Sony has filed a patent application that details a method of turning a banana into a PlayStation controller. The patent describes how this new technology allows people to use a banana or any object for that matter as a game controller. The filing, first spotted by GamesIndustry.biz, was submitted last summer.
The patent is essentially a method that turns a “non-luminous passive object being held by a user” into a controller, superimposing virtual buttons on top of it, with a banana being described as the example. A camera could detect the objects so they could be used as controllers, or a camera could “detect a user’s finger in the obtained images” to coincide “with the location of the virtual button”. The idea is to use any physical object, it could a coffee mug or an orange, as a video game controller.
This patent application may seem bizarre at first but Sony is trying to solve a problem with this technique. As the designers note in the application, existing controllers can be a “barrier to entry” because of “technical complexity”.
As is the case with any patent application, there’s no guarantee Sony will ever commercialize this technology. But even if Sony does not bring this technology to the market, the Japanese company could be planning to introduce breakthrough features when it launches the next-generation PlayStation VR system for the PS5 sometime next year.
Late last month, Sony confirmed that it’s working on a new PlayStation VR headset for its popular PlayStation 5 console. The next-generation VR system will offer “dramatic leaps in performance and interactivity” and “an even greater sense of presence.” The VR headset for PS5 will also feature a new controller “inspired” by the PS5’s DualSense and require only a single cord to hook up.
A pair of drawings in the patent show off the controller from the front and back. The most instantly noticeable change is that the giant light-up globe of the original PSVR / PlayStation Move controller is gone, replaced by a small LED panel (labelled 235 in the drawing above) that can emit light in a variety of colors. Naturally, it has a few interesting additions as well.
First and foremost among those additions is a trigger button that, like the PS5 DualSense triggers, can offer resistance when pressed, with a vibration device to provide accompanying haptic feedback. This isn't terribly surprising, given that Sony has already said its new VR controller would incorporate technology from the PS5 pads.
However, this controller also sports a thumb sensor and three different finger sensors, so finger tracking somewhat like the Valve Index may be in play. Sony's patent application suggests that, combined with the haptic feedback, this could be used to let players feel the size and texture of virtual objects as they hold them.
And while the controller specifically detailed in the patent only includes this force feedback on the index finger button, Sony specifies that multiple buttons could be arranged to provide differing levels of feedback for each finger. The described controller also features a flexible loop that goes around the user's hand to secure the controller in place and can be mounted on either side to accommodate use in the left or right hand.
This isn't the only Sony patent featuring a controller like this. In fact, Sony has been showing versions of this controller in its patent applications since 2016, though from what we've been able to find, they didn't start appearing in publicly published applications until early 2019. There have also been reports of recent Sony patents showing other form factors for VR controllers, although we had trouble locating the source patents ourselves.
Regardless of what the new controllers actually look like or what features they support, Sony is continuing to explore ideas for finger tracking in VR. In a separate patent application filed in 2018 and published just last week, Sony details a few ideas it has for finger-based input.
In one example, the company envisions a painting program where players hold a virtual palette in one hand and use their fingers to dab the color of paint they want and draw marks across a canvas. Each finger could be assigned a different color, or be used to erase previous work.Another example might lend itself to a sculpting program, with users deforming a 3D object, assigning different fingers to bulge, dent, shave, or smooth the object as they see fit. As for applications that would be more at home in a game than standard art software, Sony suggested users burning or freezing virtual objects by touching them, causing something to emerge from the object where it's touched, or restoring it to a former state. Another suggested possibility would play with magnetic properties, with one hand used to attract virtual objects while the other pushes them away.
Also read: PUBG Mobile India's prospects of coming back in 2021
also subscribe to my website by clicking on the bell Icon below or by pressing allow button above
thank's for reading this full article.
0 Comments