On July 28, a joint meeting of the IEEE 2861 Family of Standards Plenary Session was held in Shanghai, co-hosted by Tencent and AAC. The meeting was the third meeting of the IEEE P2861.3 “Standard for Haptic Interface Enhancement for Mobile Gaming” standard project, which aims to promote the development of the first haptic feedback technology standard for mobile gaming.
In response to the problems in the industry today, such as complex and diverse interfaces, difficulty in adaptation uniformity, and high labor costs, the standard aims to define a common interface and vibration waveform description file to unify the interaction protocol between mobile terminals and games, thereby reducing the adaptation workload of R&D teams at each end and laying a solid foundation for the widespread application of haptic feedback.
Dr. Wahab Almuhtadi, President of IEEE Consumer Technology Society (CTSoc) and a member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, said that haptic feedback is a key technology in consumer technologies that should be reckoned with, and the development of the P2861.3 standard is expected to lead the way for the next generation of haptic technology. He expects upstream and downstream partners to collaborate on the basis of the standard and work together to bring about changes in haptic technology in various applications.
“We believe that only through sustained innovation can we improve users’ lifestyles by means of technology and allow them to truly have a better immersive interaction experience.” Mr. Pan Kaitai, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of AAC, emphasized at the scene that haptic feedback technology plays an extremely critical role in immersive interaction experiences, especially in gaming. Going forward, haptic feedback applications will no longer be limited to multi-experience scenarios, but can also turn out to be intelligent and even be customized by users, and players will have a better and more realistic interaction experience.
Mr. Shan Hui, General Manager of T1 Studio of Tencent Games, said that the haptic feedback technology featuring high resolution and high feedback can further expand the experience space beyond 3D games. In the future, more terminal hardware will become new content carriers, and more technical solutions are expected to become industry standards in terms of performance optimization, touch control, vibration and the like.
Mr. Liu Qitong, General Manager of the Technical Operations Department of Tencent Games, said that Tencent will work more closely with industry chain partners to promote the development and implementation of the IEEE P2861 series of standards for mobile games and the continuous improvement of the industry ecology.
Prof. Zhang Hong, a tenured professor at School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Purdue University and an IEEE Fellow (i.e. the highest level of IEEE membership), shared a practical report entitled “Enhancing Pleasure with Haptic Feedback”. In her presentation, Professor Zhang mentioned two different sets of experiments – “haptic sleeve” and “palm pleasure signal design” – to discuss how to use the information transmission and pleasure enhancement of haptics signals with different latitudes such as amplitude and time.
Music is a new applicable scenario for haptic feedback technology. Mr. Cao Xiang, the head of 4D Vibration Effects of QQ Music, shared Tencent’s relevant attempts. He said that the reason why the sound at a concert is better than listening to music with headphones is that, in addition to the ambient factor, the concert site has dedicated subwoofers, which are not for listening but for feeling with visceral resonance. In other words, the music is being felt by the body. Installed with an automatic motor, the handset will be able to simulate 4D vibration effects, bringing users a better listening experience.
Subsequently, Ms. Zhang Yulei, the head of haptic solutions and experience at AAC, shared the differences and characteristics of the three sensory channels: visual, auditory and tactile, on the topic of “opportunities and challenges in the implementation of haptic feedback in games.” She stressed that, compared with easily perceiving visual and auditory senses, the sense of touch is somewhat different, as it requires close and direct contact with things, and features strong interactivity. In the virtual gaming world, only when the visual, auditory and tactile senses are perfectly coordinated, “virtual reality” will be made possible in the real sense.
Mr. Zhu Lizhou, CTO of Happy Elements, shared the company’s practical attempts on vibration effects. He said that due to a lack of standard H files, their custom-configured game vibration effects render different vibration effects on different device hardware, which added to the difficulty of post-adaptation and tuning, and increased maintenance costs. In addition, in terms of game experience, it is also difficult for users to obtain a delicate and uniform user experience when the hardware interface is not unified.
On the same day of the conference, “Anipop,” a product offering of Happy Elements, together with AAC’s RichTap®, launched a new game vibration effect. Meanwhile, a dozen of elimination and item effects were released on iOS and Android platforms. Thanks to the gradually unified and standardized interface, most users are able to experience high quality vibration effects almost simultaneously. The RichTap® haptic feedback solution, which is available across iOS and Android platforms, will certainly contribute more to the development of this standard.
About RichTap®:
RichTap®, a product owned by AAC, is the world’s leading full-stack haptics solution for all kinds of devices. The solution fuels device manufacturers and content providers of games, audio and video, social interaction, etc., to realize a multi-dimensional, full-scene and high-quality haptic feedback experience in a one-stop manner and a consistency in hearing, vision and touch, bringing users a new way of interaction and a more immersive experience. So far, RichTap® has provided many mainstream cell phone manufacturers and content providers with designs of high-quality haptic functions such as ringtones, music, games, emoticons, audio and video, and advertising and animation vibration.
About IEEE P2861 series standards
P2861 “Standard for Mobile Gaming Performance Evaluation and Optimization,” the first standard project of IEEE 2861 Family of Standards, serves as the first international technical standard for mobile gaming.