Chasing immersion
Virtual reality is really awesome for some game genres. The Oculus demonstration of Eve: Valkyrie at E3 is a prime example. Other genres, however, have a lot of ground to cover to really maintain the feeling of immersion. The first-person shooter, a staple of PC gaming, is one of those genres.
At E3, Virtuix and Cyberith showed off their ideas of how to address running and walking movement in VR first-person games.
It may sound straightforward, but take a moment to think about all the movements you can execute in an FPS: jumping, crouching, running, strafing, going prone, and of course, teabagging fallen foes.
Virtuix showed a demonstration of their omnidirectional treadmill product, the Omni. (We saw an earlier version of the Omni at GDC back in 2014.) The Omni takes a person, puts them in a harness, and detects their walking and running movements using a slick, concave surface. To an observer, it looks like the user is blindly running in a bowl, unable to escape, with a bizarre expression of wonder gracing their mouth. Imagine a hamster on a wheel that had just been fed sunflower seeds laced with drugs. Kind of like that.
To use the treadmill, the user slips on special shoes that reduce friction on the bowl. The ring around the player supports the harness, and detects which direction the user is facing. The user also holds a rifle, which has its own orientation, allowing the user to look in one direction and fire in another.
Virtuix also had a pair of Marine Corps combat boots on a table, with slip-over pads that covered the outsoles of the boots. Virtuix said that they were indeed working with the US Department of Defense to develop training products, but couldn't go into detail because, you know, war stuff.
Virtuix wasn't the only treadmill peddler in evidence in the E3 halls, either. A coupe of booths down, Cyberith was busy showing off their Virtualizer treadmill. The Virtulizer uses a slightly convex surface in contrast to Virtuix's concave design. Instead of using custom shoes, the user simply slips on oversoles that reduce friction. The resulting display looked like a drunken moonwalking contest for the blind.
Like the Omni, the Virtualizer has a ring that surrounds the user, but the Virtualizer's design features springs that can adjust for vertical variations. (The Omni's ring is rigid.) As users ran, the ring bounced up and down, adjusting for the change in height of their hips.
While these input devices are innovative, they're still too restrictive for true FPS play. Crouching still looks challenging, and prone positions appear impossible with the current designs. We're looking forward to seeing how these and other VR challenges are overcome.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1HUBHuB
