I cancelled my order for the Tobii Eye tracker which I wanted to replace my TrackerIR with and bought myself a VR headset instead since MSFS 2020 now comes with VR.
Holy Moly!
I love to fly the A320 Neo.
Now with VR, I am smackdab in the pilot’s seat of a fullsized cockpit. Everything seems fullscale sized. Buttons and knobs are so lifelike that you tend to reach your hand out to operate them. Landing light switches and other toggles hang shiny and tantalizingly real from the overhead panel. You can’t help but want to reach out and flick them. Its a bit disorienting when things are visibly there but you can’t touch them. The glareshield is a proper solid ledge and when you peer over it your viewing perspective changes naturally. Nothing is skewed like 2D pretending to be 3D like with the TrackerIR.
Even though my monitor screen has better resolution, the blue panels and the footwell looks so much more real in the headset. I could have sworn Airbus recycled plastics from old Citroen BX dashboards.
The view of the world outside looks so real heightened by correct perspective of distance and movement relative to inside of the cockpit. Terrain has properly fleshed out form and elevation while topography undulates below. Mountains, hills and knolls are fullsized and look realistically menacing even when they are far below and don’t appear threatening on radar.
IDK. Without being able to control switches and actually move things in the cockpit, I’m not really sold. Yes, hands down, the immersion visually is better than anything vs. doing the real thing visually speaking. However, like you said, it all stops short when you need/want to flip a switch.
Shouldn’t be beyond the scope of modern motion tracking to accomplish, just needs to be configured for each aircraft ect… which is a big task to say the least, or maybe it’s not with some AI help who knows.
I realize this is an MSFS forum, but give the X-Plane demo a try if you haven’t already. It has a pretty good motion controller implementation that lets you flip switches and turn knobs without a mouse. It doesn’t look as good visually as MSFS, though. AeroFly FS2 also has good motion controller support with virtual hands.
Well said.
I am really dreaming of buying a 3d visor sooner or later, but for the moment I try to enjoy my home cockpit with all real switches to flip soundly and pretty spring loaded.
The screen could be 3d, I bought a LG passive 3d monitor many years ago, and with simple passive glasses I have a good perception of depth and it could be beautiful with MSFS2020.
But NVidia, and LG and almost every producer in the world, suddendly stopped any kind of support for 3D monitors and TV.
I am sure that a VR visor with adequate resolution can give you real life experience (until you have to touch the throttles or the flap lever, or the AP heading knob, etc.
But a real home cockpit is useless with a VR visor, and I am not ready to put my HC in the trashcan,
maybe a mixed or augmented reality could be the final solution ?
Imagine having real size and distance external view on areas where you configure the 3d space around the cockpit to be “windscreen” and see the real panels on the remaining areas…
But, as SwirlyMaple said, XP has a good control over “virtual hands” so this is another way to achieve a good interaction with virtual cockpit.
One thing is sure, the optics in VR visors plus high resolution screens and improved sceneries and weather, are reaching extraordinary level of realism.
I wonder if Oculus Quest 2 can be used with MSFS 2020… I have seen very interesting reviews and the price is good…
