Razer Hydra Backpack

"Felix12g" wrote:
If one of these won't mess with the tracking on a dev kit I'd be very happy.
...
My assumption was based on gross movements of a simulator being sensed by the kit and passing it on as supposed movement of the player.

Hmm, I guess a better way to put it was an assumption based on the gravity direction changing in relation to the player's orientation as well as acceleration felt by the gross rotations?

The device controlling the simulator "gross rotations" knows how it is moving (because it is in control). Those gross rotations can be subtracted from (or fused with) the Rift tracker and Razer Hydra sensors.

People are already doing this stuff. The military has done it in flight simulator cockpits for quite some time. No magic there.

"Shigawire" wrote:
geekmaster, the sensors in the Rift sense movement/rotation in relation to Earth, right? 3 Accelerometers, 3 Magnetometers, 3 Gyroscopes. In that korean rally driving video, I mostly just see vibration, very limited axis rotation. I'm still thinking the sensors in the rift will be confused by a motion platform making large movements.

But if the sensors in the rift won't be confused by a motion platform, that would be SWEET.

Felix, that Force Dynamics setup looks UBER. Too bad I don't have the space for it. :D

The acceleration and gyro sensors only sense motion relative to themselves. The magnetic sensor detects the geomagnetic field.

Vibration can be compensated, measured, or filtered. Movement in a vehicle or ride will be no different from body movements.

Using a Razer Hydra (the thread topic) will NOT be subject to vibration because the coils are firmly mounted. The base will need to be firmly attached to a belt or harness to prevent wobble, but that is easy enough to accomplish. Probably better to mount it in a helmet like the holodeck project, to make sensor fusion with the Rift easier to compute (less skeletal prediction).

geekmaster, ok. But what I think you're saying is that it's no problem as long as you are doing it the right way.
I think we were talking beyond each other. I was talking about how the Oculus Rift (consumer version with pos tracking) will be affected by the motion platform out of the box (with no razer hydra etc). Because it depends on what the reference for the Rift's position will be.

In short: If I bought the Atomic + Rift, would it work out of the box without giving the Rift false sensory data?

If it wouldn't work out of the box, would it be possible to f.ex. place the Sixense Stem on your head/rift - and place the sixense station somewhere on the motion platform? Because then the Rift's reference would be in relation to the chair.
You say the Sixense station will NOT be subject to vibration, you mean it is a bad idea?

"Shigawire" wrote:
You say the Sixense station will NOT be subject to vibration, you mean it is a bad idea?

No, it is a good idea. The Hydra sensors measure their position relative to the coils in the base unit, regardless of and independent to any motion (or vibration) that it is using. In a simulator, you know the position of the point where the base is mounted (because you control its motion), so you calculate the position of the Hydra controllers relative to that.

We do not really care about the position of our hands relative to the world most of the time. We mostly care about them relative to our head (i.e. Rift head tracking sensors), which works best when using a "holodeck project" type of helmet to which the Hydra base is mounted.

With more Hydra (compatible) controllers such as the future Sixense wireless product, we can mount one controller to the simulator frame or chair, and computer the hand and Rift positions relative to the known frame position. Or for now, we can attach one the Hydra base unit to our head or to the simulator frame, and a Hydra controlelr to our frame (or head). Either method will work. Or wait for Consumer Rift head position tracking. Or use optical tracking. Or even better, fuse multiple tracking sensor sources.

Sweet! I just can't wait to get this thing working. Gonna be playing lots of Star Citizen and IL-2 Sturmovik with it.
:D

"Shigawire" wrote:
Sweet! I just can't wait to get this thing working. Gonna be playing lots of Star Citizen and IL-2 Sturmovik with it.
:D

Hehe THIS! MY 2 most anticipated tiles as well! The hangar module is close!:)

"Shigawire" wrote:
I have a question. I've been looking at a full motion simulator chair, and how to make it work with the Oculus Rift.
I've been looking at the Atomic models of motion simulator chairs http://www.joyridesimulators.com
I called the electric engineer who made it, and made him aware of the following problem.. and he agreed it was a challenge that needs a solution.

Here's the problem:
In case you have a rotating "ground surface", such as in a motion simulator, would it be possible to "offset" Oculus Rift motion/rotation with rotation data from the motion platform? If you are playing a flight or space sim, you don't want the motion platform to affect your Rift head rotation. You want the head rotation to be "rooted" to the motion platform somehow. And since all the Rift sensors are primarily focused toward the Earth, I think the rift might be easily confused by the motion platform. One solution is: Offset all Rift motion by the opposite of the motion from the motion platform - but you need the correct "arm length" so that it's based on where your "head" position is at in neutral.

I made this flowchart to quickly sketch my idea out. The question is: Is it possible to make such a real time or dynamic offset override to the Oculus Rift head tracker sensors? What would be the total latency cost to such a proposal? Any changes you think should be made to the flowchart? Thanks

http://24.media.tumblr.com/efba5f8d0f87d232b22dfca2d3a3e9c4/tumblr_mqrv303gIb1sdtc3vo1_1280.png

Hi Shigawire,

I am the lead developer for Atomic Motion Systems (formerly JoyRide) and can indeed confirm AMS are working on solving this problem as we speak, with the intention the solution will be integrated into our Simphynity software in the very near future. We have Rift Dev kits inhouse now and are working through the necessary firmware / software changes to required - furthermore, extra game support is being introduced, and news should be available on our website soon. The Atomic motion simulators have a far greater range of motion than similar products yet retain a very small footprint, making them perfect to be used in conjunction with a device such as the Rift in small spaces, particularly for flight, driving and 'on-rails' type simulations - you are correct that as a consequence we need to offset the head tracking as you may expect. As an aside, using our in-house tools we can also (accurately) support software retrospectively, so expect to also be able to get our products working with demos such as Titans of Space or RiftCoaster which we fully expect to be sensational!

News of developments will be available in coming weeks.

http://www.atomicmotionsystems.com

Happy Rifting :D

I beleive that GVS is better tactic to get you to feel the motion than actual motion simulators due to their obvious physical limitations, side effects such as great amounts of noise, and the price - the cheapest thing you can get is above $5000.

The technology been studied over many years and there's a lot of papers. However, there's no consumer version so far.

Coupled with the Rift, it would give 100% motion immersion and will 100% eliminate motion sickness. This also opens possibility to "expose" player to extreme conditions - overloads and zero G - imagine playing coaster demo that not only looks like a rollercoaster, but actually feels like a rollercoaster! Of course you're still not getting haptic feedback - you won't feel being pushed against the chair when your space motorbike boosts up violently, but you do will feel acceleration like you're riding a rocket that accelerates at 10G. Racing and flying experiences will be literally breathtaking, not to mention zero gravity experience, which you can simulate by cancelling out vertical gravity feedback from the ear.

"raidho36" wrote:
I beleive that GVS is better tactic to get you to feel the motion than actual motion simulators due to their obvious physical limitations, side effects such as great amounts of noise, and the price - the cheapest thing you can get is above $5000.

The technology been studied over many years and there's a lot of papers. However, there's no consumer version so far.

Coupled with the Rift, it would give 100% motion immersion and will 100% eliminate motion sickness. This also opens possibility to "expose" player to extreme conditions - overloads and zero G - imagine playing coaster demo that not only looks like a rollercoaster, but actually feels like a rollercoaster! Of course you're still not getting haptic feedback - you won't feel being pushed against the chair when your space motorbike boosts up violently, but you do will feel acceleration like you're riding a rocket that accelerates at 10G. Racing and flying experiences will be literally breathtaking, not to mention zero gravity experience, which you can simulate by cancelling out vertical gravity feedback from the ear.

Granted, GVS is indeed an interesting approach (namely for smoother motion sensations such as flight or coaster), however in practice is rather limited and you will never get the same agressive motion fidelity a high-velocity motion simulator can afford you - particularly for applications like racing and rallying. Smaller motion simulators such as the Atomic are not particularly noisy (slight actuator whine at most), yet still offer the same sensations as much larger models, and the forthcoming A3 model is expected to be virtually silent due to a number of important changes to the way actuators are controlled - all this with a typical power consumption of less than 100w. Early experimentation yields excellent results when the Rift is used in combination with a mechanical motion simulator, and with the advent of such complementary technologies we're currently investigating a number of ways of reducing costs to offer more affordable alternative products. I believe were you to try it out first hand you would be pleasantly suprised at just what an amazing experience it is! :)

Motion platform discussion should have it's own thread, I almost missed this one. I always thought pairing a HMD with a motion platform was a no-brainer. But just like the Rift made a decent high FOV HMD affordable, someone needs to come up with an ingenious design of a motion platform (a different way of doing it) that costs less than a car. With VR now doable on the cheap it might make sense to use a motion base that you can attach a chair to, or a fake motorcycle body, or a horse saddle, or anything else you want to simulate. I don't know if I'd want to use electrodes to feel motion, but I might not mind wearing haptic pants.

"KydDynoMyte" wrote:
Motion platform discussion should have it's own thread, I almost missed this one. I always thought pairing a HMD with a motion platform was a no-brainer. But just like the Rift made a decent high FOV HMD affordable, someone needs to come up with an ingenious design of a motion platform (a different way of doing it) that costs less than a car. With VR now doable on the cheap it might make sense to use a motion base that you can attach a chair to, or a fake motorcycle body, or a horse saddle, or anything else you want to simulate. I don't know if I'd want to use electrodes to feel motion, but I might not mind wearing haptic pants.

Hi KydDynoMyte,

We are currently working on techniques to reduce the cost of motion simulation to make it affordable to more people by means of such bare-bones kits - more information should hopefully be available towards the end of this year. Unfortunately this sort of technology will always be at a bit of a premium just because of the sort of robustness required when providing any kind of meaningful (i.e. large range) movement - a lot of people resort to DIY simulator building as a result which is where our kits will hopefully help to reduce costs. The intention is they will provide scability for both degrees of freedom (no. of movement axis) required and force requirements (payload - e.g. from that required for a home user with a single seat up to large multi-seat plaforms), and all function with our market-leading SIMPHYNITY software to provide extensive game support (and Rift/HMD specific compatibility features).

Chris J
AMS