Live data from Hacker News

Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

kickstarter.com

81–90 of 117 posts

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#81

Looks fun, but seems a bit gimmicky to me. Why would you use something that is extra physical effort to use and makes you worse at gaming? I presume people will only really play games against other people using these, which means that the community will be very small. On the other hand, I could imagine these or something like these making the gym more fun as a fitness thing rather than a gaming thing.

> Why would you use something that is extra physical effort to use and makes you worse at gaming?

Fun.

Did you miss the Dance Dance Revolution mats, the Guitar Hero guitars, the light gun games, DK Bongos, etc etc?

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#82
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that in real life you almost never strafe. Just look at any footage ( or a movie ) of soldiers/police. No strafing. Games made us believe that we need it.

Untrue. If wearing a vest, taking a corner involves side-stepping, and in any urban combat situation you'll spend a very high proportion of your time doing that. Source: Urban combat training, FDF.

Of course in reality you move in every direction, even perpendicular to your direction.( Omni supports side_stepping.)

I define strafing ( in games ) as running sideways at the same speed as running forward ( as in most shooters ) , which is not done in real life.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#83

Watch the first couple of videos.. It's pretty clever and cool. Doesn't look like it'll be fat friendly. All that aside, let's pretend like we're responsible adults for a second. The video, especially the end of the first, sort've makes me think this might be the "line". People have talked about violence in video games, and realism, and for the most part I don't think there is any real issue today, it's all malarkey.…

There's some dejavu for you. I remember this exact same discussion when "Wolfenstein 3d" hit the scene. That 3d killing of Nazis was sure to be "the line". The secret jumped out at me when I read that drone pilots were getting real, bona-fide combat PTSD just from pushing the button while looking at those grainy monochrome heat images. People (almost all of them) know the difference between real and imaginary. "The L…

One of the documented side effects of virtual reality is a mental disease called derealization , which makes people feel like real life isn't real, and causes a lot of anxiety.

Also there's the fact that military training conditions people to kill automatically without thinking and the fact that virtual reality has a proven ability to decondition people with PTSD or fear of spiders(with real results in real life), which is basically the same psychological process of military conditioning.

All this raises interesting questions about "the line" between real and virtual , that at least be tested before wide scale deployment of VR.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#84
post #29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

Because something capable of achieving that currently looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-8eVcN2z3k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msci440q18s Think about it. How do you accomodate movement along multiple axis simultaneously using treadmill technology in a compact, affordable, game-room-sized package?

There's also this one: http://youtu.be/nQR49JGySTM

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#88
post #75
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see how in the future instead of "going to gym", we simply "play games" to exercise, and it's a lot more fun to do it, too!

Isn't that how most people have exercised for years?

"...to exercise"

Yes, people have played games instead of going to the gym, but I wouldn't call that "exercising". I guess you could put Wii/Kinect in this category, but even those are pretty static compared to this. You're actually running on this.

Re: Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

#89
post #74

I'm really looking forward to the next generation of consumer gaming VR once all the kinks have been worked out. With any luck, the problems and shortcomings of the Oculus Rift and the Omni will be solved within a couple years, and we'll be able to buy a fully usable VR rig for something like $1500 (glasses, treadmill, handheld controller). And we'll have games designed specifically for it.

Right but the point here is, that you dont NEED a specially designed game. if it supports 3d and keyboard/mouse, it supports omni and oculus rift
Post reply on HN