'Hand' Force Exertion Limits :: vrkshop General Discussions

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JoshBologna has vrkshop

22 Dec, 2023 @ 12:22pm

'Hand' Force Exertion Limits

This is a little thing that's felt off but is hard to say why initially.

Your virtual controller's can physically interact with objects. (This is obviously a huge aspect of the experience) Objects (either through the mass and or friction) can require varying amounts of force to get them to move.

At a certain mass/amount of friction, an object will not move by simply pushing against them with your 'hands'. You might be able to make the move if your hands have a certain velocity (IE: Tapping/Whacking). This feels bad though. It's like the object is stuck and can only be nudged in small imprecise distances. Sometimes it feels like the board is rubber banding back to the starting position.

Once you hit the force limit your actual hand and virtual hand decouple in relative space. This also can feel odd. Anyone who has played Boneworks/Bonelabs knows all about this feeling. I'm not sure this is a feeling/mechanic that is useful in VRK Shop.

If you pick up almost any other object you can exert a force greater than if you were only using your hands. (IE: Using a hammer to push a board) The hands should have an uncapped force to push/pull on objects. You can pick up anything so why not push anything? Tools and other held items allow for a greater force to be exerted and there are no leverage advantage (probably disadvantages).

This applies to pushing boards smoothly into corners and jigs. Pushing boards back and forth to line up positions on the miter board/box. Just pushing boards around to position them in general. Picking the object up and dropping it is too imprecise compared to a little push or pull (especially large objects where this affects users the most).

Here is a short video that might demonstrate what I mean.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KFuA9xaqjRJJB2uBnkAEHKF-frARNm-A/view?usp=sharing

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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments

wooden-robot [developer] 22 Dec, 2023 @ 4:24pm

Good breakdown of what is going on here. The physical hands are connected to where your real hand is by a spring joint. When the game initially shipped, the hands were not physical and pushed on objects with a direct translation force (i.e. when your hands move an inch, the item you are pushing on moves an inch). This caused a lot of frustration with early players as they were inadvertently knocking things all over the place. So now the hands have a spring joint. The spring stiffness was specifically chosen as a lower to prevent the inadvertent knocking about of parts. I kept a high spring stiffness for items like the hammer because if you are touching something with the hammer, it is more likely deliberate rather than by mistake.

Alternatively, if you grab an item from very close, the item will not move into your hand, but it will be grabbed in place. This may allow you to reposition items more precisely, but I do empathize with the desire to push an item without grabbing.

I enjoy discussing and testing different interaction techniques, and the player hands have undergone quite a bit of change since the initial release. I'm happy to keep fiddling to try to find the best balance.

Thanks for taking the time to experiment and provide feedback!