Somewhere out there, where people far cleverer than you or I dwell, something truly incredible (and really fucking cool) has happened – with the help of two Vives.
One of the most interesting aspects of virtual reality (at least to me) is having part of yourself feel like it’s physically inhabiting the game.
Usually, it’ll be just be your hands, but there’s a real sense of wonder in being able to turn over your digital grabbers, and use them to manipulate the world around you.
Developer CloudGate Studio wants to do more with that concept, though. In fact, they’re aiming to take the idea to its logical conclusion.
With the help of two Vives and four wireless controllers, the developer appears to have succeeded at replicating an entire, responsive body in virtual reality.
CloudGate’s video description reads:
This was our first experiment in seeing if we could give you a VR avatar that lined up with where you expected your human body to be, in VR.
The video – which you can see below – really is incredible. We’re shown a solid body, capable of patting its head, and knees, reaching behind its back to grab a backpack, and even kicking out to topple over chairs and barrels.
It’s not clear exactly how CloudGate is achieves this magic, or how the two Vives are set up – though it does make sense that they’re keeping it to themselves for now.
If they manage to find a relatively easy and accessible way to incorporate this into a full game experience, then we’re all in for a treat.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.