During the second week of presentation, we have once again seen many unique, yet interesting Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality inventions/ startup projects that students have chosen and talked about during their 5 minutes talk.
For my second critique, I'll be talking about Bartosz Kupiec's choice, 360 Degree Treadmills (Omni) as it is somewhat related to my own topic of choosing, Birdly
Introduction - Purposes
One of the more prominent issues with VR is the way HMDs (head mounted displays) like the HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift are limited by the amount of room the user has available to move around in. Many developers have found interesting ways around this problem, where most of these alternatives have been covered in our class (some alternatives we covered: teleportation, flying around with the wands, exaggerated hand movements, etc.). While other developers might limit the size of their game by limiting how much room the player has, the idea of 360-degree treadmills may make this an issue of the past, if done correctly.
What difference does Omnidirectional offer from other similar existing treadmills?
During his presentation, he briefly went over main differences that this 360 degrees treadmills offer compares to the other already existing similar treadmills - prices, functionality and sizes.
As you can see from the picture above, the whole set up for an Omni system would comfortably fit into an average sized room. At this rate of technological advances , I wouldn't be surprised if these 360 degree treadmills become cheaper, smaller and much more functional in the future. It's definitely one of my bucket buy list if this becomes a consumer product. Who wouldn't want to own their own Virtual Reality 360-degree Omni system in their house?
Below is an image of several Omni systems set up in an arcade gaming room. It provides enough for 10 players to directly use the system and play with one another. Not only that it provides an amazing gaming experience with tactile feedback, it would also help you exercise since it requires you to walk, run or jump in order to move your in-game character. I would much rather exercise and have fun at the same time than doing the same routine of lifting deadweights / running around the track in gyms
Another thing to note is that the Infinadeck is actually easier to set up and use compare to the Omni. It would take less time for user to strap in and start using. Plus, it allows user to use regular shoes instead of special design shoes along with its own shoe tracker. If you are one to have a surplus amount of money and room to set up for an Infinadeck, it may be a better altenative.
The price of owning an Omni ,at this point, is the cheapest compares to all other 360-degree treadmills. However, it's still not a consumer product as most of the systems are made to order. Meaning, they can't be mass produced and it would take a lot of overhead cost and time.
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Another system that closely resembles a more traditional treadmill is named Infinadeck and it looks like so in the picture to the left. One thing to notice is that this system is much bigger and bulkier due to the design choice, and more complicated, thus making the price much higher.
This system would also somewhat serve the same purpose as the Omni as it allows user to experience a tactile feedback when walking/running/jumping within a Virtual Reality game. From watching several review videos on Infinadeck product, I noticed that it only consist of 1 safety support- the pole that also serves as one of the tracking system attached to your back.
The system works along with currently existing systems such as the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. The rest of the movements, specifically hand gestures and head tracking, are either handled by the controllers that came with the HMDs or with some custom controllers. These custom controllers, such as rifles are very popular for FPS games, and make the games even more immersive.
In the spirit of treadmills, the system doesn’t take up much room and should easily fit inside of even the smallest rooms. And the tracking lighthouses could be positioned easier since the player would be restricted to a very fine area to be inside of. The only downside is the proprietary shoes and their trackers, but this is a small downside that may be solved as other systems become available as the VR market becomes more popular.
When it comes to hardware side of things, just as VR is demanding, so is this system, as it does require a pretty significantly strong computer to run the games, but this is pretty common with most games that have been released so far.
