Omni: Move Naturally in Your Favorite Game

[Sgt. Spoon]

The Omni takes virtual reality to the next level— allowing anyone to stand up and traverse virtual worlds with the natural use of their own feet. The Omni is the first virtual reality interface for moving freely and naturally in your favorite game. Moving naturally in virtual reality creates an unprecedented sense of immersion that cannot be experienced sitting down. That's why we developed the Omni.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944625487/omni-move-naturally-in-your-favorite-game?ref=live

Just saw this kickstarter a couple of days ago, and I gotta say I'm quite intrigued. This "little" thing would allow us to walk around in games using our actual feets. I'm not gonna go into detail on how it works as the kickstarter-page explains that already. But:
The base of the Omni is a low-friction surface with grooves. Users wear special shoes with pins that fit into the grooves, keeping the foot stabilized and preventing unwanted lateral slide. The shoe sole has a higher friction coefficient on the toe to grant further stability and maintain balance. The result for users is a natural gait that allows for true virtual exploration and immersion.


Now think this + an Oculus rift (a new type of VR-googles just to have come out of kickstarter as well) + some kind of "zapper gun"/controllers, and you got yourself a rather immersive gaming experience.

This might not be the best thing you'll ever see, and it might not be such a huge hit. But it's very intruiging to see if this will be able to place itself on the market, and start a whole new level of regular consumers VR-gaming systems. Maybe we aren't too far away from truly immersive gaming systems after all.

[Mill Wilkinson]

My arms hurt just thinking about the amount of swinging we'd be doing to fix the hull.

[Sgt. Spoon]

Heheh. Main problem with this product will be the fact that us lazy-ass gamers don't wanna move that much 

[Mill Wilkinson]

"The hull, the hull!"
" ¤%# you, I *wheeze* can't run *pant pant* anymoreeeeee.... *groan*"
Mill Wilkinson has fainted

This.

[Plasmarobo]

Alright guys.

We build airships, cover them in sensors, grab OR's and play GoI in VR, using our actual ships to maneuver.
Then we mount real guns on them, the closest approximation of the actual guns we can find, and add accelerometers and gyros to everything.

Of course, everyone will disconnect immediately after their airship is destroyed...

[Mill Wilkinson]

Alright guys.

We build airships, cover them in sensors, grab OR's and play GoI in VR, using our actual ships to maneuver.
Then we mount real guns on them, the closest approximation of the actual guns we can find, and add accelerometers and gyros to everything.

Of course, everyone will disconnect immediately after their airship is destroyed...

Not real guns, but fabricated items of them, just like the ship would be. It'd open up nice options to hang around in the roping and make daredevil jump-feats to get to the needy component.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Heheh. Main problem with this product will be the fact that us lazy-ass gamers don't wanna move that much 

Its why Kinect and Move will always be niche market items and have not become successes. Also why Wii was neglected by the hardcore gamers. We don't want to jump around and move to control our games!! We want to be comfortable!!

Another reason why it would suck...open world sandbox games. Imagine traversing distances on foot in reality.

[HamsterIV]

I twisted my ankle playing Kinect because I thought my character had air control (ability to change direction while mid jump) only to realize that I as a human in the real world did not.

[timmymonsta]

Honestly, I'd probably enjoy having one of these. The ability to actually walk through an open world actually sounds great, and like they said in the video: If I could walk/run through Cyrodiil every morning I would lose a crap ton of weight.

[Mill Wilkinson]

Cyrodiil, Skyrim, New Vegas, Doom, Outlaws, Mount & Blade, GoIO...
It'd do wonders to my figure.

[Sgt. Spoon]

Heheh. Main problem with this product will be the fact that us lazy-ass gamers don't wanna move that much 

Its why Kinect and Move will always be niche market items and have not become successes. Also why Wii was neglected by the hardcore gamers. We don't want to jump around and move to control our games!! We want to be comfortable!!

Another reason why it would suck...open world sandbox games. Imagine traversing distances on foot in reality.

also cause of the fact that the accuarcy on those things are truly awful...

[Keon]

There are some video game locations that are so incredible I would like to just walk around there every day. Though a left side engine leap on squid is not one. That sounds painful.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

There are some video game locations that are so incredible I would like to just walk around there every day. Though a left side engine leap on squid is not one. That sounds painful.

Well yeah since you are technically jumping into the spinning blades of the drive engines to get to the lower...heh

[N-Sunderland]

There are some video game locations that are so incredible I would like to just walk around there every day. Though a left side engine leap on squid is not one. That sounds painful.

Well yeah since you are technically jumping into the spinning blades of the drive engines to get to the lower...heh

There are some video game locations that are so incredible I would like to just walk around there every day. Though a left side engine leap on squid is not one. That sounds painful.

Well yeah since you are technically jumping into the spinning blades of the drive engines to get to the lower...heh

Wouldn't be a problem for me. My repair circuit on the Squid has me passing under the drove engines, not behind them.

[Keon]

The tech in this is ingenious. It actually never moves. You run on a slippery surface and slide down the grooves wearing shoes with pegs that fit in those grooves. Previously, people thought they needed a 3d treadmill, which is very complex. It's just a genius idea. They can't do collision yet, so that's still a problem, and the same with walking uphill/downhill. Still, watching somebody play TF2 with it was amazing. It's not like occulus rift where you need to develop support. You just say "Use forward running to press W."

I'm a bit worried about running with it and tripping on the grooves or something.

 Either way, this is what could revolutionize gaming, if done properly. I'm exited.