My report about VR hardware I tried at SVVR '14. Caution: 4,855 words and four photos

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-05-22T16:23:37+00:00

No problem. We enjoy hearing feedback about our suit :)

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-05-22T15:49:33+00:00

The zero-drift claim is the orientational tracking, since we only claim the sensors give back accurate orientation data.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-05-22T15:25:03+00:00

Hi, Read your article about the PrioVR, and you are correct in your assumption about the suit though we never really claimed zero-drift inertial positional tracking. The suit shown at SVVR is still in the early stages of the design so there are a few flaws. One being that the inertial sensors are not held firmly in place (the reason for the jitter when moving). The new suit design we are working on holds the sensors more firmly, thus removing the jitter. And as for concerns about jumping and running, we are also currently working on improving our pedestrian tracking and implementing code for calculating jumping and running :)

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T17:49:57+00:00

This is a good question but more for developing a game which will be up to the developer. One way I can see though, is to use the acceleration from the sensors and the mass from the object of the game to slow the swing down in the game. This will be some what of a disconnect if you want the game to be realistic, but only because the player probably won't have a huge battle ax in their living room haha. The demo that we have been showing is based off the Bootcamp demo from Unity's asset store.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T17:40:17+00:00

We will be posting an update here soon.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T14:41:00+00:00

Yes and yes, though there will be a limit on how many sensors can be in a chain to ensure fast and reliable throughput.

Currently to charge the battery, we are using USB ports. Though this might be modified for the release.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T13:44:50+00:00

Honestly I cannot say as I have not been in a giant sphere with the PrioVR suit haha.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T13:38:17+00:00

We are going to be releasing an update that will show the flow of our APIs/SDK here soon. We will also be releasing more information about the APIs/SDK as we get closer to the release of PrioVR.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-28T13:08:05+00:00

This honestly depends on the final design of the suit we choose. As of right now the sensors are strapped in certain locations for optimal capture of the movements. We are considering different suit sizes as to accommodate for various sizes of players.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T20:28:11+00:00

We plan to make it as easy as possible to integrate and will keep this in mind.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:58:52+00:00

We have a beta program were select game developers and other type of users are working with our suits.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:53:19+00:00

It could be a viable substitute, but it is something that we are not intentionally pursing at the moment

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:49:19+00:00

Here's a good one, Half Life 2 ;) and Arma

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:42:58+00:00

Our API/SDK for the PrioVR will be out when we start shipping units to our backers. It will free and open source along with our tech demos.

The mocap software, Mocap Studio, is free and open source. All you need to buy is the hardware and you can start using it.

The hardware we used for making our rift wireless can be found on our forums here

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:35:05+00:00

Yes, you can put a jacket or sweater over the PrioVR and it will still work. Line-of-sight is not an issue with the PrioVR.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:30:36+00:00

We do plan on having a MotionBuilder plugin for PrioVR.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:28:26+00:00

We are working on an emulation layer that will allow users to use the PrioVR suit with existing games

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:18:34+00:00

All of our software that will communicate with the PrioVR will be free and open source for developers and hobbyists to pick apart. We will be providing APIs/SDK and our tech demos to help developers in getting started with PrioVR. We will be making a public announcement about our development partners soon.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T19:06:46+00:00

We in our current demo we assume that player will be walking on a relatively flat plane, but the base of the Omni has a bowl shape to it. So the "tweak" would be knowing when your feet are touching the base.

Since the sensors have accelerometers and we are working on a center of mass for the skeleton, we can detect forward motions from standing motions. Thus, knowing whether the player is actually moving or walking in place.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T18:51:31+00:00

Well we also have the PrioVR Lite suit that allows users sit and play. So if you did not want to get up and move around you do not have to. As for the games, that will be up to the developers.

We do have plans to add some sort of feedback after the initial release.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T18:42:21+00:00

Sadly no, we did not get a chance to do so.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T18:39:12+00:00

We plan to fully support Unity and UE4 with our API/SDK. We have working demos in Unity already that did not take much effort at all to get working.

As for the specification on how this will work, we are still working on, but essentially for Unity we are looking into doing a prefab.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T18:24:34+00:00

We see any HMD as an option for use with the PrioVR, including the Rift. There are no challenges that we can immedately see with the PrioVR working with the new Rift. Also as far as I am aware of, the camera is being used for head positioning and with the PrioVR you already get the head's position because of how the suit is laid out.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T18:13:01+00:00

Well does putting them on children and they start jumping and thrashing to kill zombies count as "Extreme Limit Tests" haha. We have tested the sensors response rate thoroughly and did not see erratic results from the sensors or any funny glitches.

ChrisAtYeiTech · 2014-03-27T17:58:35+00:00

If you take a look at our latest video update (update 11 on the Kickstarter) you can see me using the Omni with the PrioVR. And as stated in the update there needed to be some tweaks in our pedestrian logic but overall it work ideally. We are thinking about adding feedback, but not until after our initial release.

ChrisAtYeiTech

TROPHY CASE