Forum Discussion
Idea for an open source locomotion platform! ("LocoVR")
DISCLAIMER: I'm about to launch this as a free open-source project, built from available parts with only a drill press and one or two welds. Please contact me if you're interested to participate...
Hi,
I have been lurking around here for a long time, reading up on all the existing options for movement controllers and locomotion devices. Sitting down on a chair vs using an ODT seems to be a frustrating choice, full of compromises (immersion vs comfort vs price and space requirements...). Yesterday it occured to me that there might be an intuitive solution that is affordable for regular users...
I present you: the "LocoVR" (thanks for the name suggestion!)
It is basically a cross between a small bar stool and a kind of oversized joystick (small deflection [~10°], stiff and tilt resistant) with a swivelling top part (interchangeable for free 360° rotation or spring loaded incremental turning). The shaft is set to a length that allows your feet to barely touch the ground, supporting most of your weight in an upright position! You get on top of the seat with your hips behind the padded crossbar, turn around and lean slightly into the direction you want to move. The axial deflection itself is constrained to a relatively small and safe degree, while your upper body will tend to bend over naturally to gain additional inclination (stand up and take a moment to try and visualize this. Keep in mind that your weight will be supported!).
Advantages:
1) Shifting your balance will fool your vestibular system into thinking that you're actually moving . In this way (and by using the seat orientation as an input) it becomes possible to decouple looking and walking, just like with an omni-directional treadmill.
2) Since you're sitting erect, there is no disconnect between your avatar's view and your lowered position in a chair. I found this to be quite annoying and immersion-breaking, a major disadvantage of playing in a sitting position.
3) It's comfortable: I imagine that running around on a passive treadmill is great, but could actually discourage you from longer gaming sessions once the novelty wears off.
4) It's stowable: breaks down into 4 parts.
5) It's affordable: With good sourcing, it should cost around 100-150 Euro
The recessed end flange acts as a tilt resistant bearing (adjustable by the contact area) in order to support a stable neutral position under one's body weight.
Hi,
I have been lurking around here for a long time, reading up on all the existing options for movement controllers and locomotion devices. Sitting down on a chair vs using an ODT seems to be a frustrating choice, full of compromises (immersion vs comfort vs price and space requirements...). Yesterday it occured to me that there might be an intuitive solution that is affordable for regular users...
I present you: the "LocoVR" (thanks for the name suggestion!)
It is basically a cross between a small bar stool and a kind of oversized joystick (small deflection [~10°], stiff and tilt resistant) with a swivelling top part (interchangeable for free 360° rotation or spring loaded incremental turning). The shaft is set to a length that allows your feet to barely touch the ground, supporting most of your weight in an upright position! You get on top of the seat with your hips behind the padded crossbar, turn around and lean slightly into the direction you want to move. The axial deflection itself is constrained to a relatively small and safe degree, while your upper body will tend to bend over naturally to gain additional inclination (stand up and take a moment to try and visualize this. Keep in mind that your weight will be supported!).
Advantages:
1) Shifting your balance will fool your vestibular system into thinking that you're actually moving . In this way (and by using the seat orientation as an input) it becomes possible to decouple looking and walking, just like with an omni-directional treadmill.
2) Since you're sitting erect, there is no disconnect between your avatar's view and your lowered position in a chair. I found this to be quite annoying and immersion-breaking, a major disadvantage of playing in a sitting position.
3) It's comfortable: I imagine that running around on a passive treadmill is great, but could actually discourage you from longer gaming sessions once the novelty wears off.
4) It's stowable: breaks down into 4 parts.
5) It's affordable: With good sourcing, it should cost around 100-150 Euro
The recessed end flange acts as a tilt resistant bearing (adjustable by the contact area) in order to support a stable neutral position under one's body weight.
8 Replies
- It's a cool idea, but I think at it's core you're talking about using body lean as a locomotion controller, and it's far far simpler to use something like the Wii balance-board (connects to computer through bluetooth, sends balance-data through OSC) or a StinkyBoard (emulates WASD by using feet to operate large pedals) for that kind of input.
In my brain, the less moving parts you require
a) the cheaper the device
b) the longer the device will last
Plus I feel like that thing would hurt my man-parts. :P
However, I do agree that we need some kind of locomotion platform (I call them 'walkers') that doesn't require sitting-down, since the height mismatch is immersion-breaking... "mptp" wrote:
It's a cool idea, but I think at it's core you're talking about using body lean as a locomotion controller, and it's far far simpler to use something like the Wii balance-board (connects to computer through bluetooth, sends balance-data through OSC) or a StinkyBoard (emulates WASD by using feet to operate large pedals) for that kind of input.
As in this video here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GadgRFIXJo
I think you're missing something. There's two problems that I see:
a) The board is fixed on the ground, thus it can only emulate an analog stick by itself. ODTs also measure your RELATIVE motion by comparing the signal with your orientation (from the sensor inside the ring). The stool gets this data by keeping track of the seat rotation.
b) You will tire quickly without a support..."mptp" wrote:
Plus I feel like that thing would hurt my man-parts. :P
The seat?It's going to be made out of foam!Wait, that's a bad idea. How about a custom shaped recess? :D
I have edited the original post to include my concept for the axis-base assembly. The end flange acts as a tilt resistant bearing (within certain limits), which is necessary to support a neutral position under one's body weight.
Now that I think about it...perhaps this could be turned into an open-source project? It would be interesting to hear another couple of opinions...- When I was experimenting with a balanceboard, I used the left-right lean to control turning. With some fancy algorithms it was a very natural way to move around. I dispensed with strafing altogether since it's a ridiculous movement pattern that nobody ever does in real life. It was only invented in the first place because we didn't have HMDs to allow us to look in one direction and move in another. :P
And I apologise, you're right - I didn't realise that you could rotate around on the seat. That introduces a new set of difficulties though:
Say you're running forwards on your joystick by leaning forward, and you want to turn around while running (So that you end up running in a 'U' shape). If the only way to turn is by physically turning your body around (leaving aside the question of cable-strangling), that means that your hips will be turning in a wide circle, with radius equal to the distance from the centre axis of the 'joystick' that you are leaning to get the forward motion. The only way to do this without falling over would be to clench your thighs tightly around the seat and hang on for dear life - not exactly ideal, I think!
I'm assuming the lean would be slight enough that you wouldn't have to worry about falling off, however, so this is unlikely to be a huge problem.
Don't get me wrong though, I do like the idea quite a bit. If the hypothetical price were to end up being under $200 or so, I could totally see this being a viable way to move around in VR. You'd just have to do lots of tweaking with the early prototypes to make sure it was comfortable and natural. :D "mptp" wrote:
When I was experimenting with a balanceboard, I used the left-right lean to control turning. With some fancy algorithms it was a very natural way to move around. I dispensed with strafing altogether since it's a ridiculous movement pattern that nobody ever does in real life. It was only invented in the first place because we didn't have HMDs to allow us to look in one direction and move in another. :P
I reckon you translated the signal into discrete steps so as not to get sick?
Have you heard about the so called "VR Comfort mode" that was popularized by cloudheadgames, i.e. snap-turning with the right stick? I think that will become the standard way of turning while seated...at least it seems like a decent compromise.
I agree, strafing is ridiculous. But they probably won't abolish it altogether as long as VR gaming mainly caters to a seated audience. Being able to decouple looking and moving was the main motivation behind my idea..."mptp" wrote:
And I apologise, you're right - I didn't realise that you could rotate around on the seat. That introduces a new set of difficulties though:
It was probably a bad idea to compare this to a joystick. People do get a wrong visualization of how this thing should behave... the deflection range will be minimal, just a couple of degrees. Most of the inclination comes from the upper body that will naturally tend to bend over.
Walking and turning should pose no problem.
Despite the small deflection, sensitivity should be good due to the interplay of high resistance vs high force from your hips. Though this may require an unconventional solution for reading out the signal. I have no idea about this field to be honest...
I keep on editing the text and images of my original post and cross-post on mtbs, to be as clear as possible :D. Also, I changed the concept to transmit the thrust via a crossbar (a rough estimate showed that the required force would be too big for merely holding on with the thighs...). This of course eliminates the tentative option of dismounting to crouch, etc. But hey, you can't have everything I guess..."mptp" wrote:
Don't get me wrong though, I do like the idea quite a bit. If the hypothetical price were to end up being under $200 or so, I could totally see this being a viable way to move around in VR. You'd just have to do lots of tweaking with the early prototypes to make sure it was comfortable and natural. :D
Yes, it should be a simple and efficient design in theory, but it's the tweaking part with the associated material expenses that is scaring me away from building my own prototype. It wouldn't bother me at all if someone took this up and turned it into a Kickstarter...- You know, you could probably make a ghetto prototype with a bicycle seat, a plank of wood, a thick board of wood, something that rotates, four pressure sensors and an iPhone.
Attach the seat to the plank of wood, sit on it and grip it with your thighs (just for testing).
Attach the plank of wood to the board of wood in such a way that it can rotate around freely.
Rig it up such that leaning forward on the plank will put pressure onto a 'forward' pressure sensor. Repeat for all orthogonal directions.
Use your iPhone with the app ('Control') outputting OSC data to your computer to get the angle that you're facing on the stick.
Tada! Ready for Unity. Maybe $30 for the pressure sensors and another $20 for the wood and extra stuff. ;)
I would do it myself but I'm not as sold on the idea as you. So off you go! - You could make the pressure sensors. What I do is use some of the foam that they use to pack IC in when you buy them. This material is Semi -conductive and has a measurable amount of resistive force, the amount can be found when you buy, unless you have some lying around then you'll have to experiment. Here is a link(http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Ridiculously-Cheap-Analog-Pressure-S/ that will help you. These sensors are very basic and work VERY well.
"lmaceleighton" wrote:
You could make the pressure sensors. What I do is use some of the foam that they use to pack IC in when you buy them. This material is Semi -conductive and has a measurable amount of resistive force, the amount can be found when you buy, unless you have some lying around then you'll have to experiment. Here is a link(http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Ridiculously-Cheap-Analog-Pressure-S/ that will help you. These sensors are very basic and work VERY well.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and do a proper build according to my latest revision (see first post). It will be based on unicycle parts and simply measure the tilt via an accelerometer (very cheap), while a 360° servo pot will take care of the orientation.- Yes!!
Let us know how it goes, take many many photos! :D
