die Schläger bietet HTC auch alleine für 80 Dollar an. Daneben gibt es noch ein großes Paket mit der HTC Vive sowie dem Racket Sports Set für knapp 750 Dollar – da die Vive derzeit 600 US Dollar kostet, gibt es also keine Preisersparnis gegenüber dem Einzelkauf von Bundle und Brille.
Außerdem listet HTC noch den Trackstrap, der einzeln direkt beim Hersteller 15 Dollar kostet. Das Zweierpack schlägt mit 25 Dollar zu Buche. Er benötigt demensprechend ein oder zwei Vive Tracker, wobei das Bundle mit zwei Trackern sinnvoll ist. Mit den Trackstraps lassen sich die Module um die Füße schnallen, passend dazu erhalten Käufer einen Steam-Key für das Tanzspiel Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing. Über den Trackstrap hatten wir seinerzeit hier berichtet.
HTC Vive is launching its consumer push for Vive Trackers with accessory bundles and support on the way from a series of software developers.
The highly anticipated accessory can enhance immersion while wearing an HTC Vive by bringing in physical objects like guns or sports rackets — or even your full body — and representing them all accurately in the virtual world. To date, most VR developers represent only the hands or head in their software because those are the only things that can be tracked accurately. Vive Tracker is the first attempt to change that on a consumer scale.
A pair of $150 bundles ship a Tracker alongside either a colorful gun or a pair of sports handles to simulate the feel of a ping pong paddle and tennis racket, each slated to arrive in early to mid-December. Here are the details on each bundle:
Hyper Blaster from Hyperkin is a gun accessory that comes with Stress Level Zero’s Duck Season for free — fitting perfectly with the theme of that game as the classic gun is represented accurately in VR. The accessory also works with Arizona Sunshine, The American Dream VR, Operation Warcade, TacticalAR and Practisim VR but the gun won’t be represented the same way. It is available only through Amazon.
Racket Sports Set includes a pair of handles meant to be weighted accurately so that when you screw on the Tracker it feels like a real ping pong paddle or tennis racket in your hand. The set includes Vive Studios’ Virtual Sports free and is said to be compatible with 10 games by the end of the year. Pre-orders are available via Amazon, Abt Electronics, BH Photo, Fry’s, Gamestop, Micro Center and Newegg.
Another accessory, the TrackStrap from Rebuff Reality, comes in a pair for $25 that makes it easy to attach Trackers to each of your feet. It is compatible with apps like Climbey, Holodance, High Fidelity and Island 359. The Vive Trackers sell on their own for around $100 each.
Jeremy Chapman and Steve Bowler, developers behind Chicago-based studio CloudGate and their dinosaur hunting game Island 359, have been working for months on a “Virtual Self” designed to produce a compelling avatar that matches your real body movements. But by adding Vive Trackers to your feet or waist, this software could provide an incredibly accurate and immersion-enhancing full body model. Licensed to other developers, the “Virtual Self” could make it easy to add full bodies in much more VR software.
CloudGate’s “Virtual Self” update to Island 359 is expected to release Dec. 1 and they are planning an enterprise license of the software to release at a later date.
Forward Compatibility?
I asked HTC whether the consumer Vive Trackers will only be compatible with 1.0 base stations currently in market and that seems to be the case. This likely isn’t a major issue for most HTC Vive owners, but it is something to think about heading into 2018 as more partners might employ an upgraded version of Valve’s tracking technology next year. Assuming these Vive Trackers don’t use the the TS4231 silicon they likely won’t work with these improved SteamVR Tracking 2.0 base stations.
Companies like LG are working on VR headsets based on SteamVR Tracking and the 2.0 stations are said to be less expensive, smaller and can be extended to four stations to cover areas as large as 10 meters by 10 meters. Arcades, businesses or people with extremely large rooms to dedicate to VR are the likeliest to benefit from that increased coverage. If anyone wants to upgrade to those systems and swap out their 1.0 base stations, however, it will likely also render the Vive Trackers useless with the new hardware.
“We’ll address the 2.0 stations as they are available in market,” an HTC spokesperson wrote in an email. “2.0 is really about larger play spaces and enterprise. We’ll have more to announce for support once that tech is available, but for consumers we wanted to get Tracker into market as soon as possible.”
‘Premium PC-based VR’
HTC is positioning the Vive PC-powered headset as the high-end premium VR solution. Even on Black Friday the device is priced roughly $190 above a comparable Oculus Rift system. The arrival of Vive Trackers (and the increased level of immersion that’s possible using them) certainly lend weight to the premium claim.
“Valve hasn’t announced any concrete launch timing on [Base Station] 2.0,” an HTC spokesperson wrote in an email. “Our customers and developers are excited about adding new tracking options with Vive Tracker. With regard to lower cost for base stations, they aren’t in market, so we can’t speculate on plans. There are a lot of Vives in market that don’t need to swap out base stations (literally every Vive owner today), and we are committed to supporting them. We are fully committed to premium PC-based VR and wouldn’t make moves that undermine our customers investment in Vive.”
Developers working in the area of virtual reality (VR) have been doing interesting things with the HTC Vive Tracker hardware. From allowing accurate kicks and punches in the VR environment, to the more esoteric uses such as using a Vive Tracker to retro-fit a Nintendo Power Glove. Many VR enthusiasts have been keen to get hold of the Vive Trackers. That is now possible, since the Vive Trackers are now available for sale the consumers.
The Vive Trackers are compatible with dozens of existing VR titles, and are the power behind a new range of new motion tracking accessories. The Vive Tracker allows users, arcades and developers to use third-party hardware and software that can create a more immersive experience.
HTC have announced a number of accessory bundles which will come with the Vive Tracker, a compatible accessory and HTC Vive title:
The latter features straps to allow for full-body tracking. All three bundles will be available for pre-order from 16th November, with expected release dates of mid-December, 2017.
The Hyper Blaster is a retro-styled light gun designed to tie into the tongue-in-cheek nostalgia of Duck Season, but is also compatible with titles such as Arizona Sunshine, The American Dream VR, Practisim VR, Tactical AR and Operation Warcade. The Racket Sports Set is, as the name suggests, designed to replicate the feeling of Tennis rackets and Table tennis paddles, and works with Virtual Sports along with four other titles. The TrackStrap lets users attach a Vive Tracker to their feet, wrist, hip or leg to allow for accurate body-tracking for titles such as Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing, Climbey, Holodance and High Fidelity, among others.
“With Vive Tracker, we’ve already seen the tremendous tools and experiences that the development community has created and unleashed into VR,” said Daniel O’Brien, GM US, Vive. “As we launch Tracker to consumers, we’ve lined up a number of developer and hardware partners that are committed to making VR on Vive more immersive than ever before. The Vive Tracker opens up a whole new set of experiences that can take advantage of full body tracking and a number of peripherals that set VR experiences on Vive apart.”
VRFocus will bring you further news on HTC Vive hardware and accessories as it becomes available.
HTC today announced consumer availability of Vive Tracker, the tracking module that uses Valve’s Lighthouse tracking standard. The company also announced North American pre-order availability of a number of Vive Tracker accessory bundles that are slated to make their way to consumers in mid-December.
First shipped to developers earlier this year, HTC is now selling the Tracker to consumers with the full confidence that anyone can pick it up and use it. That’s right, it’s not a new version, but it does now at least claim official support for dozens of VR titles and multiple accessories including what HTC today revealed to be Hyperkin’s Hyper Blaster gun, a Racket Sports Set, and a strap system from Rebuff Reality for basic body tracking.
The Vive Tracker itself will be on sale through the official Vive store and its partners for $100. The first Vive Tracker accessory bundles launch today for pre-order via multiple retailers with expected arrival dates of mid-December. The company says it will have more information on international availability later, as for now, the accessory bundles are North America-only.
Hyper Blaster
image courtesy Hyperkin
Hyperkin’s Hyper Blaster, clearly paying homage to the NES Zapper, was first spotted with a Vive Tracker screwed on top back at E3 this summer. HTC says when paired with the Tracker, the Hyper Blaster serves as both a gun and motion controller in integrated games including Duck Season, Arizona Sunshine, The American Dream VR, Operation Warcade, TacticalAR, and Practisim VR.
Sold exclusively through Amazon, the Vive Tracker + Hyper Blaster bundle includes a copy of Duck Season and will set you back $150. Unique to Duck Season, the Blaster is virtually represented within the game world.
In addition to the titles already listed, HTC says they’re working with 10 additional developers to integrate the Blaster by Q1 2018.
Racket Sports Set
image courtesy HTC
Leaked a few days ago on the US-facing HTC Vive site, the Racket Sports Set is targeting the Ping Pong and Tennis-lovers out there with a pair of custom-molded and weighted accessories that supposedly feel like real paddles and rackets. The bundle, which includes both Ping Pong and Tennis handles, a Vive Tracker and a redemption code for Virtual Sports from Vive Studios, will sell for $150. Pre-orders are available today via HTC’s site, Amazon, Abt Electronics, BH Photo, Fry’s, Gamestop, Micro Center and NewEgg, with additional retailers expected in the coming months.
HTC says an additional six titles supporting the Racket Sport Set will arrive by end of year. Also, if the listing we saw earlier in the leak is correct, there will also be the chance to purchase the Racket Set without the Tracker if you already own one.
TrackStrap
image courtesy HTC
One of the most simple use-cases that arguably has one of the biggest impacts on immersion is body tracking, and with the help of a the Rebuff Reality TrackStraps the Tracker can put your feet, wrist, hip or leg movement into VR experiences—if the game supports it, that is.
A pair of TrackStraps is available now for $25 on Rebuff Reality’s site and includes a redemption code for Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing on Steam, a game inspired by Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Audioshield. Games including Island 359,Climbey, Holodance, Goalie VR and High Fidelity either already support Tracker, or will in the coming weeks before launch. See the full list of compatible games here.
HTC is highlighting these three bundles specifically, but you can bet there are many more accessories to come from other manufacturers in the coming months. That said, it’s safe to say if a game doesn’t make mention of support for the Tracker or a specific accessory, you won’t be able to use it. We’ll be bringing you more news on Vive Tracker accessories in the coming months.
Bilder des neuen Zubehörs gab es nicht zu sehen, jedoch verriet der Name des Produktes bereits, dass es sich um einen universellen Schläger handeln muss. Es gibt einige Squash-, Tischtennis- und Tennisspiele, die von einem solchen Controller profitieren könnten, doch wir sind gespannt, ob das Zubehör sich eher auf große Schläger oder auf kleine Schläger konzentriert oder sogar modular beziehungsweise ausziehbar gestaltet ist. Auch wenn man den Unterschied in der Größe nicht sieht, so ist der unterschiedliche Schwerpunkt auch in der Virtual Reality spürbar.
Ob es das Zubehör auch nach Deutschland schaffen wird, ist im Moment noch offen. Eigentlich hätten wir auch schon längst mit Zubehör für die HTC Vive Tracker gerechnet, denn ursprünglich plante HTC einen kommerziellen Start im zweiten Quartal 2017. Hoffentlich ist das Racket Sports Set nicht das letzte Aufbäumen eines abgesägten Projektes, sondern der Start in eine neue Ära mit passenden Controllern für unterschiedliche Spielkonzepte.
A Racket Sports Set designed to be compatible with HTC Vive’s Tracker, the modular positionally-tracked puck that you can use to track practically anything in VR, has just made an appearance on the Vive accessories site. The Tracker has only been available for anyone claiming to be a developer since early this year, but the new accessory listing could be an indication of its upcoming commercial launch.
HTC started shipping more than 1,000 Vive Tracker dev kits to developers back in February 2017 in an effort to kick-start an ecosystem of handy accessories and VR game implementations for the Lighthouse-tracked accessory. At the time, the company maintained a Q2 2017 commercial launch for the tracker, although the only region where it can be purchased for consumer use is through the company’s Chinese site for 800 yuan (~$120).
At the time of this writing, the Tracker developer kit ($100) is currently out of stock.
Now the company has listed a Tracker-compatible Racket Sport Set on its US site. There’s no price or even images currently available for the device, which will be sold with and without the Tracker, just a listing that leads to a 404.
Well be keeping an eye on the Tracker in the coming days, as it too is currently without an official price or release date.
A new project from Logitech, the Logitech Bridge, will make it easy for developers to accurately represent and track a user's keyboard in a virtual reality experience, using the Vive Tracker peripheral from HTC.
Virtual reality (VR) can do a lot of things that makes gaming and entertainment immersive, from motion controllers to the Vive Tracker which can be attached to any object to make it useable in VR. One of the technology’s weaker points is that of text input, which is usually fiddly at best – and nowhere near as easy as a keyboard. So HTC Vive and accessory company Logitech have teamed up together to solve the problem, creating the Bridge software development kit (SDK).
The kit consists of a Logitech G gaming keyboard, an accessory that positions a Vive Tracker correctly on the keyboard, and the associated software. Aimed at helping App makers and SW developers solve the problem of text entry in VR, Logitech will be seeding 50 of these kits to select developers with the goal of partnering to create compelling new experiences centred around a VR keyboard.
“We’ve been working with Logitech over the past year and think what they’ve created is the solution we all need,” said Darshan Shankar, Founder and CEO, Bigscreen, Inc. “Virtual keyboards are great for simple interactivity, but for productivity and collaboration there’s nothing quite like the tactile feel of typing on an actual physical keyboard. Being able to see your keyboard in VR makes it significantly easier to type and interact with our computers.”
As Vincent Tucker, Director of Innovations & Strategy at Logitech explains in a blog posting: “During our initial explorations of VR, we were struck by the fact that keyboard use and text entry were necessary but not natural.
“We believe that a physical keyboard should be present, as it delivers essential tactile feedback and a universal experience that people value.”
The system works by presenting the user with an overlaid virtual representation of their keyboard in any VR application that’s been developed based on SteamVR. Not only does the software feature animations when the keys are pressed, Logitech has also managed to use HTC Vive’s existing tracking so that users can see their hands.
Logitech is accepting applications now through to 16th November, 2017 for the initial 50 slots. Should there be sufficient interest the company may build additional kits for purchase after the initial batch is distributed.
As further details on the Bridge SDK are released, VRFocus will keep you updated.
Logitech is creating a new system called BRIDGE which aims to make it possible to bring a properly tracked keyboard into VR while showing the user’s hands for accurate typing. Though retail plans haven’t yet been announced, the company is offering a development kit to select developers.
VR promises to one day take computer productivity to the next level by letting us trade physical monitors for an infinite spatial desktop that unlocks our applications from flat windows. But with so much of today’s productivity computing reliant on keyboard input, and with VR headsets blinding users from the outside world, it can be difficult and frustrating to be productive for common tasks in VR, even if you’re an expert touch typist.
Logitech wants to solve that problem, and they’ve introduced what they’re calling Bridge, a system which works with the Vive Tracker to bring a properly scaled, modeled, and tracked keyboard into the virtual world to make typing in VR a breeze.
Bridge will be built into SteamVR, meaning it can potentially work with any VR application on the platform with little work from the developers themselves. However, if developers want, they can customize the keyboard model, possibly to make it better fit the theme of the VR experience or even to change the symbols on the keys to provide app-specific context.
Having a properly tracked model of your keyboard inside the VR environment is a good start, but you really also need to see your hands and fingers. Logitech thought of that too, and it appears that they’re employing the Vive’s front-facing camera to extract the user’s hands and then clip the view to the outline of the keyboard model.
Logitech isn’t ready to sell Bridge, but the company says they’re offering 50 development kits and a beta version of their SDK to select developers for $150. The company is accepting applications for the Bridge development kit through November 16th, and says that if there’s strong interest they’ll consider offering a larger quantity.
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This isn’t the first time someone has tried to make typing easier in VR, but it’s one of the most high-tech we’ve seen so far. Other approaches we’ve seen have involved projecting into the VR space a section of an external camera view that aimed at your keyboard. That works relatively well for visual reference, but the result is a completely flat representation of your keyboard, most likely with a stretched perspective since it relies on a 2D camera. Not to mention, since your keyboard isn’t tracked, if you move it out of the projected view, it will get clipped out of the virtual world.
There’s been a number of attempts at effective text-input methods in VR using motion controllers and virtual keyboards, but nothing that’s come close to matching the speed of real keyboard input. Voice input is effectively employed by both the Oculus and Windows VR platforms, but mostly for voice-command rather than dictated text input.
The Vive Trackers have been of great interest to developers since they were launched earlier this year as they offered a whole range of new possibilities for body-tracking within videogames. There have already been some innovative experiments using the Trackers, including the guy who fastened a Vive Tracker to his cat. Many people were just waiting for the first developer to incorporate the Vive Trackers into a rhythm game, which is exactly what Rebuff Reality has done with Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing.
Incorporating gameplay mechanics that will be very familiar to players who have played Dance Dance Revolution or Dancing Stage Euromix, Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing involves the player strapping a pair of Vive Trackers to their feet, then following the beat with their feet. Using algorithms to match the music to the dance pad, instead of having specific dance step charts, allowing for a more free-form dancing experience.
The developer also offers a universal adjustable strap for the Vive Trackers called the TrackStrap, which ensures that the Vive Trackers remain firmly on the player’s feet when dancing to the beat. The title is, as you would expect, a HTC Vive exclusive and does require two Vive Trackers in order to play.
To celebrate the launch of Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing, the studio is offering a 35% launch discount, lowering the price to £3.63 (GBP) a reduction on the usual £5.59 retail price. The launch promotion will last until 27th June, 2017. Further information can be found on the Steam Store page, or on Rebuff Reality’s official website.
Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing currently only offers a single-player mode, and it is not clear if the developers are planning to add any form of multiplayer, competitive or cooperative or if there is an intention of adding in an online leaderboard, something which has been a mainstay of Dance Dance Revolution.
VRFocus will bring you updates on Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing and other Vive Tracker titles as it becomes available.
