Freeaim VR Shoes
freeaim.com
freeaim.com
I wonder if there has been any progress on increasing the capabilities of that system. It could just be another component attached to the HMD. I bet as it is now though, even with improvements, it would make you sick, which VR already has trouble with.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9714040 https://youtu.be/z91PZpejFeE?feature=shared
Pretty neat
Excerpt: "The sensation is undeniable. The direction of the tip is dependent on the direction of the current, as evidenced by just swapping the electrodes. Obviously, since these were batteries, this was a DC current. Sensation grew stronger over a brief period of time until it saturated. It sort of feels like someone pushing or pulling you over, except there is no tug on your arm. The ramp-up in the feeling made me think of charging a small capacitor."
I remember it pretty clearly even today, which is weird because I tend to but remember this very well, but maybe it was just the excitement of the experiment. It was a relatively strong effect, and it was fairly easy to achieve (of I could do it with my crude setup, a real product should have no problem), but there were some distinct issues.
First of all, there was a lag in response, and it was a pretty large one. IIRC, it took at least half a second before I started noticing any change after turning on the current.
Next, it was fairly binary, and single axis. I could tilt left/right, but that was it, no front/back. It took time to ramp up to full tilt, and then I could only achieve about 50% tilt.
I briefly forgot what I was working with and thought I might try to limit the sensation by pulse width modulation of electrical signal. That was quite a shock! I mean that seriously!
Anyway, I came away from the experience feeling slightly nauseous and that GVS was too limited to work out.
You could imagine supporting yourself with a harness so you wouldn't fall, but certainly you can also imagine that constantly struggling against a harness won't feel like natural walking either.
And there's also proprioception that will sense that your limbs are not moving in the way your inner ear predicts they should. Proprioception can't be fooled. If it could your limbs would get out of sync with your brain and who knows what chaos would result.
Unfortunately we won't be running around freely in arbitrary VR environments until the invention of The Matrix's brain jack. So, not likely within our lifetimes.
Almost none of the human senses are absolute. They are holistic, subjective, and relative to experience (both recent and past), culture, age, etc. Honestly, the fact that we can get any semblance of objective communication of our senses together, based on how wonky and unreliable the individual parts can be, is amazing.
Have you ever been to a "mystery" house/spot?
> gShoe is an internal joke about a product [Google] shouldn't make, and is used in many internal trainings as a placeholder for any Google product
These shoes are so much cooler than that. Now all we need are low-profile haptic gloves and possibly some system for generating wind to help generate the illusion of motion.
Real omni-treadmills have you attached to an arm or harnessed in.
Take a step irl. In game your foot goes through a wall. In Ready Player One your foot is stopped by the wall. This contradiction can’t exist.
It’s more ok for hands where you can just demand the hand move back before the wall irl. But with feet that’s your whole sense of balance.
Some relevant edge cases:
1) you’re at a ledge and trying to dip your foot down (or conversely as shown in ready player one the film, you’re at a precipice and feel off balance because your VR foot is not fully supported by VR ground)
2) you’re running and a limb or foot hits a small object in a way that should realistically cause you to fall or be obstructed. Extremely tough problem to solve with the harness idea.
You can handle different edge cases with reasonable band aids but not comprehensively in a way that will work for general movement.
I suspect these shoes feel more like walking on ice.
The goal isn’t to fool the brain. Just to give it enough it can fool itself.
You know what they say about assumption ;-)
Looks very uncomfortable though.
Now that I looked at his channel again it turns out that he actually became part of the Freeaim team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRrg99wCKBE
Yeah good luck. No visual references because one is wearing an HMD, shoes with rollers/wheels (doesn't matter how/whether they are braked or not - equipment does break!) and no safety equipment?
This is again a typical project of someone who thought they have a "good idea" and didn't think it completely through. Or think that what works for them in their garage/lab is automatically also a viable product.
It isn't even a new idea - similar gizmos have been designed and tried before - and 100% of them flopped once the realities of the market hit:
- It is dangerous, full stop. No restraints to prevent the user from falling, in a living room with sharp furniture corners and with their vision impeded by a VR helmet? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen, no matter how many disclaimers the vendor sticks on it. And once the necessary safety gear is added to make it actually comply with the consumer safety regulations in various jurisdiction, the device becomes so unwieldy and expensive that it will be unviable.
- It universally over-promises and under-delivers - walking in place is never "natural", no matter what the vendor claims. Even more so when one emulates joystick by walking instead of actually translating walking in place to walking in game. That's just jarring and not natural at all. It will likely cause a lot of motion sickness because of the mismatch between the perceived movement on the screen and the walking happening at a different pace (since we are emulating a joystick motion and not actual walking). Humans don't think and move in terms of joystick movement ...
- It may be a good idea on paper - but most people promoting these solutions (treadmills, various "sliding shoes", etc.) have obviously not tried to actually use them to play a game where one has to extensively move around by walking or running. Have you tried to run around for an hour (doesn't matter whether for real or in place/on a treadmill)? Surprise - it is exhausting!
- Software support is going to suck - either one has to emulate a controller which is going to feel like everything but "natural" or the titles have to support the device explicitly. Good luck with the latter unless you are a really big player in the market already - nobody will even want to talk to you about it. That will result in something that isn't usable in titles people actually want to play with it.
- The company tends to disappear after a few years after the investment money runs out. Or it gets acquired - and the product promptly cancelled. Either way leaving early adopters with a useless piece of electronic junk and no support.
I don't want to rain on their parade but we have been here many times since 2012 already.
Cybershoes are just a kind of controller for your feet you use while seated. Less risk of injury and no speed limit, maybe the game but not the player.
Having said that, I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment from using them to walk across the world in Skyrim VR. The movement required (rolling your feet back towards you) is different to walking but feels convincing enough when you’re in the game.