Ben Lang from Road to VR met with representatives from the makers of the Razor Hydra control, Sixense, at the 2013 Game Developers Conference recently. He was able to test drive their new virtual reality product, Oculus Rift - Tuscany demo (built in Unity), an exciting new product in the world of virtual reality which has been enabled with full Razor Hydra support.
In his review of the product, Mr Lang had only positive things to say about the experience. "Scattered around the space is a myriad of physics-driven objects to interact with — and damn is it fun! The combination of the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra is potent and incredibly immersive. The Tuscany demo, infused with support for the Razer Hydra, is hands-down the most fun I’ve had in virtual reality yet."
Players are set up with a VR headset and two linked hand controllers. In the demo, players control their virtual hands to interact with various objects by picking them up, pushing or pulling objects or throwing them around. These objects include books, chairs, candles, barrels, paintings, window shutters, and balls. For example, if you throw a basketball at a wall it will bounce back off the wall, and it can be thrown with various amounts of force and different trajectories and the ball reacts accordingly.
"The moment that really sold me was when I tossed a basketball up into the air above my head (see 3:35 in the video). I threw it in a way that the trajectory of the ball would have it landing somewhere slightly behind me. My natural reaction was to look at the ball as it was coming down, lean back, and grab it — and that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t have to think to myself, ‘how do I need to move the controls in order to do what I want to do,’ I simply followed the ball as it flew through the air, reached up behind me, and plucked it out of the air," continued Mr Lang.
"I was blown away the moment I caught the ball and realized what had just happened. The immersion that comes from the Rift and the Hydra is extremely impressive and vividly promising. The barriers that separate humans and computers are falling away before our very eyes."
If you'd like to see the Oculus Rift in action, watch the following video courtesy of Road to VR:
