h a l f b a k e r yIt's as much a hovercraft as a pancake is a waffle.
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This would basically be a lightsaber handle style-thingy-ma-bob for games, and would be wireless and infra-red, perhaps connected by USB. When you moved the stick around your character onscreen would move round their sword/lightsaber/magic wand. This would herald a whole new genre of gaming. Imagine
reliving a scene from star wars or gladiator or harry potter.
digital whiteboard
http://www.dansdata.com/mimio.htm
a digital whiteboard [dr_photon, Mar 16 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
Trace IR
http://www.dansdata.com/trackir.htm
a webcam mouse that tracks small dots...use same technology for compusword [dr_photon, Mar 16 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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How do you experience resistance when you hit a shield or another sword in the game? |
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I read this as "compus word"... some sort of new word puzzle? |
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You could have it on an arm like the sort they use to control robotic arms... multi directional. This could lock when you hit something, with a suitably jarring impact. However, the price of this would probably put it out of home use, and into... ARCADES!!! Hell Yeah!! I'd pay a mint on an arcade, and the screen could be massive. You could even have a wraparound screen, and have enemies attacking from all sides... |
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Convincing haptic feedback in a completely untethered (or tethered just by a cable) device would be a challenge. Gyros? |
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A metal room - magnetic fields? Or criss-cross strips of powerful electromagnets making it impossible to pass a certain point in the room? Some sort of metal sleeve for your arm that restricts motion in the given direction? |
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i have voted thumbs up for this. while this is not something i'd use, it might be fun. to me, the whole idea of playing a video game is that you don't have to actually be good at the activity involved. the sword would probably vibrate when you "make contact" with something, signaling you that you're going to have to change direction or it isn't going to go anywhere. no, it wouldn't be "just like" swordfighting and you'd have to play a few times to get the hang of it, but i find that true of any videogame. |
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If you restricted your gameplay to hacking and slashing virtual Jell-O monsters, you wouldn't have to worry much about tactile simulation of parries and bone-cleaving. Plus, when you win the game, the machine could dispense an anatomically correct Jell-O heart, so you can pretend to devour the flesh of your vanquished foes. |
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That would be great for controlling the arm movements onscreen but have you ever tried to fence without moving your feet? |
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Go to your local CompUSA (or Fry's or Egghead or whatever) and find the section with all the joysticks. |
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In most of these stores, there will be a demo of a Microsoft force-feedback joystick. Press the button marked "energy sword" and play with the joystick. |
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It's not untethered, but it does have the sword-type control and the force feedback kind of baked. |
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(Sidebar: Microsoft makes pretty crappy software and pretty decent input devices. Maybe we should trash the software division and relegate them to manufacturing mice and joysticks?) |
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Maybe an answer to my initial question about feedback resistance could be answered by software: |
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If you don't halt your sword on your own when you hit an object, your sword drops out of your hand in the game, leaving you temporarily defenseless. |
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There's software driving those input devices, mwburden . . . |
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Ok, ok. How about.... have your sword handle attached to a compartment with pneumatic or electronic piston-type hammers in each of 3 orthogonal directions, X, Y and Z. |
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When you hit something in the game, these piston-hammers fire off, jolting your sword in the appropriate opposite direction. |
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Of course, your sword would have to be tethered with a pneumatic or electric line to supply the quantity of power you'd need to make this convincing. |
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[bristolz] Yes, but hardly of the same complexity as an O/S or an office productivity suite... |
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Oh, you're using a joystick with your office suite? No wonder your having problems with it. |
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That arcade machine does look like it has a sword handle tethered to it...On the right side, above and slightly to the left of the word 'Konami' on the case, the black thing with the curved black line beneath it. The green grass looking thing appears to be a glass or plastic shield on the side, held by the arm on top. Probably to keep other people from getting clubbed by an overenthusiastic player... |
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Seems to be Japanese only, though, like a lot of videogames...Would like to see one around here... |
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Not being able to simulate a 'stop' with a Japanese sword is not necessarily bad, they were used for slashing more than chopping or stabbing. |
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It(the arcade machine in the links) may work on infrared or ultrasonics for the position determining. see that row of round "thingys" (sensors) above the screen and below the logo? I think they are sensors (seems like they tried to make 'em look like one of those japanese roofs, but doesn't quite look like a roof. must be sensors). There would still need to be gyroscopes and/or accelerometers in the handle ("hilt") so the game can determine the angle you're holding your sword, and maybe even an offbalace motor for (vibrating)"force-feedback" like a n64 rumble pack.
Have any of you seen an ultasonic mouse? My friend gave me one, but I didn't try it becuase he said that after the drivers totally screwed over his system, that it was AWFUL to use...so it sits here, unused, somewhere...possibly making itself useful one day. The "mouse" was a "big bean" looking black thingy that took a watch battery and had an ultrasonic transducer, 2 buttons, and an infrared emmitter. the receiver look like a big L that would go around your monitor with one IR and 3 ultrasonic sensors (one at each end of the "L", and one at the vertex). It fit on your screen and made it work kinda like a very ghetto touchscreen (only with lots of frustration, especially when the flakey drivers nuke your windows install).I think the ultrasonic sensors do the positioning and the IR is for the clicking. This was an OLD device. now you can get similar thingys that turn your whiteboards into digital whiteboards (clip the reveiver unit to the board and put those whiteboard markers into the special transmitters). And they seem to work properly now. see the DansData review for more info You can probabally just use a few more sensors to locate the sword in space. I would recommend using some tilt sensors (gyroscopes??anyone remember the gyroMouse ball-less non-optical mouse?) to determine the sword's tilt (or two or more transmitters on the sword). Should also have some accelorometors to resolve very fast motions like when you swing (before the ultrasonic system can update).
You could also use a camera to trace the position of the sword, but it would seem to be less reliable.See review of webcam type thing that works as a mouse (can you tell that DansData is one of my favorite sites?). |
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And once you have a working sword, you can just add in the wireless part...but you can't do that in an arcarde (swords get stolen/thrown accross the room) |
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Thinking about the camera idea (in tandem with the accelereometers and the gyros), since you are only wanting to track the sword and nothing else, you could paint the 'sword' with an ultraviolet paint, and track it with an ultraviolet camera and light. It would definatly decrease the processing power needed, plus you could use a lower quality camera since there is only one object in its view. |
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