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Awhile ago I made this image http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg describing an arena where virtual combat could take place with Oculus

by daenz 13y ago

Awhile ago I made this image http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg describing an arena where virtual combat could take place with Oculus Rifts. I used some hand-wavy idea of tracking user position via wifi (dumb idea), but with Oculus positional tracking, I wonder if this arena concept becomes closer to reality? Edit>> link to original thread http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fxpqb/xpost_from_rcrazyideas_airsoftlike_arenas_with/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fxpqb/xpost_from_rc...

gamegoblin 13y ago
I've tried to do position triangulation with RFID signal strength and had pretty terrible results. I suspect wifi would be just as bad. An infrared system would probably work well I think. (I know you addressed this) That being said, sign me up. I have a friend with an oculus dev kit and it has blown me away time and time again. I can see this kind of thing becoming reality. Just stick foam padding all over the place and you're golden.
- johnpmayer 13y ago
  What about ultrasonic positioning?
  - digitalengineer 13y ago
    Beacons (from Apple) perhaps?
    - guelo 13y ago
      Bluetooth is really the same technology as wifi. Super inaccurate for localization.
mey 13y ago
People run into each other all the time with laser tag and people can actually see each other in that case. I would be concerned about people running into each other and into physical objects because of their lack of visual feedback on their reality. Say for example, two people facing each other with a virtual wall between them. If both accidentally try to walk "though" the wall they would simply collide with each other, potentially causing injury or damage to equipment. Not to be a buzzkill, I'd love a system that actually could support this, in theory a large room with many freedom of movement devices (like what Virtuix Omni is working on) would allow this idea in a much smaller space and no risk of players colliding.
- salient 13y ago
  This is the Virtuix Omni, if others haven't seen it yet (second version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0
  - daenz 13y ago
    I saw the Omni when it was announced, but I was never convinced of it's potential. A few things about it bother me: 1) Strafing is extremely unnatural. It involves standing still in the center, lifting one leg to the edge, and "swiping" it down towards the center. It's a very impractical move for any type of game where strafing is strategic. 2) Backwards motion is extremely difficult. Try to find a video of someone doing it effectively. It's rarely shown because it's not easy to do. This removes this movement as well from any game where backwards movement is strategic. 3) http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg Not trying to be mean, but the visual of an adult using the Omni looks very much like a baby using a walker. I believe this limits the Omni to a product you'll only want to use by yourself, when nobody is around, because it looks silly. 4) The current version looks flimsy. Maybe they've beefed up the structure of the thing, but any video that I've watched has shown serious strain on the upright portions of the Omni itself. 5) The fact that you have to wear special shoes, and perform a procedure to get the Omni within reaching distance of a keyboard/mouse, and lock yourself in to the mechanism... seems like quite a bit of overhead to play a game essentially handicapped in terms of movement. My prediction is that some people are going to be excited about Omni, buy it, try it a few times, and realize how limiting it is in actual gameplay, how limited they are in using their computer, the fact that they look silly to others, and the overhead involved in getting dressed and locked, and realize it isn't worth it. They'll push it to the side to collect dust, or try to sell it on craigslist.
    - andrewfong 13y ago
      (1) The way you strafe is to run in one direction but turn your torso (and the gun and the Oculus) to look to the side. You may have to tweak the game's control schemes to accomodate this, but it seems doable. (2) I don't disagree, but it's basically going to be awkward to handle any in-game motion that isn't realistic, whether it's backwards motion or unlimited running and six-foot jumps. I suspect that you'll need to specifically design your game for the Omni in order for it to work well.
mrfusion 13y ago
I love it! Have you considered actually building it? I don't really understand sending rendered images over wifi but perhaps you could just build small computers or laptops to go in the backpacks? You could also put an ultrasonic transducer on each player and do triangulation on that?
- brownty 13y ago
  I guess you'd also need a larger battery if you were to both compute graphisms and deal with the synchronization with other peoples over the Wifi. Plus it'd be lighter and in case of any collision there would be much less hardware that could be damaged, so I think sending rendered images over Wifi is actually a pretty cool idea
  - mrfusion 13y ago
    But the rift doen't support that, right? Is it even possible? Wouldn't there be a lot of latency?
glymor 13y ago
There's some guys in Seattle doing this using motion-capture cameras for the positioning: I answer that I'm terrified of running into something in the real world while my vision is obscured, but they insist I'll be fine. It turns out the game space's virtual walls correspond to the real ones in the admittedly small office I occupy in meatspace. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/on-the-move-vrcade-combines-free-motion-with-head-mounted-virtual-reality/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/on-the-move-vrcade-com...
napoleond 13y ago
This has existed for a while in the military training space, although I'm sure the economics are only starting to make sense for consumers now (it might still be too early, no idea). I worked in a slightly related field over five years ago, and saw several such systems on display at conferences (and got to play with them, etc--very cool tech). Here's the first Youtube video I could find[0] demonstrating the concept. 0. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja6oy3I1rdw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja6oy3I1rdw
blah32497 13y ago
I think walking through walls would be very unlikely. I spoke with someone who used VR goggles many years ago. The tech demo he was show was simply being in a room with a bottomless pit in the middle. He said even though you knew that in reality there was a carpeted floor, it was impossible virtually impossible to make yourself walk over the pit. You just had way too many mental blocks that stopped you from doing it. I imagine something similar would happen with a wall. It would feel very eery and uncomfortable to walk through the wall.
- omegant 13y ago
  If it's for a game and walking through walls makes winning possible, people will be crossing walls in no time.
  - Kiro 13y ago
    You could say the same about paintball where it clearly isn't true so I don't think it's an issue. Besides, it's easy to just flag them as soon as they walk into a wall and force them to go back where they entered in order to unflag.
tlrobinson 13y ago
Is there actually an advantage to having all the players in the same room? I guess you'll be able to hear your friends IRL? I think omnidirectional treadmills and more immersive audio will be good enough. I imagine eventually the floor of the treadmill will even be able to tilt when you're walking uphill.
guelo 13y ago
Why would this be better than playing real life paintball or laser tag?
- dandelany 13y ago
  If the VR is good enough to make your brain fall for the illusion, paintball and laser tag are just a few of the many things you could implement. Imagine paintball, with rocket launchers and zombies and fire and bottomless pits with no risk of injury. I would definitely pay to do that with my friends in a laser-tag type setting.
  - TheLegace 13y ago
    Not to mention the global reach of such technologies. Imagine XBox Live with laser tag/VR FPS and people from all over the world could play. There could be massive tournaments and competitions.
  - guelo 13y ago
    After thinking about it I think the best game play would be in a trampoline cage.
baddox 13y ago
I'm most curious how you intend the most basic part of the user interface to work: how do players aim? That's the biggest problem right now with first person shooters and the Rift. Do you have a crosshair that's always exactly in the center of the field of view? Do you motion track the dummy rifle and use that you position a crosshair that can move around in the field of view?
thenomad 13y ago
The most promising tech for real-time location sensing right now us Ultra-Wide-Band based tech. You need sensing times in the picoseconds, but apparently that's actually doable. This guy managed to get one of these systems working, and when last heard from was preparing for a Kickstarter: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15623 http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15623 And XSens have a fully-working system, but it's Not Cheap.

by daenz 13y ago

gamegoblin 13y ago

I've tried to do position triangulation with RFID signal strength and had pretty terrible results. I suspect wifi would be just as bad. An infrared system would probably work well I think. (I know you addressed this) That being said, sign me up. I have a friend with an oculus dev kit and it has blown me away time and time again. I can see this kind of thing becoming reality. Just stick foam padding all over the place and you're golden.

johnpmayer 13y ago
What about ultrasonic positioning?
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  Beacons (from Apple) perhaps?
  - guelo 13y ago
    Bluetooth is really the same technology as wifi. Super inaccurate for localization.

mey 13y ago

People run into each other all the time with laser tag and people can actually see each other in that case. I would be concerned about people running into each other and into physical objects because of their lack of visual feedback on their reality. Say for example, two people facing each other with a virtual wall between them. If both accidentally try to walk "though" the wall they would simply collide with each other, potentially causing injury or damage to equipment. Not to be a buzzkill, I'd love a system that actually could support this, in theory a large room with many freedom of movement devices (like what Virtuix Omni is working on) would allow this idea in a much smaller space and no risk of players colliding.

salient 13y ago
This is the Virtuix Omni, if others haven't seen it yet (second version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0
- daenz 13y ago
  I saw the Omni when it was announced, but I was never convinced of it's potential. A few things about it bother me: 1) Strafing is extremely unnatural. It involves standing still in the center, lifting one leg to the edge, and "swiping" it down towards the center. It's a very impractical move for any type of game where strafing is strategic. 2) Backwards motion is extremely difficult. Try to find a video of someone doing it effectively. It's rarely shown because it's not easy to do. This removes this movement as well from any game where backwards movement is strategic. 3) http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg Not trying to be mean, but the visual of an adult using the Omni looks very much like a baby using a walker. I believe this limits the Omni to a product you'll only want to use by yourself, when nobody is around, because it looks silly. 4) The current version looks flimsy. Maybe they've beefed up the structure of the thing, but any video that I've watched has shown serious strain on the upright portions of the Omni itself. 5) The fact that you have to wear special shoes, and perform a procedure to get the Omni within reaching distance of a keyboard/mouse, and lock yourself in to the mechanism... seems like quite a bit of overhead to play a game essentially handicapped in terms of movement. My prediction is that some people are going to be excited about Omni, buy it, try it a few times, and realize how limiting it is in actual gameplay, how limited they are in using their computer, the fact that they look silly to others, and the overhead involved in getting dressed and locked, and realize it isn't worth it. They'll push it to the side to collect dust, or try to sell it on craigslist.
  - andrewfong 13y ago
    (1) The way you strafe is to run in one direction but turn your torso (and the gun and the Oculus) to look to the side. You may have to tweak the game's control schemes to accomodate this, but it seems doable. (2) I don't disagree, but it's basically going to be awkward to handle any in-game motion that isn't realistic, whether it's backwards motion or unlimited running and six-foot jumps. I suspect that you'll need to specifically design your game for the Omni in order for it to work well.

mrfusion 13y ago

I love it! Have you considered actually building it? I don't really understand sending rendered images over wifi but perhaps you could just build small computers or laptops to go in the backpacks? You could also put an ultrasonic transducer on each player and do triangulation on that?

brownty 13y ago
I guess you'd also need a larger battery if you were to both compute graphisms and deal with the synchronization with other peoples over the Wifi. Plus it'd be lighter and in case of any collision there would be much less hardware that could be damaged, so I think sending rendered images over Wifi is actually a pretty cool idea
- mrfusion 13y ago
  But the rift doen't support that, right? Is it even possible? Wouldn't there be a lot of latency?

glymor 13y ago

There's some guys in Seattle doing this using motion-capture cameras for the positioning: I answer that I'm terrified of running into something in the real world while my vision is obscured, but they insist I'll be fine. It turns out the game space's virtual walls correspond to the real ones in the admittedly small office I occupy in meatspace. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/on-the-move-vrcade-combines-free-motion-with-head-mounted-virtual-reality/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/on-the-move-vrcade-com...

napoleond 13y ago

This has existed for a while in the military training space, although I'm sure the economics are only starting to make sense for consumers now (it might still be too early, no idea). I worked in a slightly related field over five years ago, and saw several such systems on display at conferences (and got to play with them, etc--very cool tech). Here's the first Youtube video I could find[0] demonstrating the concept. 0. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja6oy3I1rdw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja6oy3I1rdw

blah32497 13y ago

I think walking through walls would be very unlikely. I spoke with someone who used VR goggles many years ago. The tech demo he was show was simply being in a room with a bottomless pit in the middle. He said even though you knew that in reality there was a carpeted floor, it was impossible virtually impossible to make yourself walk over the pit. You just had way too many mental blocks that stopped you from doing it. I imagine something similar would happen with a wall. It would feel very eery and uncomfortable to walk through the wall.

omegant 13y ago
If it's for a game and walking through walls makes winning possible, people will be crossing walls in no time.
- Kiro 13y ago
  You could say the same about paintball where it clearly isn't true so I don't think it's an issue. Besides, it's easy to just flag them as soon as they walk into a wall and force them to go back where they entered in order to unflag.

tlrobinson 13y ago

Is there actually an advantage to having all the players in the same room? I guess you'll be able to hear your friends IRL? I think omnidirectional treadmills and more immersive audio will be good enough. I imagine eventually the floor of the treadmill will even be able to tilt when you're walking uphill.

guelo 13y ago

Why would this be better than playing real life paintball or laser tag?

dandelany 13y ago
If the VR is good enough to make your brain fall for the illusion, paintball and laser tag are just a few of the many things you could implement. Imagine paintball, with rocket launchers and zombies and fire and bottomless pits with no risk of injury. I would definitely pay to do that with my friends in a laser-tag type setting.
- TheLegace 13y ago
  Not to mention the global reach of such technologies. Imagine XBox Live with laser tag/VR FPS and people from all over the world could play. There could be massive tournaments and competitions.
- guelo 13y ago
  After thinking about it I think the best game play would be in a trampoline cage.

baddox 13y ago

I'm most curious how you intend the most basic part of the user interface to work: how do players aim? That's the biggest problem right now with first person shooters and the Rift. Do you have a crosshair that's always exactly in the center of the field of view? Do you motion track the dummy rifle and use that you position a crosshair that can move around in the field of view?

thenomad 13y ago

The most promising tech for real-time location sensing right now us Ultra-Wide-Band based tech. You need sensing times in the picoseconds, but apparently that's actually doable. This guy managed to get one of these systems working, and when last heard from was preparing for a Kickstarter: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15623 http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=15623 And XSens have a fully-working system, but it's Not Cheap.