Birdly – An attempt to fly with Oculus Rift [video] | Hacker News Reader

Birdly – An attempt to fly with Oculus Rift [video]

birdly.zhdk.ch

111 pointsmuratmutlu38 comments

I love the fan at the front. What a great touch.

I wonder though if this can be done without hydraulics and based purely on a balanced board. So to dive you'd shift forward, the board will tilt and you'll get a sensation of diving. Or will this be too counter-intuitive to control?

The note about a balanced board is very interesting. I think it would be great. Especially if you are safely and comfortably tied to it so you could dive sharply for example.

I think the problem with that is that, as far as I know, birds use their limbs to control their flight, so the Birdly setup makes sense to me. Kind of inching my body forward or backward on a platform doesn't seem like it would give the right feeling.

And how would you pull out of a sharp dive? I'm just imagining someone strapped into this thing face down and tilted way forward, and being kinda stuck there.

ok look, you wouldn't feel the Gees but its already looking fun.

But that would be less accurate modeling of how a bird flies. Imagine yourself under water. You don't just "shift forward", you push on the water with various parts of your body to change your orientation. Flight is similar. This system seem to try to emulate that as much as it can.

Reminds me of the virtual game in "Lawnmower Man."

I probably shouldn't link to it, but here ya go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJer9aivOrA

23:50 in.

Exactly. That film was the sole reason I got into this field at a young age. Sadly I never followed through with it and chose another tech path. It's really GREAT to see these things becoming reality and its tempting me to change industries.

Here's a direct link to the scene: http://youtu.be/zJer9aivOrA?t=23m50s

The best (and only) flying simulation I've ever experienced was on a ride at California Adventure, which was built inside a warehouse. Riders were locked into a seat (rows of about 6) and a projector turns on. Wind starts blowing, as the scenery changes below you. My favourite part of it though was when they tilted the seats back and forth, simulating g-force. Would love to see one of these happen for Oculus Rift, although it's not really a consumer product.

The ride also catches your sense of smell to as well. It's awesome.

I love this attraction. They have a duplicate at Epcot in Orlando called "Soarin'". I think an Oculus-concept could also be implemented for "Mission Space", which already simulates g-forces by way of centripetal force.

Mission space. OMG I was so sick after that ride. I really didn't know what I was letting myself in for.

This needs to be coupled with the project where you control a quadcopter with a camera attached to it.

https://github.com/Matsemann/oculus-fpv

I was thinking exactly the same thing: What if you could take a 'virtual flight' like this!

Bug I guess battery and high-speed connectivity are the problems here. Connections could be through 3G but probably crappy and low-res and costly.

While your physical person is in a vertical wind tunnel, like this (mute music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNhaPFvmqVU

When I saw the title I thought for sure this was going to be flappy bird for the Rift.

That actually sounds like a great idea.

It exists: http://holdenlink.com/project/floculus-bird/

flappy bird + 2048 + rift. a matter of time.

http://i.imgur.com/s39jW7u.png

This has been my dream project ever since I started getting excited about VR, and they've done an amazing job. I really want to experience this.

I really love this. With today's information overload and being constantly bombarded by latest and coolest releases, it's difficult to be really excited about anything. But this is awesome and invokes that childhood feeling of awe. I hope when the product comes out, it's just as good as it looks in that demo.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the cost. I read somewhere they spent around $150,000 to create this. I thought that was extremely costly, but I don't know anything about this kind of stuff, so I'd like to see what you guys think.

Seems really costly; you can buy an KUKA industrial robot arm to use as a motion simulator for $50,000:

http://hackedgadgets.com/2010/08/12/kuka-robot-arm-turned-in...

Source?