I've just moved my VR to the next level - with motion

blastard

blastard
Hi Commanders.
I've been playing ED since the Jan after its release and with DK2 in May same year. Played first 18 months standing up!. Got a CV1 on release, a new 1080 and then thought about using a seat coz I wanted to go exploring (so long time just looking about and jumping place to place). Built a pilots seat from an exec leather chair last summer and spent time enhancing it with mini HD screen for using EDdiscovery easily, hotas mount and beer holder. I've over 1200hrs in VR so far in ED. The chair worked well and the VR is brill - but I wanted a little more.

Just spent winter giving it motion with 2DOF (to start with). I finished it a few weeks back. Have completed 50hrs flight-time so far using it exclusively for ED, sometimes for 8hr near-continuous play. IMO It really makes ED come alive in VR even more. The motion feels good and realistic. My mind actually thinks I'm doing real barrel rolls!. Currently 40kLy from Sol on my way back from a 3 month exploration trip but I can't wait to use this in combat. Oh - and I've spilt beer over myself more than once!
Here is a quick vid of my 'mostly harmless' son playing an ED combat tutorial to show it in action - amazing what a couple of wiper motors, arduino, wiring and code can do. Lots on the web if your interested, or I'm happy to advise.
Fly safe;
CMDR Blastard
[video=youtube_share;_uMLaU5ESa4]https://youtu.be/_uMLaU5ESa4[/video]
 
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blastard

blastard
taotoo said:
Wow that's great. Never new wiper motors were so powerful.
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These ones are not very powerful at all, but with a bit of geometry and some small gas struts, they are power enough for this. I'm really pleased with it. One of the few occasions when outcome exceeded expectation. Me and the seat come in at 80ish kg (son is similar weight to me). It can really heave you around and escaping from a neutron cone is like being on a roller coaster. I'm sure I have a snippet of vid showing that. Will try and find it and post. Quite scary motion - good job i fitted an EM stop button just in case.

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Hell Razor5543 said:
If you want more movement with VR, Oculus have just dropped the price of the Touch equipment. I have already ordered it, at £99.
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Hi,
with voice attack and touch-type I've pretty well got it all covered. Besides, Ive quite a bit of kit all around me now so not a lot of arm/hand movement space.
Good idea though, thanks - maybe in the future as I modify more and ED gives us more things to do.
 
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Yaffle

Volunteer Moderator
Yaffle
PetroVitallini said:
I thought ED didn't provide telemetry. Am I wrong or do you use some other way of getting motion ques?
Click to expand...

My guess would be reading controller inputs and reacting to those? There was a brief shot of the software in there but I failed to read it.
 

blastard

blastard
It can work from joystick or hotas, using a joystick plugin program and dedicated motion simulator software. However here is a plugin for ED that is produced thanks to a dedicated team of motion sim folks that translates the motion from game to simulator.
We'd love an ED api that includes motion position data output.
 

WolfishHickory

W
I MUST do this! Been thinking about it so long. Have very few skills in the area but reckon I could do it given time. Awesome work.

2 questions:

-Would it be possible (maybe you have it already) to have a sudden tilt back and then release when the throttle is pushed forward to simulate the g-forces? It seems like it would be possible within the available DsOF...
-Can't tell from the vid, but do you have to have the oculus tracker(s) attached to and moving with the chair? Surely if they are on the desk its like your chair's being thrown around the cockpit in-game?
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
blastard said:
Hi Commanders.
I've been playing ED since the Jan after its release and with DK2 in May same year. Played first 18 months standing up!. Got a CV1 on release, a new 1080 and then thought about using a seat coz I wanted to go exploring (so long time just looking about and jumping place to place). Built a pilots seat from an exec leather chair last summer and spent time enhancing it with mini HD screen for using EDdiscovery easily, hotas mount and beer holder. I've over 1200hrs in VR so far in ED. The chair worked well and the VR is brill - but I wanted a little more.

Just spent winter giving it motion with 2DOF (to start with). I finished it a few weeks back. Have completed 50hrs flight-time so far using it exclusively for ED, sometimes for 8hr near-continuous play. IMO It really makes ED come alive in VR even more. The motion feels good and realistic. My mind actually thinks I'm doing real barrel rolls!. Currently 40kLy from Sol on my way back from a 3 month exploration trip but I can't wait to use this in combat. Oh - and I've spilt beer over myself more than once!
Here is a quick vid of my 'mostly harmless' son playing an ED combat tutorial to show it in action - amazing what a couple of wiper motors, arduino, wiring and code can do. Lots on the web if your interested, or I'm happy to advise.
Fly safe;
CMDR Blastard
https://youtu.be/_uMLaU5ESa4
Click to expand...

I would have thought that when you put your joystick down, you want the seat to go back to simulate the g-forces, and the same when going from side to side. Just a suggestion.
 

=71st=RuSh

=71st=RuSh
Question, with the Oculus you dont need to set the game in SIDE BY SIDE mode for 3D? which software split the image for a 3D vision?
 

TorTorden_VR

T
=71st=RuSh said:
Question, with the Oculus you dont need to set the game in SIDE BY SIDE mode for 3D? which software split the image for a 3D vision?
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It's a special mode on the 3d setting for hmd's (head mounted display) like rift, vive etc.
And nothing like 3d vision or previous versions of 3d.
I guess it will look for the service that's installed and running with either rifts or steamvr.


@OP.

This looks amaze balls, and I have to at least explore how to get it for myself.
Been contemplating a sim-pit ish setup and this would knock it out of the park.
 
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blastard

blastard
Max Factor said:
I would have thought that when you put your joystick down, you want the seat to go back to simulate the g-forces, and the same when going from side to side. Just a suggestion.
Click to expand...

Hi Max,
That's how I've set it up. When I pull back on the joystick (which is what I'm assuming you mean by 'joystick down'), the seat tips back to simulate the g-force and motion of pitching up and vice-versa for joystick forward. Likewise, if I joystick left (roll left), the seat tips to the left and vice-versa for roll right. These effects work well in ED with 2 degrees of freedom.
On the otherhand and in the 'real world', if you imagine driving a car at speed and suddenly turning the steering left, the resultant force would make your body try and move to the right. This effect would give a more realistic effect although it would not work very well in ED (with 2dof) as the resultant forces are relatively small and change frequently while gaming (when compared to car driving in the real world).
 
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=71st=RuSh

=71st=RuSh
TorTorden said:
It's a special mode on the 3d setting for hmd's (head mounted display) like rift, vive etc.
And nothing like 3d vision or previous versions of 3d.
I guess it will look for the service that's installed and running with either rifts or steamvr.


@OP.

This looks amaze balls, and I have to at least explore how to get it for myself.
Been contemplating a sim-pit ish setup and this would knock it out of the park.
Click to expand...

Ahh thanks! very helpfull!
 

blastard

blastard
WolfishHickory said:
I MUST do this! Been thinking about it so long. Have very few skills in the area but reckon I could do it given time. Awesome work.

2 questions:

-Would it be possible (maybe you have it already) to have a sudden tilt back and then release when the throttle is pushed forward to simulate the g-forces? It seems like it would be possible within the available DsOF...
-Can't tell from the vid, but do you have to have the oculus tracker(s) attached to and moving with the chair? Surely if they are on the desk its like your chair's being thrown around the cockpit in-game?
Click to expand...



Hmmm, in answer to your two questions,
Anything is possible. I actually have an effect similar to this now but not in the way you've stated. When jumping I don't always have my crosshair pointed directly at the target system, but either slightly below or slightly above it. Then when the jump engines kick in and the crosshair and target system align, the chair moves quickly to suit this giving the effect of acceleration for a split second or 2.

I use a single oculus tracker and its on my desk not mounted to the chair. I'm not convinced it will make a major difference mounting it on the chair as the distances between the two (tracker and chair) are not excessive, however, I may see what (if any) difference it makes to the experience by trying it chair-mounted, to see if it is worth the change.

thanks for the questions.
CMDR Blastard
 

blastard

blastard
Mr_sukebe said:
OP, great job, nice one.
Gotta ask, how much was it?
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Hi Mr_sukebe
Good question!, chair £50 from house clearance shop round the corner, around £100 for the microcontroller and the h-bridge motor driver boards (I destroyed 2 of these drivers during r&d), a couple of 50A 12v DC power supplies for £45, some custom software for £50ish, £60 for two new wiper motors, £30 for mechanical fixings, £15 for some gas struts plus a load of steel for the base (which I already had), car steering shaft for the universal joint (which I already had) and a lot of cutting, grinding, welding, bolting-together, some coding setup for the microcontroller, a fair bit of soldering and general wiring then lots of inspection and testing/tweaking and setting it up to work with the pc (all of which I did).
I'd say easily less than £500 (not including any labour time).
I did quite a bit of r&d to get to what you see here (maybe 30 hrs worth of research and 30 hrs building/modifying it). Time is the commodity that building one eats a lot of.
CMDR Blastard

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paulkemp said:
This is next level man! Great work.
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many thanks CMDR!
 
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