Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Graphics Entertainment

Duo Sneak an Oculus Rift Onto Roller Coaster For a Wild Ride 81

Posted by timothy from the keep-hands-and-arms-inside-the-cart-at-all-times dept.
New submitter bobbrocolli (3647945) writes "Equipped with a hidden laptop and Oculus Rift, O'Driscoll may be the first person to have ever gone on a 'Real VR' roller coaster with perfect motion feedback. The duo's system displayed a virtual version of the exact same roller coaster that O'Driscoll and Forder were on. With some practice they managed to sync the virtual reality roller coaster to the real rollercoaster."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Duo Sneak an Oculus Rift Onto Roller Coaster For a Wild Ride More

Duo Sneak an Oculus Rift Onto Roller Coaster For a Wild Ride

Comments Filter:

  • WHERE THE HELL... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    IS THE FUCKING ARTICLE? As of now this is no better than a horse's shit.

  • Yo dawg, We heard you like rollercoasters (Score:5, Funny)

    by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:23PM (#46963519) Homepage Journal
    so we put you in a VR rollercoaster while you were on a real rollercoaster so you can coast while you coast!

  • Where's the story part of this story? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    seriously. No links? Someone named O'Driscoll? This is starting to be as informative as CNN.

  • article link after some googling - you're welcome (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:26PM (#46963551)

    http://kotaku.com/they-took-an-oculus-rift-on-a-real-roller-coaster-for-s-1574145196

    • Zoom in and watch the Oculus video with your eyes crossed then you get the 3D experience. Warning: you might end up with a headache.

      • It is weird though to use VR to simulate a 3D experience in the real, physical world which is by nature 3D. >_>

  • Why bother with a pesky link (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    we'll take your word for it.

  • PIRATING ROLLERCOASTERS IS A CRIME!!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by uCallHimDrJ0NES ( 2546640 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:31PM (#46963569)
    Won't somebody stop this madness before Disneyworld, Six Flags, and King's Island are left poor and homeless like those poor Hollywood executives?

  • Staged (Score:5, Insightful)

    by madprof ( 4723 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:32PM (#46963571)

    Ah yes. I forgot how easy it was to sneak a laptop and a VR headset onto a rollercoaster. This is almost certainly planned by a PR agency. It probably happened but quite deliberately to get us to pay attention to their VR tech.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • This is almost certainly planned by a PR agency. It probably happened but quite deliberately to get us to pay attention to their VR tech.

      makes sense...I get that companies stage these "user made video" things...and I do think the video is bullshit

      what I don't get is **why** whoever put this on would think that this is an attractive or interesting demonstration...

      it's like watching VR porn while you have sex in real life

  • And the point is ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stevez67 ( 2374822 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:34PM (#46963575)
    pointless.
    • The point is a proof of concept for wilder rides still. Imagine "Dueling Dragons" with fully immersive VR, and maybe a few strategically placed propane burners near the track. I think you can begin imagine what that'd be like, and maybe even begin to comprehend just how much I'd like to ride it. (The ride is no longer operated as intended, and the incredibly complex process of tuning the synchronicity of the trains is wasted, since someone was killed by a flying flip-flop to the windpipe - this would pre
      • Exactly. Strap people into a real moving pod with a VR headset on, and the ride can be whatever the designers can imagine.

    • And someone doesn't get it....

    • Re:And the point is ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @09:24PM (#46964317)

      I thought so too, until I read why they did it. They weren't just doing it for the lulz by riding a virtual coaster at the same time they were on it. The point was that you could use the coaster's tactile feedback with anything at all in VR. They used a virtual coaster because it was the simplest thing to test, but that is by no means where they want to see it end.

      Put differently, people could make tracks in VR that sync up to a roller coaster track, but then change out the scenario entirely. So instead of just riding a virtual coaster while on the coaster, you're suddenly piloting a jet in a dogfight, riding on the back of a dragon, swimming through blood vessels, or chasing a bounty target in space. It'd be the same tactile experience for all of them, but they would all seem wildly different.

      It seems like exactly the sort of thing that might have applications in a theme park. It may also be useful for training purposes or for some weirder applications, such as trying to acclimate people to the nausea that might come from keeping the video out of sync with the tactile sensations.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        We already do this. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has a ride like that; you all pack into a canister with a screen on the front, and pneumatic arms lift and shake it. Most of the available...track?...choices aren't synced up all that well, and make you sick pretty quickly, but one or two are perfect.

        Pretty sure the Air Force has a huge robot arm with a chair and a screen on the end on the same principle, for running fighter jet simulations at high-Gs.

      • The Sum of All Thrills ride at Epcot basically does this. It's not a roller coaster, it's a two person capsule on the end of a multi axis robotic arm. But the result is the same. All sorts of video and audio options synchronized to multidirectional movements and spins.

  • we're going to drive a car!

  • "Our next project, VR while real sex, is behind schedule due to difficulties finding a 'roller coaster' that will let us ride it."

  • Google Street View (Score:3)

    by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:46PM (#46963629)
    Make an Oculus Rift display appropriate Google Street View imagery and go traveling on the streets on a unicycle.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Andrio ( 2580551 )

      I have an Oculus Rift and there actually is a browser plug-in that lets you use Google street view with the oculus. You don't get 3D images, but everything is to scale and the headtracking works perfectly. It's very very cool. I went back to the house I grew up in, some cities, etc.

      An interesting sensation, though, was that you were seeing everything from the height of the Google car cameras. And it was pretty strange feeling so tall. [wikimedia.org]

  • What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2014 @06:48PM (#46963645)

    Donning a Rift so you can enjoy virtual sex while your body does the real thing with your wife? FFS. People need to spend less time interacting with their gadgets.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, if I was banging your wife, I'd want to make her look like someone else too.

  • What will they think of next (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Wow, it must have been just like riding a roller coaster.

    • Re:What will they think of next (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jarik C-Bol ( 894741 ) on Friday May 09, 2014 @07:20PM (#46963785)
      The point was, if you can sync up the movements if the meatspace ride with the movements of the virtual ride, you then have an infinitely configurable ride experience, where you can change the visual setting and theme at will. They propose that there could be roller coasters in theme parks that each seat is equipped with a Rift like device, and you could select the theme of your ride, be it say, flying a fighter jet, or racing through an abandoned mine, or dodging asteroids in space, to any other of a galaxy of possibilities.

    • The idea was that once they had the track synched, they could change the virtual world they were moving through (airforce dogfight, space shooter, ride in a barrel down some rapids, etc). The visuals would be more entertaining, but the force feedback would fit perfectly.

      Actually, I can see this being a great ride at a coaster park -- keep one coaster, but everyone dons a headset so you can cycle through a bunch of "experiences" using the same track. Keeps people coming back for more.

      The only tricky bit wo

      • Hey... you could even apply this to movie shorts, where the viewer moves through the scene and the force feedback lines up. Movie Theatres meet Roller Coasters... hmm :)

  • So what? How is this even remotely cool? Also, how do you hide a laptop?

  • I'd be a bit nervous putting that much extra load on my neck and then getting on an inertia ride. Seems like there would be a very literal breaking point.

  • Definitely not the first, not by a long shot... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Saturday May 10, 2014 @01:48AM (#46965107)

    LaRonde (SixFlags) in Montreal did experiments with this nearly a year ago:

    https://developer.oculusvr.com... [oculusvr.com]

Slashdot Top Deals

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

Close