Virtuix Omni & Oculus Test Drive - Linus & Slick Virtual Reality Virgins
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,994 words · ~9 min read
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vengance gaming to learn more so this
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video will be a bit of a a bit of a Blog
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style of the first time for both me and slick with the Omni by virtuix so uh
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guys uh feel free to come along for the ride so the first thing is you want to
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get kitted up with the appropriate Footwear so um I I was very disappointed
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when I didn't get to wear the the moccasins that the unit was demoed with
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but I got some stylish Converse shoes which I don't think I've seen anything
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like in at least 10 years um at least not on people's
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feet but uh you've got the special felt on the toes and then you've got the uh
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the the slippy Parts on the on the rest of the bottom of the shoe and then once
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you're once you're in the shoes uh getting into the getting into the device
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can be a bit of a trip so to speak more of a more of a more of a slip you want
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to be really careful support yourself on the ring because if you don't then you
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might accidentally give a heart attack to the uh to the creator of the Omni
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while you uh while you get into the device whoa no no I'm just kidding oh my
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God my my heart
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stopped that was a good one I'm sorry
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could you hand me the pen please yeah sure
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left but um there's a bit of a there's a bit of an orientation process so so even
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once you're in there you want to kind of put some weight on the ring and take
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really small steps now this is before the connect is involved this is before
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you put any kind of other VR device on
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anything like that you don't want to put the Oculus on before you've actually practiced a few steps but honestly I got
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it pretty quickly it was quoted that you need about 10 to 15 minutes before you
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kind of get the hang of it and uh I'd say by the time I was done playing the
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game I probably had 10 or 15 minutes on it and it was feeling much more already
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compared to when I first got on but the the slipperiness of part of your feet
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and the and the grippiness of part of them doesn't feel quite right unless
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unless you're you're moving or you're standing but not really anywhere in
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between if you're standing like talking to people around the device then it's going to be a little bit unnatural now
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one thing that I noticed immediately is that I wanted a little bit more grip on
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the toes but it looks like it may be possible to find tune that with
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different Felts and and things like that so next up you put on the Belt which has
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a a strap in the middle that I think I'm going to call the crotch Crusher because
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I mean the the Design's totally not final and hopefully it'll be something
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more like a climbing belt where there's like two straps in a V rather than like
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one thick you know that holds you up but
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it's important to have the belt tight because what you'll find what I found
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myself doing at least as a as a noob with it is putting a little bit of
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weight on the ring as I moved myself forward whereas I think once with a
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little bit more practice I could avoid putting so much weight on it and I
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wouldn't need need the belt nearly as much actually slick will be going
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straight onto it with no belt so that'll be that'll be interesting stay tuned for
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that um The Connect judges how fast you move
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by how quickly your legs travel so you could cheat the system by just kind of
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taking your feet and going like this in all likelihood but that's not really the
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point I mean I see this as not only a device that makes the game more
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immersive but I see it as also a way to
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you know uh put your pedometer on and go for a bit of a walk go for a Brisk
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stroke heck go for a run because once I spent a little bit of time on it I was
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able to take much bigger steps and and
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move at a much faster Pace without without just kind of gaming it um so
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then next up is you put on the Oculus so
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now you're oh no next upep yeah the Buns of the belts on next step is you put on
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the Oculus and then you want to calibrate the connect so make sure it's
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only picking up you because if other people are in the field of you you're going to have some issues where you know
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your guy might just keep running cuz someone else is moving around in the room then you hold the gun now for me
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where this is really going to come to life is when the gun aiming is decoupled
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from looking is decoupled from moving because right now I was able to do it I
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was able to kill dudes and get through the level but what you have to do is you
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you could actually Walk In One Direction and look like this to go around corners
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but what I want is to be able to walk around a
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corner but moving my body around so with
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like a wireless Oculus this will be a very immersive experience
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um and had no idea especially the first time I had no idea where I was looking
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in the room once I actually took the Oculus off because of how immersed in
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the gameplay experience I was one thing that I I made a mistake I didn't think
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the Oculus was stereo 3D the first time I was playing with it it's kind of low
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res it's a developer kit and all that kind of stuff but but once things are
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higher res and you can actually adjust the depth of the picture it hadn't been adjusted it was quite flat then the sky
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is pretty much the limit on this now this is the first time that I've tried
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virtual reality since a random like low reses crappy game at plaum and let me
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tell you it has come a long way and with that one basically you just like stood
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there and like looked and it was like a shooting range it was like ski shooting
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but this is totally different now we're playing an actual triaa title where
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instead of being impressed by halflife 2's ragd doll physics we're impressed by
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the ability that we get to walk around in this game environment shooting things
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and it's just totally totally totally
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totally different
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um I think that's pretty much it for me so slicks up
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next all right so my use case was kind of um withdrawn I guess a little bit
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because I had to use shoes that were much smaller than my size will they kind
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of fit I was using size 11 shoes I wear size 13 shoes so my toes were really
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curled up inside it was a really tight fit that wasn't comfortable and then the
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waistband while they will have different sizes the one here is the right size for
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me so I couldn't wear it so I was using shoes that weren't the right size and I
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was not using the waistband in a situation where I would ideally be
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running so all that put aside it was
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freaking amazing um stepping into it I
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just stepped right into the middle which made it so that it didn't slip I don't
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know I'm not too worried about that there's also supports on the sides you can hold some of your weight up with it
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um taking your first few steps is kind
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of surreal especially especially because that was the first time that I had ever
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worn Oculus Rift so walking around in it is interesting when you can see
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everything around you and you're like oh this is kind of cool I'm walking but not
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actually moving anywhere that's interesting then you put the Oculus Rift on and you're like holy crap I'm walking
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and I'm not moving but I am moving and I can look and shoot and do all this kind
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of stuff all at the same time so it definitely adds to the experience which is awesome um one thing I did was I kind
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of was a little bit more static because I had trouble turning because I didn't
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have the angular weight support of the
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belt to kind of keep me where I was supposed to go turning was difficult so
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whenever I saw enemies I'd kind of just stand there and shoot Which is less fun
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than it could be but then again you will have the belt that fits your size so I
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wouldn't worry too much about that um
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the gun lonus brought up something it would be nice if there was a good reload
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function but then I know on Kickstarter right now there's another gun called I
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believe the Delta 6 sorry if I'm wrong uh where you can actually just take the
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magazine out put the magazine back in and that acts as a Reload function so
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while the gun we were using might not have been the exact perfect gun for that
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situation that we were using they are out there and you can use any one you
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want so I wouldn't worry too much about that um I almost fell a few times again
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I wasn't wearing the belt I really don't think I would have fallen if I wore the
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belt I don't think it would have fallen anyways but I might have possibly damaged some of the arms sorry um
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I beat it on my second try but like I said um lonus was kind of running around
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a lot more than I was if I saw enemies I would sit static and shoot them um that
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was crazy I I get nauseous sometimes when I drive in cars so I was a little
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bit worried about this I kind of kind of
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threw it away when they brought it up but I do actually get nauseous sometimes
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in cars I get car sick so I was a little bit worried like I just said but I
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didn't I didn't get car sick at all because and I think it helped that I had
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the Omni because I was I did have the feeling that I was moving myself so
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while people have trouble with oculus rift getting nauseous if you actually
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feel like you're moving and you get the visual response of moving I don't
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actually feel it that bad if I tilt my head to the left the screen tilts to the
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left if I walk forward I walk forward so
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I don't know at least for myself I feel the Omni would help if you get nauseous
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when using Oculus Rift and H honestly I think that's about
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it