Oculus Rift + Second Life + Xbox Gamepad + Voice-to-Text Chat = Today's Best Virtual Reality/Virtual World Setup?

Virtual reality enthusiasts still talk a lot about Second Life (as a virtual world to emulate or a missed opportunity to learn from), but until now, there hasn’t been a way to introduce the non-initiated among them to using it without having to endure a horrifically painful learning curve with the existing user interface. The solution may be here: Loki Eliot came up with a brilliant system hack that connects the Oculus Rift to the Rift-enabled Second Life viewer which is in turn connected to a voice-to-text chat interface while -- here's the clincher -- also being connected to a Xbox gamepad controller. Watch:

For my money, this is the best virtual reality setup I’ve seen so far. By “best”, I don’t necessarily mean the most immersive, but the most ideal integration of VR and a virtual world, experience-wise -- and the best one for non-SLers to get a look at what a true VR-powered metaverse experience could be.

“For gamers and especially VR enthusiasts who don’t know much about the vast worlds of Second Life,” Loki tells me, “they may find this mapping of a gamepad greatly simplifies their experience of SL, allowing them to walk around art simulations, visit virtual cinemas, play gaming experiences, or just walk around the streets of mega cities.”

The voice-to-text chat add-on helps give SL an extra advantage over other Oculus Rift demos -- interaction with other users in real time within a VR space:

“I mean,” says Loki, “for every Oculus Unity demo out there, there is probably more than 100 simulations of virtual exploratory space in Second Life, but you also the same space and experience with others.”

To connect the Xbox gamepad to SL, Loki used Controllermate (which costs about $25). “It took an hour or so to figure out Controllermate and map the keys,” he says. And while his setup doesn’t give you the full Second Life experience with building and scripting and alike, it still gives you quite a bit:

“It’s the simplest i could make the SL experience, getting rid of the clutter user interface to allow you to concentrate on what’s around you. You don't want to build, you don't want to chat with other people in groups, nor do you really want to start looking through 30,000 inventory items and you don't want to be trying to press a 3 key combination on a keyboard just to make the UI disappear. So for showcasing what’s in SL, yeah i think the gamepad would allow outsider VR enthusiasts a better initial experience of SL at this moment in time.”

Tips for installation, including the voice to text integration: “The Linden Lab Oculus Viewer is pretty straight forward plug-in and click HMD, or at least it will be, once the bugs in the current Beta are squashed. As for the dictation feature, you simply bring up Mac OSX preferences click dictation & Speech and then select the keys you wish to activate OSX's built in listening device.”

Not to say this set-up is perfect for non-gamer, non-SLers, like, say, his sister:

“The controller makes things easier, but i think there is a little way to go yet before someone like my sister could be placed in SL with a head mounted display and interact with the environment intuitively. Instead of being expected to move a cursor with a keyboard or a gamepad to click on an object, my sister should be able to just reach her hand out and touch the object.” He thinks other VR hardware will solve that problem: “Stuff like PrioVR, STEM and maybe even Leapmotion. Of course this extra hardware will also allow for building in Oculus view that does not suck.” And overall, maybe a VR-powered version of Second Life that also doesn’t suck.

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Comments

[Adeon Writer]

I'm exceptionally bad at controlling mouse cursors with joysticks, so I'm hoping Valve's dual trackpad controller will save me.

But the speech to text thing is going to be very important. I'd hope Linden could provide their own... You just can't expect to text chat in VR when the ultimate input will be your hands.

[Ciaran Laval]

I have a gamepad but I've never really taken to it, I've tried to use it in World Of Warcraft but I always end up going back to the keyboard, friends of mine who are play more games swear by gamepads.

Loki's post raises some very interesting issues regarding immersion and user interfaces. I believe voice communication will greatly increase if VR develops in the manner it looks like it will, be that more voice to voice communication or use of dictation tools.

The other option will be the rise of the touch screen for a keyboard, as we've seen with Mobile Phones.

The user interface is going to have to be greatly overhauled one way or another.

[Iggy]

Loki's brilliant hack makes me wonder why Linden Lab could not come up with something similar.

I loved the video.

I keep imagining Rube Goldberg in Heaven, looking down and saying "Gee, Loki managed to eliminate the hamster in the wheel, fishing rod, and tea kettle that Linden Lab put into their prototype."

[Iggy]

BTW, thanks to Loki for alerting me the OS X dictation function. It works great and can even put "Cthulhu" into MS Word without a spelling error.

[Ai Austin]

For Windows users note that the Xbox for Windows controller along with the Oculus Rift is already supported by the CtrlAltStudio viewer for Second Life and OpenSim.

http://ctrlaltstudio.com/