Meant to be Seen

NightlHlawk wrote:Another video showing more movement samples. The above video design definitely looks more elegant. Getting pretty excited to see how this turns out.

ziphnor wrote:That actually looks extremely convincing, not needing special shoes is a big bonus, and not walking on a slope is also a bonus. I wonder if Cyberith are planning a crowd funding campaign any time soon? There would be a good chance i would back them based on what i have seen so far (assuming a reasonable price). Also, good news for people in the EU (like me), Cyberith appears to be based in Austria (at least the cyberith.com domain is registered in Austria), so no $250 shipping cost to Scandinavia like with the Omni.

yomer wrote:-About the jumping. Imagine for a moment you're in a warzone or a mountain. How many times would you really need to jump vertically? Any jumps made would usually be across/over an obstacle. Neither the Omni nor the Virtualizer would allow you to make those kinds of leaps.

yomer wrote:-I for some reason still feel the strides on the Omni are more natural.

yomer wrote:For some reason I'm preferring the idea of having the Omni with the flexible support to allow crouching and jumping. I'll leave my pledge untouched, but I would really be interested in exchanging the fixed support on the Omni with a Virtualizer like support.

Now, about the design of the Virtualizer and game interaction in general:

-I for some reason still feel the strides on the Omni are more natural.
-I feel one could more easily lose balance on the Virtualizer and slip. Given the extremely low friction surface used, I got the impression that He was about to slip on several occasions.
-The Virtualizer has moving parts and it seems that it would need a lot of maintenance given its mechanic nature.
-The best design would make the user feel like (s)he's really walking. No solution get's that perfectly. And watching both products' videos I feel the Omni would feel more natural(walking-wise, not necessarily crouching or jumping).
-About the jumping. Imagine for a moment you're in a warzone or a mountain. How many times would you really need to jump vertically? Any jumps made would usually be across/over an obstacle. Neither the Omni nor the Virtualizer would allow you to make those kinds of leaps.
-And the crouching... even though the Virtualizer does it better, the Omni can be modified to allow something similar and with those modifications would probably give you more stability because of the shape and surface of the dish.

These are all my thoughts and by no means represent the whole truth, but my take on the products. I'm really interested in having these points discussed and corrected.

VRus wrote:

yomer wrote:-I for some reason still feel the strides on the Omni are more natural.

it's looks are deceptive: Omni seams natural because of the very little effort it requires to walk,
but the geometry is crooked towards 'hamster wheel', gemoetrically, it will feel similar to trying to walk upwards
at the very beginning of descending escalator (I'll have to try that...) which IMO will not feel natural

yet i've backed the Omni, hoping the immersion it gives will outweight the little adaptations
that my mind will have to do, just like screendoor of my Rift just fades away with time

blazespinnaker wrote:You make some good points. I disagree the Omni is more natural, in fact, I think the Omni is less natural. You can experiment with this yourself. Just get a slippery board and lean it up against something and then put your feet on it. Do the same with a slippery surface you pull your feet back on. I prefer a flat surface. The advantage of the omni though is that there is less effort involved in making your feet move - but I wouldn't say it's more natural.

The Omni has parts that could wear out, in particular the shoes and the plunge pins. The harness might wear out as well holding your weight all the time (which may chaff a lot btw, while you're using it).

The real advantage of the omni I think is it's not just a prototype, it's a successful kickstarter lead by someone who clearly Gets Things Done. Cyberith may or may not actually get built and when it does, who knows how organized the guy will be (not to say he won't, of course. I'm just saying.)

I have a certain amount of faith in Jan given what I've seen so far, and I'm sure that's why a lot of people bought into his kickstarter. I wish he'd be a bit more transparent about some of the issues with his product though. That would only heighten my confidence in what he's doing.

yomer wrote: I didn't say that the Omni was maintenance free

The smaller portion of the available games/applications will have the user traversing on a smooth surface for a very long time. So the Omni type of steps should blend more easily with the experience, right?

colocolo wrote:this thing should be combined with a ball carpet like the Cybercarpet uses.
Luckily small balls are ridiculous cheap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfUpI66tfo

blazespinnaker wrote:One of the interesting things I'm finding with ODTs is that it doesn't take long for you to build up muscles so that some of things here that seem stressful at first turn out to be pretty minor after a couple of weeks.

Zoide wrote:The Virtualizer is looking awesome! That said, walking slowly still looks a bit strained, and the person needs to tilt forward. I guess it's simple physics given that you're dragging your feet across a flat surface. Perhaps curving it *a little bit* will lead to more natural walking.

Cyberith wrote:Its still in the develpoement process, but yes i want to start crowd funding to accelerate the process and get the Virtualizer optimised to you my friends!

usb247 wrote:Love the sitting feature. That should work well for vehicles.

Ziggurat wrote:Some more work and this could be the ultimate Star Citizen cockpit.
Where you sit in that harness (comfortably?) and get up to do a boarding of an enemy ship. ^_^

KydDynoMyte wrote:I like this design. I wonder if cost could be brought down even more by only using 3 supports 120º apart and maybe a circular base plate. I wonder what the 4 post give you that 3 couldn't. Unless it's using off the self parts where it might be harder to find parts needed for 120º spacing, or maybe the 4 legs give you a more stable base.

NightlHlawk wrote: Another video posted here under the guy's channel shows a possible future design similar to what you're talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... jf64jyKbW8

KydDynoMyte wrote: I like this design. I wonder if cost could be brought down even more by only using 3 supports 120º apart and maybe a circular base plate. I wonder what the 4 post give you that 3 couldn't. Unless it's using off the self parts where it might be harder to find parts needed for 120º spacing, or maybe the 4 legs give you a more stable base.

info@cyberith.com wrote: ... so we want to make a new design as soon as possible, bigger base, 3 instead of 4 guides, reliable sensors, intelligent software for individual situations and games (For instance jumping forward), lighter and smaller ring construction, we also have a construction to get the weight of the ring to ZERO ...

info@cyberith.com wrote: Yes we want to start a crowdfunding campaign, first we try to get to the gamescom in germany and probably start the campaign in september.
We want to get the homepage up this weekend and yes we want to let people subscribe for a newsletter.

ziphnor wrote:

info@cyberith.com wrote: Yes we want to start a crowdfunding campaign, first we try to get to the gamescom in germany and probably start the campaign in september.
We want to get the homepage up this weekend and yes we want to let people subscribe for a newsletter.

Okta wrote:The base structure and uprites must be made of steel to withstand the forces applied. It looks like those uprite poles will be ready to snap off at the base with all the leaning into the harness. This thing will be heavy and expensive.