I have used a Virtusphere before, and I really disliked it. Even at slow speeds, you always feel offbalance, and higher speeds are impossible. You do get a feel for it where you can use it, but I was never able to lose sight of the fact that I was, in fact, standing inside a big rolling ball.

As far as making one out of fiberglass, it would be extremely hard. I actually have a lot of experience with fiberglass (I worked at a sailing center for two years at one point, and sailed small boats as a kid. I learned how to make and repair fiberglass hulls), and making a perfect sphere would be MADDENING. It cannot just be a rough sphere, it would be to be a perfect one! And even if you could, the weight would be enormous. The Virtusphere is made of lightweight plastic, and weighs 285lbs! That is a lot of weight to get moving, and a lot of weight to stop, too. I don't want to totally dismiss the idea, but I was not satisfied with a Virtusphere.

Although... I want to try out one of of those inflatable balls now. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that you could use a small kiddy pool to support it! You would run out of air pretty fast, though...

Another thing: I am realizing that strafing directly to the side is something that you almost never do in real life. Try it yourself, it is hard! We only do it in videogames because it is so easy, but real life strafing does not feel natural at all.

Just add a small diver oxygen tank to your backpack and you'll get a few hours of air


I Agree, we probably dont need a DIY system to be able to do this at all, even without strafing the immersion of omnidirectional walking will be amazing I think.
I think real life strafing is more just walking diagonally while facing fowards, not strafing directly to the side

its interesting how may designs this thread has gone over.

So anyone here going to build one of these ideas?

I'd give one a go but I still need to put together a mobile gaming rig to use on it first! (all I have so far is a Wiimote and a half finished recoil system )

I don't think I will actually build one of these, but I hope to write the software for whoever does.

Only if can create convex pentagon and hex. Otherwise your ball is not really spherical and won't roll as nicely. But why go through the headache of precision stitching these pieces together when you can just directly create the shape you want?

I thought about the smoothness of molding fiberglass on the outside. I'm not sure it matters that much with large casters. The ones I saw being used looked like those giant medical size casters which should have quite a tolerance to a few millimeters of texture. If you needed it smooth you could always mold in two stages - plaster cast the sphere first, cut in half, then lay the fiberglass on the inside.



I almost feel like they are over-engineered. A spherical structure is inherently good at supporting its own weight. I don't have much frame of reference though. Does anyone know how heavy a fiberglass structure this big would be?

And if we are going to be talking about wacky ideas, what about DIYing this:



I mean, I don't want VR so I can just walk around. I want to fly like Neo in the Matrix!!!

Ha ha! I came to that same conclusion. Strafing is a total video game invention and does not really match any normal form of locomotion that a real person would engage in except at really slow creeping speeds. (Same goes for bunny hopping, circle straffing) Many of the techniques that hard-core gamers use would be useless if you actually had a true VR setup that captured body movement and a game that supported it.

If I had a university grant for VR research - sure But they all seem too high risk for hobbyists.

I bought a Kinect last week, so I would like to do some work matching gesture-like movements to game controls. (ie. walk in place = W, etc). Not very sexy compared to all the exotic motion control we have been discussing, but in terms of price, simplicity, accessibility, and game support it's hard to beat.

Edit: I take that back. I can imagine trying the unidirectional manual treadmill + Kinect idea. It wouldn't take much time or money so I wouldn't mind failing.

I've seen setups like that on youtube, definately a good starting point! you can replicate all needed motions for the game controls using Kinect (walking, running, crouching, prone, jumping, stabing, reloading etc) then you just need a Wiimote or similar to aim and shoot and analogue stick to control movement. very cost effective and only thing its missing is actual directional movement instead you just run on the spot etc

see here ( he does not use running on the spot for movement though but it is possible because it is done in kinect sports)



also kinect can be used with voice recognition for some pretty cool menu navigation etc:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo5LPOh_pX4&feature=related[/youtube]

here's an example using walking on the spot to control character movement:


the 2nd 2 videos are using gestures to aim as well, persionally i'd still use the wiimote or similar for that as I think it'd be more accurate and having a physical gun controller in your hand would feel a lot more realistic

It depends entirely on how thick you make it. The lightest weight would be no lower than 300lbs, from my rough calculations (Based off how much the boat hulls I worked on weighed), but I am not sure how durable it would be. A common thing we would see with boats using thin fiberglass like that would be people who capsize (flip over) the boat accidentally, then stupidly climb on top of the bottom of the hull. That is, at best, bad for the hull (bends it), and at worst, would result in cracks or punctures. It could support your weight just fine if it was floating on water, but air is another matter! Using more solid fiberglass would easily put you at 500lbs+.

And if Cyber is up for helping me with the software, then I am definitely aiming to build some manner of ODT!

As far as flying goes, I think that could actually be done with an ODT+harness, sort off. So weird that my childhood is turning out to be useful, but my sailing experience is actually relevant here! There is a company called "Harken" that makes very high quality, low friction ropes, pulley, and cleat systems for sailboats, and you can use them to make very nifty rope gearing systems. We usually used 5:1 ratio pulleys, so for every pound of force you pull with, you can pull 5lbs. Most of the pulleys are rated at hundreds of pounds of force, and should have no problem lifting a person off the ground!

The way I see it, you would have a harness like the one I posted earlier in the thread. Attached to it would be the main harness points (Above your shoulders), and a secondary one attached on the back of your waist. Whenever you jump off the ODT, the main harness could lift your entire body up just an inch or two for as long as the in-game jump lasted, then drop you back down in sync with the game. The fun part? Jump into the air with hands forward and body tilted, have a Kinect recognize this, then have the secondary harness reel itself in, tilting your body parallel to the ground. You would probably be using mostly rope, with some very stiff shock cords for the last foot or so, to cushion the pulling motions.

Actually, come to think of it, just the jumping/flying system could probably be built for just a few hundred dollars! Do you think that would make an appreciable difference for even your current backtop system, Cyber? I have not tried 360 turning/joystick yet, I plan on doing so soon, though.

@Machine: Wow, that is one of the best uses of the FAAST systems I have seen in the enthusiast space. We use FAAST for the Kinect experiments at my workplace, our coders have extolled the virtues of it many times over.

Yes indeed an as I already have a Kinect and now that I have seen that kinect is suitable for tracking 360deg skeletal movement (as in the ultimate BattleField 3 simulator)I think I will first get together a portable gaming rig/backpack laptop system similar to Cybers, but with SONY HMD, Wiimote and Kinect I think the total effect of all these things combined will give a very good and cost effective VR experience at home that anyone should be able to replicate! and I like the idea of takling your way through the menus!

then when my bank acc recovers from that abuse I will look into makeing one of these OD platforms

Strafing in real life would be like running forward while shooting to your left/right. It is doable if we can have a way to measure head and gun position relative to body. Example running forward while looking left/right will activate strafing (D if looking left while running forward and A if looking left while walking backward).

I assume that the strafe motion (A,D) in most video games travels slower than the W command. So it kinda sucks that we have to map running full speed and looking left to the slower strafe motion - but there really is no other solution it seems.

The best thing would be if the game was developed with "hooks" in it for you to supply your own analog position and motions vectors instead of discrete motion commands. Then it really doesn't matter what you are doing with your feet. There is no "strafe". There is just movement direction, speed, and head orientation. Maybe the games that support analog stick have better support for this type of thing. Anybody know of games with this type of customization?

For me, the best way to simulate movement in a game would be to track the full body in real time as they did for the Battlefied 3 immersive project, but to use the limbs position directly as the base skeletal animation for the player model. This way you would have your avatar move exactly the way you move, without the need to use artificial kind of movements like constant walking/running speed, strafing, etc.

That would still suppose a way to physically emulate real walking, running, jumping or crouching using one of the existing technologies like omnidirectional treadmills, powered shoes or robotic arms for movement emulation.

The movement emulation wouldn't have to be perfect even, some kind of gesture mapping could be done to augment walking/running speed for example, based on physically plausible real-world movement.

The must would evidently be to use non-invasive brain computer interfaces to directly move the virtual limbs, but I guess it's not going to be possible in a near future. Invasive interfaces should work better for now, but the idea to have something in my brain just for gaming does'nt appeal me much.

Doing that in existing games should be pretty difficult though, but not unfeasible I think.

If you could calculate the walking speed effectively somehow, you could map it to analog input in games. Heck, you could even have it be slightly different speeds at different points in the step, just like a real life gait.

Quite right, that sounds like a more sensible approach for now, didn't think about that.

There may still be some movement caps that are used even in stick analog games. For example maybe analog forward can range from 0-10 where as analog sideways can only range from 0-4. Better, but not as good as being able to supply unbounded motion vectors.

A funny consequence of mapping movement 1:1 is that player speeds might be capped by their actual physical abilities - just like in real life. So the irony is that all those geeks that grew up getting plowed over in gym class would now again get plowed in their video games. I guess there's a limit to how "real" people want a game.

Actually, in most games I have played, sideways movement is the same speed as forward speed. So is backwards speed! In fact, in some earlier games, you could run faster diagonally than in any other direction. Look up "strafe running".

That could be nice and force couch potatoes to do some exercise to improve their playing abilities. But it could also be possible to define a max speed for each limb rotation and scale real movements from 0 to these max speeds to not create disadvantages. That would probably need some sort of calibration though, so that faster guys don't always run in game, even when walking in real life.

I still like this idea of almost 1:1 mapping since it would handle crouching or leaning in a more realistic manner. The same for throwing nades or jumping, which has often been painful in my gaming experience.

I would prefer that turning and walking is faster in game compare to real life as this would provide a sense of super human strength without overexertion. I agree crouching should be map 1:1 but so far games only provide 3 positions. Personally, game should be fun and I want all the advantage in multiplayer game. It's not fun always getting your ass shoot.

I actually did attempt walking in place with my wearable setup. It did add something for immersion. Not so much because of what I was doing with my feet, but because now the headtracking was swaying in a realistic manner. I did feel a bit silly knowing that nothing was really tracking my leg movement, but it was an interesting experiment. Certainly worth exploring more, but it also left a lot to be desired.

@pierreye
well a setup like this is almost always going to be a disadvantage in multiplayer.... you have to react for real vs somone who just has to move their finger a few mm, and 1:1 turning vs moving a mouse an inch for 360deg spin! (heck even 2:1 movement will still probably not beat KB/Mouse) this is why its so hard for most people to leave their KB/Mouse behind for newer input tech.

This kind of setup will at first be best (at least for FPS MMORPG may be different story) used in single player/ co-op campaign modes or Multipayer VS againt other with a similar setup

Were you sing the walking on the spot action to activate character movement in game? (it sounds like you were not) If not then the immersion might be much better if you were (using kinect or pedometer or similar)

No, I was using a analog stick (nunchuk) to move. The real life walking was just for fun. Of course if it were actually tied to the movement the immersion factor would be greater. I did some tests like this with the 1200VR, before I got my mouse emulator working. I would just carefully move my head and the mouse at the same time. And it was not nearly as immersive as true headtracking, but it gave me an idea. So yes, I think there is more to explore here.

Ahh I though that might be the case, even though the movement matches I guess the brain knows its actually your thumb causing it not your feet.

I think for a backtop system a wireless pedometer might be the best option over kinect (may be less accurate but easiear to add to the system and no space limitations so you could go run around on a big flat field somewhere and not be limited by the range of the kinect)

The Kinect would also get a little more complex for a backtop system as you would need an additional stationary computer and then the software would need to be networked wirelessly. Not totally unreasonable, but adding that many layers will surely introduce some lag. Though I am kind of liking the idea of the Kinect (and I have been looking for a good excuse to buy one). Hmm....

I like the Kinect also. The pedometer only gives you one action - move forward. The Kinect gives you variety. I am anxious to work with it, but I sense that others are going to beat me to it (Cyber). Here's a quick stab at some movements that I was thinking might work for a control scheme.

- walk in place = move forward
- one leg back + walk in place = move backward
- the pace of walking would indicate speed
- the head direction would indicate head and gun orientation (tracked by secondary tracker to increase precision)
- the direction of the hips would indicate direction of movement
- in this scheme, diagonal or sideways movement could be accomplished by facing diagonally or at right angle and keeping head straight
- alternatively, crossing one leg over the other and walking in place would also trigger sideways movement
- taking one large step to right or left would trigger a single step strafe (for peering around corners)
- crouching = crouch (potentially head height could be mapped 1:1 with head height in game)
- laydown = prone
- jump = jump

This is just for basic movement. I'm sure there a bunch of other motions for things like reload, switch gun, menu system, etc that I have not accounted for.

couldn't you just use wireless USB for adding kinect to a backtop system? would just mean that you are limited to the kinects FOV for your VR space (i.e. running on the spot vs walking around in a large space)

I took a brief look at FAAST and it seems to have a lot of gestures regarding leaning. If this could be combined with the walking, that would be pretty useful. For example, walking in place normal would be walk forward, but if you leaned back also then it would be walk backwards. Stopping and simply leaning left or right could be strafe, and side lean while walking in place would make a diagonal walk. Of course jump would be jump, and duck, etc.

@mAchiNE: Yeah, I guess you could use some sort of wireless USB hub. But then you have to find/make a battery pack for that thing to plug into (which I guess would be easy considering other stuff discussed in this thread).

@Cyber
maybe this would work:
http://www.belkin.com/networkusbhub/
converts usb devices to network devices, then you plug it into a wireless router and stream the data to you backtop over wifi. Don't know how it interfaces so not 100% sure it will work with kinect but a good option to look into

Don't forget this for walking in place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-NNzaL_1g

I dismissed that idea at first but thinking about it more - it gives me another crazy idea. Does anybody know if there is something out there like a magnetic proximity sensor with centimeter accuracy and a range of half a meter? What if you could put some type of sensors (or magnets) on the toe and heel of your shoes so that the relative positions of your feet to each other could be triangulated. Combine that information with a pedometer type device on each shoe so you know which foot is stepping and you could roughly approximate the gait, direction, and tempo of your feet and compute a movement vector.

So then you just need a large space like a soccer field and a backtop and you're in business. No fake gestures necessary because you would just actually run around the space. You would need to recalibrate every once in a while when you moved to the edge of the field, but for large chunks of virtual space you could just move naturally.

Another similar but simpler idea...what about wearing an optical sensor pointed straight towards the ground and basically turning yourself into a giant optical mouse running on a giant mouse pad?

And while I'm on a roll - and even simpler idea. Maybe you could just stick an optical camera on a tall pole and plant it at the edge of the field. Then wear a big refective hat or a light source and have the camera compute your position on the field and transmit to your backtop.

Anybody want to look like a huge dork running around in public with VR gear on?

can be used for actually running around as well as running in place

Haha that might actually work! maybe even just using a camera

I actually wanted to try this as it was the best "trial" method i could come up with. In my HMD thread i mention that once i got the head tracking and gun tracking working with the large FOV HMD you just burn to be able to physically walk around in a virtual world because walking around with the nunchuck joystick kills the fun. I actually thought about the camera pointed at ground option but didn't have the skills to do the software. It would be awesome to try but you need friends around to stop you walking into things and stop you getting beat up for being a geek



Back to the sphere.... I go on and off these idea's by the hour as my inspiration waxes and wanes through the day but looking at that sight again...

https://www.playdomes.com/order.php?u=4 ... cs2=0&sh=0

4 x 8 ft Play Dome $149



Buying 2x 4 feet domes gives you an 8 feet ball and just ask that the 'equatorial' joiners be the 6 pipe type full ones instead of 4 pipe type floor ones so you can make the full sphere with standard parts. If the sphere isn't perfect, just cutting the length of the pipes would 'tune' the shape.

Once we have the sphere we need to make it smooth to roll on casters or... use 4 long rollers as a base in a square configuration. This should hold it stable, reduce drag from small wheels and provide 4 great sensor speed points if required. Hell, they could even be motorised to match walking gesture speed if you want to go crazy and eliminate rotating mass problems.

That sphere may just rotate on large enough rollers as it is without making a smooth shell. The next problem to solve is the holes so we can walk in it. I had an idea to use cheap light galvanised 'furring channel' or similar and just cut and rivet filler pieces between the pipe of the ball until the gaps are small enough as to not fall or trip though.

Mmkay shoot it down

Edit-

1. Those domes do not look like a full 180 semi circle so a custom centre might need to be added between. Not so hard but adds to cost and effort.
2. The strength of the structure comes from external force and may be more prone to distort from internal force, may need extra riveting.
3. Drilling multiple holes along the pipes to fix boards or channels as fillers would weaken the pipes which would be a under a lot of stress where you stand on them.

If your bounds were well defined (ie. a soccer field) then the software could just darken your HMD display as you approached the boundary and turn off the display if you crossed out of bounds. Maybe the game could automatically be paused as well. You would need a quick way to recalibrate ("turn around") so that it didn't disturb your play too much.



Doesn't seem like it would roll smoothly at diagonal angles - especially if the sphere itself is geodesic and not smooth.

Further thoughts:

- The camera on pole idea would probably be the simplest to implement and most accurate. (high res cam needed)

- The mouse idea would be a complicated by the fact that there's nowhere to attach a camera on your body that doesn't also move independently. You would have to filter out all the twisting/tilting motions from the actual movements. Maybe it could be handled by smart software. Maybe you could use a steady-cam rig to cancel out body motion. Assuming these difficulties could be overcome, the mouse idea does has the advantage of handling non-uniform, cluttered, and indoor environments.

Yeah i was thinking on that but more thinking it would roll smooth when walking towards a diagonal but rub on the side rollers if walking square towards a roller.

For a camera mast you could probably build something maybe 15 ft high with PCV pipe and accurately cover a soccer sized area (I'm just guessing...haven't done the math)

But if you want to go crazy check out this bad boy...



At 37ft you could accurately cover a HUGE area - multiple city blocks. You would need a really bright light on your head and it would probably only work at night but there you go...

Update: Plus imagine how cool co-op or deathmatch would be like that.

ok - gotta get this off my chest. Here is a more fleshed out idea for the camera pole that basically adapts the WiiMote Whiteboard project to a large space.



1. Build 4 towers out of low cost material like PVC - lets say 15 feet high. Fasten 4 WiiMotes to the top of the towers. You can find mounting brackets for Wii here. http://irpensonline.com/

2. Build a battery powered ball with dozens of IR LED's attached to the outside and attach that to some type of hat or helmet.

3. Now go out to your favorite empty space. The ideal location would be a football or soccer field with some power lines nearby for a strong magnetic signature.

4. Place the poles at the 4 corners of a rectangle and face the WiiMotes towards the center of the field. Use a laser range finder to determine the distance from each pole to it's neighbor. Input these distances into your calibration tool to capture the real world geometry of the field.

5. Now calibrate the Wii's by walking the entire edge of the rectangle with your LED hat on. Between all 4 Wii's you should get total visual coverage of the edge and the rectangle that you trace out will define the virtual boundary of the game space.

6. Use a magnetic/gyroscopic tracker to determine your head orientation.

7. Now you should be able to run around the space and have the real-world vectors converted to game vectors. You will probably need a small computer (like a netbook) at each corner to monitor each WiiMote (via BlueTooth) and for coordinate transmission. The coordinates from each corner will be transmitted over regular WiFi to the backtop and an average calculated to determine the in-game coordinates. As a bonus, you can also use the coordinates to track height changes so crouching and jumping can be detected as well.

8. If you step outside the rectangular boundary the software will automatically pause the game, dim your HMD display, and go into calibration mode. To calibrate just keep turning until the display brightens again (this is when you are facing directly back into the play field). Walk forward into the play field to automatically unpause the game.


How does that sound?


Update: Alternatively if you can find an empty space by a tall building, like an empty parking lot then you could put a single Wii really high up and calibrate your field like the Wii Whiteboard. Your resolution and accuracy would suffer a bit.

Update 2:

9. After geometry calibration you could also calibrate your maximum speed so for example you could choose to just walk in real life and have your character run. The biggest benefit is that it allows you to scale your field down. You could now set one up in your backyard and move around in a much larger virtual space before hitting the edge. Also, if walking replaces running then you could play the game a lot longer without tiring.

That sounds like a good idea for a permanent setup, but I don't see many people setting up something like that so they can go play games for a few hours....

Thats why even though it may be harder software wise to set up, the "human mouse" idea is better because logistically is much simpiler and more portable, i.e. you actually could just go run around a soccer field without any major setup involved, you could even program into the software to pick up the lines painted on the grass to define your bounradies