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Input Devices Games Hardware

Mountain Biking In Virtual Reality With the Oculus Rift and an Actuating Bike 71

Posted by timothy from the it's-all-in-your-head dept.
An anonymous reader writes Thanks to the Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset and Activetainment B\01 VR bike, which pitches forward and back according to in-game terrain, has shifting, pedals, breaks, digital resistance control, and allows tilting into turns, users of the system feel like they're careening through a mountain biker's paradise. After working up a sweat in the simulator, the author of this article ruminates on whether or not his experience could be considered "real"; "Much of the feedback of actual mountain biking was present during my ride. Sure, the feedback could be more accurate, and there's still missing sensory information, like the wind through my hair and a certain set of forces on my body, but at what point is a virtual experience real enough to be well, real?"
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Mountain Biking In Virtual Reality With the Oculus Rift and an Actuating Bike More

Mountain Biking In Virtual Reality With the Oculus Rift and an Actuating Bike

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  • masturbation

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, that's as real as it gets. But I missed that part in the video.

  • Heck, the Trixter Xdream bike beats those Lifecycle pieces of crap hands down. Anything that can improve on that is a win IMO. At least until all this damn snow melts and I can go out on a real bike.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah it's impossible to ride in the snow... or cold or rain ... any excuse noot to ride when conditions are not perfect.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What, we're suppose to go out in bad weather now... because? It is not like this is being used as an excuse to be lazy and not exercise. I have coworkers that have three different bikes, so they have one that can get slightly trashed in the rain, and another that can get really beaten on by ice, slush and salt. But I just have one solid bike that can easily get my from point A to point B, and do well on longer rides on the weekend. And during the winter I have indoor equipment, which often gets me more

  • so close! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @06:35AM (#49054035)

    biking, running and rowing are just the tip of the iceberg! i cant wait for them to release the YARD WORK SIMULATOR! [edgecastcdn.net]

    • cite [wikiquote.org] "I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment..."

      HELLO?
      Could you please take that thing off?
      There is a dreary urban landscape to explore.

      You know that door opening on to the empty lot, the one that someone painted too thickl

      • +1 O M G (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I would spend fifteen mod points on this if Slashdot allowed it.

        I'm not sure I've ever seen a description that simultaneously so illustrates a foreign mentality, evokes the sensations of inhabiting that mentality, and pulls you into participation -- you reach the end of this passage, having read all the odd quests that it suggests, and realize that you have just completed an odd quest every bit the match of them. In, ironically enough, an entirely non-"real" world solely of words.

        I didn't think I would be s

      • Your post was beautiful, with a child's sense of wonder carried into adulthood. It's a fascinating world and there are many things to do. However, interacting with someone's lovingly crafted virtual artifice could easily be an experience on par with digging up crap in the cracks of a sidewalk. Variety is the spice of life.
        • I will never forget the feeling of riding a motorbike as fast as possible down a twisting mountain road, swapping the lead back and forth with another random madman on a bike. But that was almost 40yrs ago when I was young and bulletproof, something like this is probably as close as most people will get to that feeling.

    • apparently you never played farmville on Facebook.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by genner ( 694963 )

        apparently you never played farmville on Facebook.

        Pffftt cow clicker is so much better.

  • get dizzy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vyvepe ( 809573 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @06:58AM (#49054065)
    Sounds like a cool way to get dizzy because the acceleration effect on the inner ear will be missing.

    • Not quite. It will be muffled, but not missing. Simulators can accurately change the angle of acceleration force to match your expectation, even if they cannot change the magnitude. The result, when you have actuators that are fast enough, is amazingly immersive. Some users will have simulation sickness, but others will not; similar to other types of motion sickness it varies wildly.

  • It will be real enough when it is real. Sorry, no substitutes accepted.

  • when you have road rash (Score:3)

    by oheso ( 898435 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @07:48AM (#49054163)
    ... complete with gravel to tweeze out of the wounds.
  • It is nothing like real. Measure the calories expended - it will not be comparable at all. This reminds me of one time when Konan Obrien challenged Serena Williams to virtual tennis on the Wi, and Konan won. Yeah that's real tennis - not. :-)

    • It is nothing like real. Measure the calories expended - it will not be comparable at all.

      What? Why not? If they've got a resistance on the crank and the bike is tilting around so you have to move yourself around the bike, why wouldn't it consume the same kind of energy?

      All in all I think it's a cool idea for the times when it's raining out, and you can't get good traction.

      • Perhaps it could be like the real thing, if done right - but the real thing throws you around, and you can fall off and roll onto the ground. To duplicate that would be quite a simulation! But as you say, if it is raining out, it sounds like the next best thing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shinobi ( 19308 )

        Wind resistance, real slopes, fighting slippery surfaces, absorbing shocks and bumps, changing weather conditions, maintaining your concentration to a far sharper degree than a sim demands all cause you to burn more energy than any simulator you use.

        It's why you see so many gym stars perform like shit when facing the real thing. Or why iRacing(a pretty good racing simulator) stars, who outperform real racing drivers in the sim, are like 20 seconds behind the same racing drivers when placed in a real racing

        • Wind resistance, real slopes, fighting slippery surfaces, absorbing shocks and bumps, changing weather conditions, maintaining your concentration to a far sharper degree than a sim demands all cause you to burn more energy than any simulator you use.

          There's no difference whatsoever between a real slope, and tilting the bike back further and increasing the crank resistance. Bumps and jolts can be generated, and what's more they don't have to be as strong as the real thing — just use a bike without suspension, and then emulate the suspension. Concentration is an issue, if the simulation is not sufficiently engaging. But gaming often requires intense concentration because it doesn't provide as much visual information as reality. You have to do more

  • Imagine a beowolf cluster of these!

    (I miss the old slashdot)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Imagine a beowolf cluster of these!
      (I miss the old slashdot)

      In Soviet Russia, beowulf cluster imagines you!
      (Me too)

  • When you ride the bike off a cliff in the game and you die for real, THEN it's "real enough". Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

    • Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

      Ah, the "it's not everything so it's nothing" attack. If you happen to live in the upper northeast, I could see this being a helpful part of one's winter-exercise regimen. Or inner cities. Or anywhere where easily - accessible mountain bike trails aren't accessible.

      And the truth is, for many of us, something like a MTB trip to Moab would be really cool, but it's not quite high enough against competing options. It'd be awesome to experience some of that scenery.

      Lastly, for anyone naysaying the technolo

    • Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

      What if you don't live near a mountain? I live near a mountain, but the only road up it has a "No Trespassing" sign.

  • I have a huge scar on my side from mountain biking accident and spent 3 days in the hospital. Is the rift going to give him that?

  • OP is asking for "real", IMHO it cannot be done. In order to properly experience the forces on your body on a bicycle, you would have to follow the same trajectory as the real thing in a gravity field - or alternatively another experience which provides the same forces, simulating gravity. In order to do that, the simulator would basically have to be put inside a spaceship which simulates those forces. This is something we cannot do with current technology because a spaceship can only provide thrust for so

    • OP is asking for "real", IMHO it cannot be done. In order to properly experience the forces on your body on a bicycle, you would have to follow the same trajectory as the real thing in a gravity field

      Nah. All you've got to do is stimulate the nerves of the inner ear or the part of the brain that it connects to, and combine that with a system which can move you around sufficiently for the environments you're going to replicate. There's lots of times on a bicycle where the perceived feeling of motion is not that great, so this particular case is completely doable. The Japanese have done some work on diddling your sense of balance already...

      • I think we are saying more or less the same thing, i.e. manipulating brain inputs directly (e.g. inner ear nerves) rather than simulating the actual real life inputs. So I agree with you :-)

  • After 1/4 million miles on two wheels, it is my experience that a rider never senses any tilting in turns. You can test this theory by placing a carpenter's level across the handlebars and taking sharp turns that require an extreme lean angle. The bubble on the level will indicate that you have never left the vertical.

  • You aren't really mountain biking unless you crash. Here is 75 ways to crash https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • You aren't really mountain biking unless you crash. Here is 75 ways to crash

      The dubstep in that video really helps you to also feel the pain of those riders!

  • When you can't tell the difference. Looong way to go.

  • UNC demoed something similar in 1991 at the Siggraph Emerging Technologies display.

    http://www.siggraph.org/~fujii... [siggraph.org]

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