Walking In A VR Future 371
neol'schmoe writes "There's a new solution to the age old problem of physical movement within a virtual world. Researchers in Japan have come up with tiles that move in concert with a user's pace and motion to allow free range of motion while literally walking in a virtual environment and never leaving a very small area in the real world."
And... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And... (Score:5, Funny)
Circula-Trash? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Circula-Trash? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Circula-Trash? (Score:3, Funny)
You've just described every Benny Hill-inspired chase dream I've ever had. Where do I pay for this virtual wonder?
About Time (Score:3, Informative)
Holodecks are next!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Holodecks are next!! (Score:2)
Pretty Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pretty Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
Just think about a VR helmet that can actually do 1280x1024 by true color and combine that with 3 generations after the Doom3 or HL2 engine...
VR Doom3 is easy. Close your eyes. (Score:2)
Re:Pretty Cool (Score:5, Informative)
Atari and the other console makers also jumped onto the VR bandwagon [maedicke.de], even though the headsets were much lighter [roarvgm.com] (later versions of the Virtuality helmet.
Obviously, you could do the same thing today, with consumer VR hardware, but the problem is cost. Consumers are more aware of the cost of playing in an arcade vs. playing at home. If the average game plays for one unit of currency for three minutes, and one person wants to play for three hours, thats 120 units of currency. For three months play, that amount of money would allow you to buy buy a PC + VR headset + broadband. Plus with headsets being as small and light as they are, they would very easily be stolen/broken. And that's not taking into account having to pay for parking, expensive drinks/snacks, worry about your belongings being stolen, your car being broken into, being mugged on the way home, or spend time finding a parking space.
Bradbury fans all agree... (Score:5, Interesting)
Would be a parent's dream!
Just hope your kids like you and don't enjoy the company of ravenous lions! :D
exercise while gaming... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:exercise while gaming... (Score:4, Insightful)
Football, hockey, soccer... that's all "exercise while gaming"
Nothing new
Re:just plain exercise (Score:2)
Cycling (Score:3)
Cycling while watching a TV can be a little dangerous, especially if you are watching a race, or something else from the first person perspective. The problem is that you will unconsciously lean into turns. With a wind trainer this isn't too much of a problem, but if you are riding rollers, it can hurt. Trust me.
Re:just plain exercise (Score:3, Funny)
Hall Runner [videlectrix.com]
"Sprint down halls as if you were some type of madman.
What could be better? Watch out for the bugs or tentacles, though! They can hurt!
Ouchy! Fun for several!"
Brought to you by the people who made Trogdor.
hmm.... how fast is it? (Score:2, Funny)
Holodeck coming soon? (Score:4, Interesting)
Those japanese are always inventing stuff like this. I guess they got no square footage.
My American answer is to put your VR goggles on in the middle of one of our spacious fields or parks, and just run around all you want.
Drop someone in the middle of the desert with his LCD goggles and mo-cap mittens and he can VR his brains out.
What about the nausea problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could definitely be a downer if you're the next in line for that arcade game.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they do. If you go to the gym long enough, you'll see someone get dizzy or nausious and fall right off 'em.
They even have lil warning labels advising people with inner ear problems to stay off.
I wouldn't expect the average slashdotter has seen a treadmill in actual use.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because Slashdotters are smarter than the average gym user and won't pay $75 a month to walk on a moving belt when they can just go out the front door.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
I pay 20 bucks a month for access to probably over 200,000 in equipment. The treadmill is only used as a warmup, or elliptical machine or stationary bike if you prefer. Once your heartrate is up, you hit the circuit training.
In the summer, I have full access to the outdoor olympic sized pool, which I've never seen more than 10 people in at a time. And they're usually women, and usually in really nice shape. It's a really cool pool area, t
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:2)
Just be cause we are able to, doesn't mean we will.
I've joined the gym maybe three times in my life, and only once managed to keep going for more than a few months... and the only reason for that was the guy who took the classes was a fucking clown who kept doing monty python impressions.
But... yeah.. treadmills are boring as bat shit.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
But you *are* moving. It just happens that your movement is cancelled out by the floor. So things like head bob will still happen, but it's because your head is really bobbing as you walk.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not your velocity that causes motion sickness, it's the acceleration. The floor only "cancels" your relative velocity, as your frame of reference is moving with you; but not the acceleration, which you sense relative to a inertial frame of reference, which is essentially stationary.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suffer from this very badly. I couldn't play the early Doom or Quake games. I tried out a VR game at Great Adventure around 1995/1996 and it made me horribly sick and dizzy.
The strange part is, I couldn't play FPS games without getting tired/dizzy up until around 1999. I was stuck at home after sugery and doped up on painkillers I played FPS games all weekend. For some reason I have no problems with certain games after that(unreal tournament) while others still give me the dizzy sickness. (almost any console FPS). Bracelets and Nausea pills don't do anything for it.
Is there a way to train your inner ear/eyes to not get sick if you play enough? Or is it that higher frame rates help? Ugg
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, really. Then your expected perception of movement is in line with your percieved movement.
Once you pass a certain point on the learning curve (like you did while all doped up that weekend), no problem.
I'd guess the reason some games work for you and others don't has to do with field of view, height of the camera off the ground, or some other perceptual detail that doesn't fit in to your current mental model of what an FPS is supposed to feel like.
Perceived rotation and fields of view (Score:3, Informative)
For me, I recently pulled out my old Doom WADs when the Doomsday (aka jDoom) engine was ported to Linux. And after about 20 minutes of insane play, I had to go outside and recover from severe nausea.
Now, the original Wolfenstein used to give me major problems but Doom wasn't an issue. So I poked around the options and discovered a
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Informative)
That is complete and utter baloney. Ask anyone who suffers regularly from motion sickness to ride a Tilt-A-Whirl but keep their eyes closed. They will *still* end up dizzy and sick.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
That statement is in direct agreement with what you quoted from the previous poster:
In this case, your eyes (closed) tell you that you're not moving, but your inner ear tells you that you are moving
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, aside from the initial acceleration of starting to walk, won't this feel the same as "really" walking?
On the other hand, I could certainly see how frequent changes in direction or velocity would confuse your ear, in which case I see your point.
Re:What about the nausea problem? (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a tip: Star Trek isn't real.
What?? (Score:4, Funny)
I have one of these... (Score:5, Funny)
I like to call it a "treadmill". Sounds much better than "shifty tiles" IMHO.
Re:I have one of these... (Score:2)
I'd love to see you try and sidestep on your treadmill.
pretty cool (Score:3, Funny)
Momentum (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Momentum (Score:2)
Re:Momentum (Score:2)
Ok, how do they plan on simulating momentum? Try running at full gallop and then stopping dead. Its pretty hard to do in reality. It would be easy on a treadmill that responds in the same way as the tiles above. The act of walking without the feedback that we feel from our momentum might be a little disorienting.
I disagree. If you are running at speed on a treadmill, and stop suddenly, you will fall over in exactly the same way as if you had been running on solid ground. Momentum is relative, and all th
Re:Momentum (Score:2, Insightful)
The equivalent would be a treadmill that reacts to your position, moving you backward when your foot approaches the front. If you're running, it would have to predict where you're going and put a tile there (whilst simultaneously moving your current tile in the opposite direction). If you stop abruptly, you wou
FPS integrates to olympics? (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm on the VR FPS diet! I just run around and pretend to shoot people for 8 hours a day."
Video? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Video? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Video? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a PDF [movesinstitute.org] paper about the omni-directional treadmill with neat pictures and good description of how it works, what it's like to use it, and limitations (turning in place, crouching, sidestepping and a few other movements often cause stumbles)
To echo your sentiment, I too would like to see videos of all these in action, both with experienced users and users who have never been on it before.
-Adam
Re:Video? (Score:3, Informative)
http://intron.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/vrlab_web/CirculaF
Why tiles? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why tiles? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why tiles? (Score:2)
Holy Shit (Score:2)
If you combine the tiles, vr goggles, a body suit and a light gun peripheral you've got the first quality VR fps. No more wasting money on airsoft or paintball. I can't believe nobody ever though of this before...
Re:Holy Shit (Score:2)
How does it handle momentum? (Score:2)
Re:How does it handle momentum? (Score:2)
Re:How does it handle momentum? (Score:2)
They might try using tilt which is what some flight simulators do to simulate acceleration.
Re:How does it handle momentum? (Score:2)
Let's say these tiles were blazingly fast and accurate, and you ran steadily in one direction and they were able to keep up. If you suddenly came to a stop, the tiles would continue to move from front to back
Multiple people? (Score:3, Interesting)
What if you jump?
"Step" in the right direction... (Score:3, Insightful)
If that becomes the case, what would happen to the labeling of games? All games could have "calorie burn factors" printed on them, so the more intense ones would have higher "calorie burn" ratings.
Does anyone know if there are any statstics out there for what the physical impact of today's games is that are a little like this - like "Dance Dance Revolution"?
Re:"Step" in the right direction... (Score:2)
One of the nice things about DDR, and even some of the boxing games in the arcades, is that they have calorie counters, so you know how much of a workout you're getting. DDR even has a workout mode so that you can increase your goal if you had a particularly fatte
Re:"Step" in the right direction... (Score:3, Interesting)
The other reason is that the
Re:"Step" in the right direction... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a reason video gamers have a stereotype of fat and lazy non-athletes. Once athletic skill is required for a game, don't expect that game to do well on the shelves.
As an avid player of DDR, who has managed to get quite a few of my other gamer friends addicted to DDR, as well as know others with similar stories, I call shenanigans. DDR is fun, requires (sometimes Herculean) effort, and has the addictive quality of trying to "beat it" by getting to higher levels. Once you get past the stigma of
What about a sphere? (Score:5, Insightful)
These tiles are neat but it seems to be making the problem more difficult than necessary. Yes a sphere wouldn't allow doing a duck and roll but most applications would probably be walking/running anyway.
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their idea is actually quite clever, and perhaps more importantly, could be something that would end up being relatively low cost.
I wouldn't want to try to get liti
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think one of the factors they're dealing with is size. The gerbil ball would take up tons of space (Especially in the Japanese perspective), even if not in use.
~D
Re:Gerbil Ball (Score:2)
Yes. [google.com]
Re:Gerbil Ball (Score:2)
http://www.petco.com/Productlisting.asp?tab=6&c 1 =1 604&ct1=Hamsters+%26+Gerbils&c2=1615&ct2=Toys+%26+ Accessories&c3=1618&ct3=Toys+%26+Run+About+Balls&D ept_ID=1618
Block off stairs and similar dangers.
Cats LOVE them.
~D
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Interesting)
As you walked, the treadmill would walk with you to leave you close to the center. If you changed directions, the treadmill would rotate to compensate for your directions, and the spheres would allow the treadmill to be rotated without turning your orientation. I think it wou
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:2)
The problem is that if you turn while on the treadmill, you are turning RELATIVE TO THE TREADMILL. If the turntable under the treadmill turns this WON'T compensate for your change of direction relative to the treadmill. End result: you fall off.
UK company doing this (Score:2)
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:2)
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:2)
Isn't that part of the fun? >:)
~D
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:2)
The sphere would have inertia. It would have to have a few powerfull & very accurate electric motors if it wanted to hide the fact that a large, durable sphere has inertia. Both inertia of rest and inertia once you started moving it in any direction.
Anyway, a neat thing about this floor tile thing is that it's relatively tiny. Your sphere might not have to be 200' around, but it's certainly going to have to be over 6' around. These tiles don't have any external housing. Just looks like one big
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would have to be quite large to seem flat.
Thanks to a helpful page on chords at http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57832.htm l [mathforum.org], here's what I came up:
Assume a 30 inch step.
That makes the short side of the triangle 15 inches.
Start off with a sphere 10 feet in radius (20 feet in diameter).
15/120 =
2d treadmills, motion sickness and Redirection (Score:5, Informative)
There are fundamental problems with all of these types of devices-- they 1) don't let the body handle momentum naturally and 2) don't stimulate the vestibular system in a way that is consistent with the visual or proprioceptive (the body's sense of where its limbs are) cues.
1) Momentum: On a 2-D treadmill, the omni-directional treadmill is supposedly fast enough that it allows for running. But when you are running and then change direction quickly, your body will lean into the turn to counter its momentum. Doing this on the treadmill will make you fall over. Someone once described it as "running on a slippery ice cube".
2) Vestibular cues: Our body can sense motion even without visuals or body movements. This is why some flight simulators have motion platforms [://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/vms/motionb.html]. One post above said that the treadmill should reduce motion sickness because it provides body motions as well as visuals. But a treadmill doesn't cue the vestibular system. One theory of motion sickness is that it results from a mismatch of visual and vestibular cues. In the back seat of a car, your visual cues say you are still (relative to the inside of the car) but the vestibular system says you are moving. Similarly in a IMAX theater or while playing an FPS on a big screen, your visuals say you are moving but your vestibular system says you are still. Knowing how you are moving is critical for maintain balance and even surviving. The mismatch in visual and vestibular cues interferes with your ability to balance, and that's why dizziness results.
Luckily, one can fool the vestibular system, much as we can fool the visual system. Techniques include "wash-out" [mfs.com.au] on motion platforms, electrical stimulation [tech-report.com], and Redirection [unc.edu]. Wash-out is where the motion platform moves the user to simulate the virtual motion, but then sneaks her back to the center of the room at an acceleration that is below what her vestibular system can detect. The shifting tiles look like a fabulous idea, and I wonder if one could implement a form of wash-out on those tiles.
Links
Sphere http://www.vr-systems.ndtilda.co.uk/sphere1.htm2-D treadmills [ndtilda.co.uk]
Omni directional treadmill http://www.movesinstitute.org/darken/publications/ ODT-UIST97.pdf [movesinstitute.org]
Torus treadmill (great video) http://intron.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/vrlab_web/torustrea dmill/torustreadmill_e.html [tsukuba.ac.jp]
Redirection http://www.cs.unc.edu/~eve/rdw/ [unc.edu]
One more thing, the problem with, as one post suggested, implementing VR in a huge wide open space (like a desert) is tracking. The computer needs to know where your head is and in which direction you are looking, very accurately and quickly, so it can draw the virtual scene from your perspective. By accurately, I mean with millimeter precision, and by quickly I mean it must update the images within tens of milliseconds of your head moving. If you focus your eyes on your figure at arms length, then rotate your head right and left, the reflex that moves your eyes to keep them locked on your finger is called the VOR (vestibular ocular reflex). It can react to head movements in 10 milliseconds.
Re:What about a sphere? (Score:3, Interesting)
What about a "carpet of balls"? (Score:3, Insightful)
This would work for straightline-movement only, though. For things like spinning you would need to either
... oh, wow ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can already think of improvements:
1. Scale up the 4-tile model for walking, and have a 12-tile model for running.
2. Force-feedback tiles for seismic or moving-walkway effectts.
3. cushiony lifting-tiles to simulate low-g walks/runs/jumps.
Of course, can you imagine the liability issues for a manufacturer of such a product?
Very neat. I can't wait to have one. When they have it work with Unreal Tournament, I'll be sold.
Vendors are at Siggraph (Score:5, Informative)
Your pace has be be quite a bit slower than the article suggests, and the compensational backwards movement of the platform throws you off. I'm laughing at the picture in the article where the guy wears the blindfold, because just now, the vendor won't let me wear one. I'm going to show STFA to them in protest in just a few seconds here...
Solomon
Re:Vendors are at Siggraph (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vendors are at Siggraph (Score:4, Informative)
There's also a guy sitting partially obscured by a curtain who looks like he's controlling everything, so I'm unsure how automatic this is.
Still cool all-in-all, but needs some work it seems.
This is an awesome starter! (Score:5, Insightful)
What might be interesting for uneven terrain would be something like those old "pin art" toys you could get at Headlines or Yarmo Zone. You know, the ones with 1000 pins on a rack in square formation, and you would reset them by dumping them all to the back, and then pushing something--your face or a fist or something uneven--into them, and on the other side you'd get a pin sculpture of your hand or whatever.
It wouldn't work for everything (i.e. simulated overhangs in a climbing situation), but if you had something like that on a huge scale, maybe covered with some sort of flexible surface, you could simulate some pretty interesting terrains if you had the computer determining the pin positions.
Japanese business oppurtunity (Score:2, Funny)
Professor Henry Jones (Score:2, Funny)
Video Link (Score:5, Informative)
What About Equipment Failure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Moving tiles means there are gaps. Gaps means things can be wedged into those gaps. Now what happens when you're running in VR land and wedge your foot into the fast-moving tiles? Suddenly, not being able to see your real-world foot doesn't sound so good ...
Bally's VR-workout? (Score:4, Funny)
"The % of obese people ages 18-26 has decreased significantly with the simultaneous releases of GTA5:VRRiot and MallWalker1:ShoppingFury"
Re-wording (Score:2)
Alright! (Score:2)
Tickling the neurons (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh yeah, plug it into the brain directly and you can worry about simulating kinesthesia and proprioception at the root of the problem.
Once we do that we'll look back at this and think, boy what a silly circuitous solution.
I had a similar idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hadn't solved the problem of how to create the proper amount of resistance, so if it were implemented as designed, it probably would have been something like walking on ice. Also, I hadn't entirely worked out how to get data from the grid for feedback to the imaging components of the system.
Just one of those things you come up with when you're not paying attention in class.
Er...? (Score:2)
Re:Take THAT, Moriarty (Score:2, Interesting)
Now you can apply force fields to the floating bodies to mimic the environment, like the resistance of the floor to your feet or the wind on your face, etc..
What I never got was: 1) Why did they dress up to go to the holodeck? Data would put on his whole lil Sherlock outfit.. Why bother? Cant the holodeck generate the funny hat and pipe? Is there really enough personal storage space on the Enterpri
Re:Take THAT, Moriarty (Score:2)
The EMH on Voyager, IIRC, used something slighty different. Instead of a replicator, his mini-projector used a true hologram with force fields. He attached it to his shoulder and the force fields held it up. What I don't understand is wher
Re:Take THAT, Moriarty (Score:2)
They replicate things like that.
> I doubt the crew of your average aircraft carrier have room for sherlock holmes outfits to play dress-up in their downtime.
An aircraft carrier isn't built for decades-long deep-space exploration, either.
> Picard walking around when suddenly he gets hit by a snowball
Clearly crusher had used his l33t h@x0ring skills to disengage the saftey protocols, due to his penchant for extreme
Re:Mmmm.... Running in Doom (Score:5, Funny)
have the management turn all the lights off, and the main rule is that you cant use both the paintball gun and the flashlight at the same time.
Re:A simple (if large) answer (Score:4, Informative)