High Fidelity continues to demonstrate cutting edge technology with a smile on its face and in this case we get news via a press release – High Fidelity announces integration of HTC Vive Trackers for full-body motion capture :
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Today, High Fidelity unveils a new integration between HTC’s Vive Tracker and High Fidelity’s virtual reality platform, enabling full-body motion capture for real-time, social VR experiences.
The accompanying video (which I will embed at the end of this post) shows High Fidelity users enjoying dancing, yoga, basketball, table tennis and more.
The video also features a very enthusiastic looking Robert Scoble enjoying himself, which is good to see.
Now to embrace motion capture the video suggests that people need a headset, two hand controllers and four HTC Vive Trackers which are positioned on the feet, hips and chest. The video demonstrates this well.
The video also exemplifies how the virtual world can be a much safer environment than the physical world because I know from painful personal experience that if you’re doing keepy uppies and the ball hits you in the face then it can hurt, a lot!
A setup like this would be of course extremely expensive for a lot of virtual world users but the capabilities are the more important issue for me, because costs will come down and this is the sort of thing we many of us may very well be embracing in years to come, although you should very much heed the VIVE safety advice :
Always ensure play area is entirely clear of all objects, obstacles and other individuals when using VIVE Tracker on any object intended to be moved while wearing the VIVE headset.
Otherwise we’ll be getting examples whereby the virtual world is a more dangerous environment than the physical one.
Here’s the video, it’s fun!