Yea you can stand on it. I'm not going to be sure about the weight until it's stress tested though. I'm 180 lbs, so no problems there right now. It's meant to be used with 1 foot though, so it's not like you're putting all of your weight on it.
Have you tested this in a free space situation?...something other than rails? Moving in VR while standing makes me really wobbly in the knees..When is the next time you plan on demoing?
Drew: I don't quite understand what you're asking. It's not used on rails, it allows you to move in any 3d environment. Can you clarify the question a bit for me?
Noren: yeap, you can put it on any angle you like. I think if you try it out, you'll see why we're saying it's natural. It just "feels right".
Does it feel natural standing and controlling the SprintR with one foot higher than the other? Might it be better to help raise the other foot as well? Two of these sitting down might make a great snowboarding game/demo (you should really make one). Have you thought about having the second leg work with the SprintR some how?
You can use this sitting down, which is what you'll be doing for most games. Think about being at your desk or in-front of a console. But with respect to standing, yeap, we've thought about some additional support projects to make it feel even better.
Offer it in green instead of blue, and I'll be all over that.
Hell, if it came with software to put custom bindings on it, like mouse movement or keyboard keys, I'd buy it right now. Even without VR.
Offer it in green instead of blue, and I'll be all over that.
Hell, if it came with software to put custom bindings on it, like mouse movement or keyboard keys, I'd buy it right now. Even without VR.
Yeah i could totally see myself using this more than just games
I imagine my self leaning back and using my foot to zoom an image in photoshop in and out so i can figure out whats wrong
I don't understand how this solves the issues with VR. You are still pretending to move while stationary. Maybe I didn't get the video but it just seems like an alternate controller, using your feet instead of a mouse or gamepad.
The core VR issues, proper body tracking and freedom of movement as well as haptic feedback to whatever you do in the VR world (hitting walls, firing a gun etc) don't seem to be solved with this product.
It does sound like an interesting controller but I'm unable to see why it's ideal for VR, it seems as good as anything else.
Hi Castor: typically when you use a mouse/keyboard to move in VR, a few things happen: You fumble around for the WASD and you generally walk in the direction you're looking (cuz it's coded this way - Try the oculus Tuscany demo for example). This controller lets you walk in whatever direction you want, while your head moves independently, just like in real life.
When you plan an FPS now-a-days (non-VR), the gun is stuck to your face, it moves where ever your camera frustum moves. But in VR, the idea is to make things in your hands seem like they're in your hands, not attached to your face/camera. SprintR allows movement to be offloaded to your feet, so whatever other input you're using can be used to control items in your hands. The gun can be detached from the camera.
I'm going to make some videos soon using the leap motion for hand-tracking. So you can see me walking around with no gamepad in my hand, and then like grabbing things in the VR world, or using a prop without touching my keyboard. I think some videos will help clarify how much more body presence you get from using SprintR.
What are your thoughts on the Vive and Oculus touch controllers? Oculus touch has an analog stick directly where your thumb is resting which I found interesting.
tyNew: I think they'd both be great used in conjunction with SprintR. And if we start moving more toward markerless hand tracking for VR, I think we'll still need a way to walk around , which is where sprintR comes in again. Otherwise, I think using your hands to walk is very limiting in VR.
looks like an interesting idea, so would it control your virtual legs like forward, strafe left, strafe right and backwards? but then you couldnt turn(rotate) your body or would that be linked to your headsets looking direction?
Heya Ged. You can use it to turn your body, just rotate SprintR in the direction you want to turn. It also lets you go diagonally in whatever direction you like, in addition to strafing. This doesn't show the diagonal really, but it's there.
Looks interesting, you guys should do a live demo of how this works instead of just an animated cartoon. Would definately help answer alot of these questions!
I'll be honest here, and say that I don't see an application for it. It's essentially a big analogue stick for your foot. I've seen the same thing attempted with Kinect, and whilst it works technically, it just doesn't feel right for a game.
If you're going to sell this concept, I think you're going to have to actually show it working.
analog sticks don't rotate on their own axis; so, it's a bit more functional than that.
Ah thats the bit I didnt understand from the video, like my foot can only turn about 45 degress so theres not a lot of rotation or that is amplified through sensitivity in the software or something clever. cool idea anyway, keen to see how this works.
Ged, yea, it works like an analog controller in that respect, meaning if you rotate a little, you turn slowly, if you turn more, you go faster. So it's possible to turn in place rather quickly if you like.
We still only have a few prototypes, but making rapid progress. Sign up for the newsletter and you'll get all the latest info my good man: http://www.sprintRVR.com (bottom of the page)
This is a video of an FPS demo we made using our VR controller SprintR. In this video, the mouse is controlling the gun, the Oculus is controlling the head/VR, and the SprintR is controlling all character movement (walking/turning). So, this is me testing SprintR with a VR FPS!
Everyone else is teleporting you, or coming up with some odd mechanics to make VR FPS's work. We think SprintR is a better way to go.
if you have 1-2 minutes, I'd appreciate it if you could check out my VR survey. It would be very helpful to me to know what you think and one randomly selected winner will get a $50 Amazon gift card.
So, Here are some videos of SprintR at GDC 2016. People who tried it became proficient in less than a minute, and were able to walk around environments, and play an FPS/Driving demo in VR hands free.
that looks pretty cool in action! interesting concept, certainly preferrable over moving the avatar body through gestures. i hope this thing is built to stand up to the forces you can put down with your legs though.
how fine is the input resolution, does it allow to ramp up movement gradually? and can you adjust the dead zone and make it register with less foot travel than what is shown in the vid?
Hey Thomas, Good to hear from you my man; it's been a little while. We're going to enable personalization of the deadzone, and all of the other meaningful specs as well. The device has analog movement so if you push forward a little you move slow, if you push all the way and you can run. It has rumble for haptic feedback, and we're testing around with adding a button for Jump/crouch. We've played a lot with the foot travel, and it ends up being very natural at the current distance (it's really quite small in person).
Big update, we have sprintR going on mobile devices now. So you can walk hands free in mobile VR. We also completed the latest mechanical design, and hope to start with orders in the coming months!
Hey guys, we're hoping to get the word out about SprintR, and also give something back to the community. We'll be at GDC this year, allowing people to try the SprintR and order devkits, but we'd like to extend the GDC experience to you all.
Replies
More purposeful point, how sensitive is it to directional movement? Slow walk, walk, jog, sprint etc.
And i know it says in the video that it reduces motion sickness but to what level?
It looks interesting for sure, but I feel like "truly natural" is a bit of an overstatement.
Noren: yeap, you can put it on any angle you like. I think if you try it out, you'll see why we're saying it's natural. It just "feels right".
Lots of VR experiences tend to move on rails. I was curious if you had tested it on something that did not have rails, that was free roaming.
Hell, if it came with software to put custom bindings on it, like mouse movement or keyboard keys, I'd buy it right now. Even without VR.
Yeah i could totally see myself using this more than just games
I imagine my self leaning back and using my foot to zoom an image in photoshop in and out so i can figure out whats wrong
Cool idea!
The core VR issues, proper body tracking and freedom of movement as well as haptic feedback to whatever you do in the VR world (hitting walls, firing a gun etc) don't seem to be solved with this product.
It does sound like an interesting controller but I'm unable to see why it's ideal for VR, it seems as good as anything else.
When you plan an FPS now-a-days (non-VR), the gun is stuck to your face, it moves where ever your camera frustum moves. But in VR, the idea is to make things in your hands seem like they're in your hands, not attached to your face/camera. SprintR allows movement to be offloaded to your feet, so whatever other input you're using can be used to control items in your hands. The gun can be detached from the camera.
For example: [ame]
I'm going to make some videos soon using the leap motion for hand-tracking. So you can see me walking around with no gamepad in my hand, and then like grabbing things in the VR world, or using a prop without touching my keyboard. I think some videos will help clarify how much more body presence you get from using SprintR.
If you're going to sell this concept, I think you're going to have to actually show it working.
Oh also, analog sticks don't rotate on their own axis; so, it's a bit more functional than that.
Ah thats the bit I didnt understand from the video, like my foot can only turn about 45 degress so theres not a lot of rotation or that is amplified through sensitivity in the software or something clever. cool idea anyway, keen to see how this works.
Everyone else is teleporting you, or coming up with some odd mechanics to make VR FPS's work. We think SprintR is a better way to go.
check out the site: www.SprintRVR.com
if you have 1-2 minutes, I'd appreciate it if you could check out my VR survey. It would be very helpful to me to know what you think and one randomly selected winner will get a $50 Amazon gift card.
http://www.sprintrvr.com/vr-questions/
how fine is the input resolution, does it allow to ramp up movement gradually? and can you adjust the dead zone and make it register with less foot travel than what is shown in the vid?
https://www.sprintrvr.com/order/
It retails for $149 + shipping.
Final unit and box: