It's been a while.
For those that know me, it will not come as a surprise that I actively play table tennis in Virtual Reality. I have been using virtual reality since 2018 to have fun and help me keep my table tennis form when training in real life becomes harder.
I just wanted to let you all know that I started offering training sessions in VR. This helps me combine my dayjob with being one of the two primary caregivers of our son, Otis. It has also allowed me to stay in shape during the current lockdown and has provided a buffer for the social isolation that comes with it. Playing VR table tennis with a real person is a way more social experience than you can imagine if you haven't tried it yet. The community of players that frequent this game are exceptionally nice, friendly and extremely welcoming to new players.
What do you need for a VR training session? Eleven VR and a VR headset that supports it. This should be all existing 6 degrees of freedom headsets apart from Playstation VR and if you are not on the Oculus Quest, which is a standalone headset, you will need a plenty beefy PC. I personally play on the Oculus Quest which is by far the cheapest way to get into decent roomscale VR and, eventhough I am told tracking could be better, I am consistently in the top 10 of the game. Other 6dof headsets are: the Valve index, any headset from Vive, the Rift, Rift S or, as mentioned, the Quest from oculus (not the oculus go or gear VR, they only offer 3 degrees of freedom compared to the 6 you need to move through a space like you would in real life)
A quick description of the experience of playing table tennis in VR as a real life table tennis player
(Please note that everything I mention here is being worked on tirelessly by the developpers who envision a 100% realistic simulation of the Olympic sport of table tennis):
The physics feel quite good, but it feels like some of the configuration is still slightly off. The throw of the ball is currently too flat, obliging you to open your paddle quite a bit. If you are a tennis player or you are used to a very quick carbon blade, you might not even notice this too much. As for me I have decided to not use the adapter until the throw improves, since it feels too close to a real bat and might mess up my real life grip. After 2 years of experience in VR though I can tell you that playing with a controller still allows you to train your real life game.
Topspin and sidespin can be produced be it in slightly different ways. Sidespin seems to have slightly more effect on the ball than in real life, but not to a point that two real life players can't immediately start playing rallies. Topspin requires solid contact with the ball. In real life this helps improve the quality of your shot too in most cases. Just brushing the ball works sometimes, but is much harder to control.
Slightly slower strokes register better and result in more controlled results. This can actually help you improve your technique as the way you hit the ball becomes more important than the power you put into your stroke.
Since your paddle is not physically there the sweet spot of your paddle is the entire surface of the rubbers (which can be seperately configured for those wondering), which is a good thing.
If after reading all of this you feel discouraged instead of inspired to try training in VR: there are more and more real life players in the game, most of them rise to the top quite fast, depending on their level of course, and when we play each other it really feels quite real.
Tomorrow at 20 o'clock GMT+2 (Spanish time) I will be playing the final of a tournament organized by the players themselves against Hydraosu, another real life player. Just click on his name to access his twitch channel where he will be broadcasting our game.
In the mean time I will leave you with a small comparisson between real life and virtual reality table tennis. You will notice I move my legs quite a bit less in VR, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I play in the middle of the living room and accelerating straight into a wall generally seems like a bad idea.
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