Crédits photos : MANUS
Even today, reproducing hand and finger movements is a real challenge for video game developers and film studios.
Present at the 25th Laval Virtual (April 12 to 16, 2023), David Nogueira looks back on his experience with Manus, a Dutch company presenting Quantum Metagloves, gloves that offer so-called millimetric precision for tracking the movement of your fingers in virtual reality.
A more precise VR experience and ultra-realistic reproduction
Quantum Metagloves capture hand movements with great precision. They are used by film studios and game developers in particular, as the gloves can capture complex movements and then model them in 3D software.
Yes, because if capturing the movement of a body is difficult, capturing the movement of a hand is even more so! The hand alone is made up of 27 bones, including 14 phalanges (3 phalanges per finger, except for the thumb, which has only 2). As a result, the number of possible movements is huge, and that’s what makes it so difficult to reproduce hand movements.
While these gloves don’t offer any particular vibrations or sensations, they do offer movement precision stated “to the millimeter”. To achieve this, the Quantum Metaglove is equipped with five sensors (one at the tip of each finger) and a housing that tracks finger movements with great precision.
Manus Quantum Gloves: state-of-the-art hand modeling in VR Video of David Nogueira at Laval Virtual 2023Many BtoB customers, but not only…
Today, Manus’ customers are mainly BtoB. The company works mainly with game developers such as Activision (Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro…), CD Projekt Red (Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher…), Epic Games and Electronic Arts, as well as production studios such as Disney and Netflix.
The general public is not to be outdone, since a version of the gloves is currently being created (and will probably be released at the end of 2023) for use by this target group. While offering less precision, the gloves this time feature vibrations in each finger (on contact with an object, for example) to enhance the user’s immersion. To a lesser extent, the price is probably more affordable, as gloves for development studios currently cost around 6,000 euros.
David Nogueira has been a technology journalist for some twenty years, including 14 years with 01net.com, which he left in early 2019. Since then, David has worked with various editorial teams on a wide range of topics, including automotive and new mobility. His passion for tech and his desire to share it on video prompted him to create his own YouTube channel, where he now covers most of the topics he has been covering for several years. After computer hardware, multimedia equipment and autonomous cars, David now turns his attention to immersive technologies, for the often unprecedented experiences they offer.
