What is the state of VR treadmills in December 2016 ?

[HiThere_]

At a time when Oculus is doing front facing standing VR, HTC Vive is doing roomscale, everyone seems to be replacing foot movement with teleportation mechanics (or even not moving at all), and Virtuix Omni is cancelling international pre-orders as it switches from an affordable home product to an expensive high end public product... I am left wondering what the state of VR treadmills in December 2016 is...

Like does anyone here currently own one, and more importantly (manage to) use one on the Oculus Store products ?

[Kevinaki]

arttek said:

Assuming some of these are accessible, it looks like a lot of these Treadmills are using specialized shoes. What I'm wondering is how practical it would be for Guests? Part of the fun of VR for me is sharing it with others, and entertaining people with it. Buying various shoe in different sizes seems a bit much.

I remember seeing some demos using just socks, so I'm not sure if that's an option for all of them.

Yup. I added the most typical shoe sizes to my Omni order because you're right, it's not really fun if you can't share your new toy with others to experience. The best times I had during the holidays were watching my family and friends take turns playing the various VR games and experiences. Now everyone wants one  😄

[Anonymous]

kcampbell said:

arttek said:

Assuming some of these are accessible, it looks like a lot of these Treadmills are using specialized shoes. What I'm wondering is how practical it would be for Guests? Part of the fun of VR for me is sharing it with others, and entertaining people with it. Buying various shoe in different sizes seems a bit much.

I remember seeing some demos using just socks, so I'm not sure if that's an option for all of them.

Yup. I added the most typical shoe sizes to my Omni order because you're right, it's not really fun if you can't share your new toy with others to experience. The best times I had during the holidays were watching my family and friends take turns playing the various VR games and experiences. Now everyone wants one  😄

Do you know if the shoes actually have sensors? Or is the treadmill pressure sensitive? Or a combination of both? If it just needs a slick shoe/sock, perhaps that part may be easier to come by with 3rd party involvement. Or.. just new socks? 

[JakemanOculus]

edmg said:

JakemanOculus said:

edmg said:

So in the Brave New Future of VR, everything has to match the layout of my house?

Not a lot of room for a Skyrim dungeon in my basement, dude.

If you start with the requirement that everything must fit in your basement then you have to use a treadmill.

Hmm, that's a funny requirement.  You don't see that come up when people are arguing for room scale.  With room scale people ignore the boundaries of the physical area and purport the ability to freely move about.  Ignoring the physical boundaries is part of the fallacy.  I am glad you recognize that.  But if you truly want to do away with physical boundaries then you have to go untethered inside out tracking so you can do X-scale.  You are right... basements are not X-sized so you have to go out into the real world generally.

You're claiming that the future of VR is everyone walking around the real world and the computer translating that into a game environment. That means every single VR game has to match your real environment. That means the vast majority of current games will be impossible. To walk across Skyrim, I'll have to walk three miles through something that's laid out exactly like a modern city.

Which part of this is proving difficult to understand?

Corrections:

> You're claiming that the future of VR is everyone walking around the real world
> and the computer translating that into a game environment.

Actually you are claiming that.  You did it before with your video and I already corrected you.

I am saying that the future of locomotion is in untethered augmented VR.  The reason is simple.  This format offers cheap, large scale with real movement.  That is a major value proposition for immersion which pure virtual reality cannot hope to match.

Purely virtualized movement systems that achieve accuracy and a feeling of realness are not even on the radar.  Even the most sophisticated and expensive omnidirectional treadmills can't do anything more than flat terrain which is hugely limiting.

> That means every single VR game has to match your real environment.

You are talking about VR again, not augmented VR.  But yes, the point of augmented VR is to map virtual objects on top of real ones.  The game fits the real world.  There is huge value potential for games like this.

> That means the vast majority of current games will be impossible.

I am glad you recognize this.  Realistic, versatile, virtualized movement systems don't exist.  For example, none of the current virtual movement systems can emulate stairs.  In contrast, untethered augmented VR can use real objects and real movement which is 100% realistic and costs nothing.

> To walk across Skyrim, I'll have to walk three miles through something that's laid
> out exactly like a modern city.

Skyrim really is a terrible game for VR.  It was never made for VR let alone augmented VR.

> Which part of this is proving difficult to understand?

I understand you perfectly.