Motion sickness mostly solved in Hydra walking environment
Yesterday I had my first walk around in my 3D environment without motion sickness: a wonderful experience! In this post I want to share the way I have done this.
My setup is as follows:
- Oculus Rift Developer kit
- Razer Hydra
- Unity3D
- realistic 3D model of a historic town.
The Oculus Rift tracker is driving the head movements, the body and arms movements are driven by the Hydra.
Looking around in the model was not unpleasant, but walking around got me (slightly) sick. I was using the left analog stick for moving around: up/down for forward/backward motion, left/right for turning left/right. Walking speed is matched to normal walking speed, rotation speed is set slow to about 15 degrees/second.
Then the following idea came to me: in most cases you hands (or actually, the Hydra hand devices) are pointing in the direction your body is facing... Would it work when the orientation of the body matched the average orientation of the hydra's?
So I took the Y rotation of both Hydra 'hands', averaged them and assigned this orientation to the body (in short). Now you hands are driving the rotation of the body, so no need for the left/right axis any more on the analog stick.
My first tests worked out wonderful: the body is almost every time facing the direction I expect. Better even: slight deviations do not seem to be a problem: body orientation does not prove to be as critical as head orientation. I can walk around in the direction my physical body is facing. To turn around I have to turn on the spot.
The forward motion (still with the analog stick) still seemed a bit strange but then I started to 'walk on the spot': just move the legs up and down in a walking motion and everything fit together wonderfully! (besides my wife entering the room asking about the sound my feet made on the wooden floor...)
Then the downsides:
* The Razer Hydra is wired, so I must be weary not to turn more than 360 degrees. This will be solve in time when the STEM system will be released.
* The Rift is wired. Guess we need a wireless Rift too then, in order not to strangle myself...
* Physical drift: the walking on the spot and turning on the spot did not prove to be completely 'on the spot'. When I took off my Rift I saw I drifted away about half a meter. I am planning to see if I can solve this by placing a disk with a rim on the floor. When my feet feel the rim I will realize that I am drifting and will be able to correct my position.
Of course the Virtuix Omni may give a better experience, but as I don't have it, this seems to be the next best thing.
Pascal.
My setup is as follows:
- Oculus Rift Developer kit
- Razer Hydra
- Unity3D
- realistic 3D model of a historic town.
The Oculus Rift tracker is driving the head movements, the body and arms movements are driven by the Hydra.
Looking around in the model was not unpleasant, but walking around got me (slightly) sick. I was using the left analog stick for moving around: up/down for forward/backward motion, left/right for turning left/right. Walking speed is matched to normal walking speed, rotation speed is set slow to about 15 degrees/second.
Then the following idea came to me: in most cases you hands (or actually, the Hydra hand devices) are pointing in the direction your body is facing... Would it work when the orientation of the body matched the average orientation of the hydra's?
So I took the Y rotation of both Hydra 'hands', averaged them and assigned this orientation to the body (in short). Now you hands are driving the rotation of the body, so no need for the left/right axis any more on the analog stick.
My first tests worked out wonderful: the body is almost every time facing the direction I expect. Better even: slight deviations do not seem to be a problem: body orientation does not prove to be as critical as head orientation. I can walk around in the direction my physical body is facing. To turn around I have to turn on the spot.
The forward motion (still with the analog stick) still seemed a bit strange but then I started to 'walk on the spot': just move the legs up and down in a walking motion and everything fit together wonderfully! (besides my wife entering the room asking about the sound my feet made on the wooden floor...)
Then the downsides:
* The Razer Hydra is wired, so I must be weary not to turn more than 360 degrees. This will be solve in time when the STEM system will be released.
* The Rift is wired. Guess we need a wireless Rift too then, in order not to strangle myself...
* Physical drift: the walking on the spot and turning on the spot did not prove to be completely 'on the spot'. When I took off my Rift I saw I drifted away about half a meter. I am planning to see if I can solve this by placing a disk with a rim on the floor. When my feet feel the rim I will realize that I am drifting and will be able to correct my position.
Of course the Virtuix Omni may give a better experience, but as I don't have it, this seems to be the next best thing.
Pascal.