♫ Commentary - a3_01_throwing - Although it may seem obvious that...

Title: Commentary - a3_01_throwing - Although it may seem obvious that throwing would be a trivial interaction to support in VR, a lot of nuanced work is required to get it to feel right. And if we were going to build puzzles like this one, where the player must throw an armed grenade through a high duct, throwing needed to work well. A typical VR game running at 90 frames per second will read the sensor data from the track controllers once per frame. This means the data is read every 11 millisecond...
Full Transcript: Although it may seem obvious that throwing would be a trivial interaction to support in VR, a lot of nuanced work is required to get it to feel right. And if we were going to build puzzles like this one, where the player must throw an armed grenade through a high duct, throwing needed to work well. A typical VR game running at 90 frames per second will read the sensor data from the track controllers once per frame. This means the data is read every 11 milliseconds. That may seem like a short time step, but when throwing, a user can easily move their hand 15 centimetres or more in that amount of time. Additionally, the player may release the object by opening their hand or releasing the trigger at any point during their throwing motion. This makes reconstructing the act of throwing a virtual object an interesting signal processing problem. It's up to any given piece of VR software to derive the player's intent from the discreetly sampled controller data, and we've learned a lot over the years about what works and what doesn't. In the lab, which we shipped in 2016, we sampled the controller's positional data every 11 milliseconds and used the sampled positions to compute the controller velocity at each time step. We then used an average of the computed velocity and direction over several frames before and after the object release to determine the velocity and direction to apply to the thrown object. Although this was functional enough to ship, it didn't always feel consistent, especially if the game's frame rate ever fell below 90 frames per second. Later, in the index controller tech demo MoonTest, dust, we expanded on this algorithm by biasing towards higher velocity data. We also extended the SteamVR software interface to provide the controller's instantaneous velocity and acceleration data from the hardware inertial measurement unit, which is computed on the controller every 2 milliseconds. This meant that we did not have to calculate an estimate from the positions sampled by the engine only every 11 milliseconds as we had done on the lab. This was crucial to providing a more responsive feel, as it meant the throwing calculations were no longer tied to the rendering frame rate. After further experimentation, we arrived at the solution used in Half-Life Alyx, which takes 10 frames that preceded the release of the held object and averages the three frames bracketing the peak controller velocity in that time window. We have found that this tends to lead to a better approximation of precisely when the player intended to release a thrown object. This approach resulted in consistent, comfortable throwing, enabling us to rely on players being able to accurately throw grenades or any other objects with confidence.
From Soundboard: Half-Life: Alyx (PC): Commentary Voice
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Commentary - a3_01_throwing - Although it may seem obvious that throwing would be a trivial interaction to support in VR, a lot of nuanced work is required to get it to feel right. And if we were going to build puzzles like this one, where the player must throw an armed grenade through a high duct, throwing needed to work well. A typical VR game running at 90 frames per second will read the sensor data from the track controllers once per frame. This means the data is read every 11 millisecond...

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Half-Life: Alyx (PC): Commentary Voice

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Description: The critically acclaimed VR game set in the iconic Half-Life universe, released in March 2020, takes players on an immersive journey through the dystopian City 17. Alyx Vance, a key character in the series, steps into the spotlight as she battles the Combine and uncovers secrets vital to the resistance. This installment not only revitalizes the beloved franchise but also showcases groundbreaking technology that enhances gameplay with stunning visuals and intuitive controls. Players can expect a gripping narrative intertwined with innovative mechanics designed specifically for virtual reality, making it a landmark title in the gaming industry. For a deeper dive into the game's audio landscape, visitors can listen to and download sound clips directly from this page.

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