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Wipeout Recreated With an RC Car
An anonymous reader writes "If you've owned any of Sony's PlayStation consoles then there's a good chance you've also played one of the Wipeout games. It's a high-speed racing game that helped make the PSOne popular, and it's now been recreated using a remote control car. The project is the idea of Malte Jehmlich. He decided to create a track out of cardboard reminiscent of the Wipeout tracks. He then hooked up a wireless camera to a remote control car, and modified the controller to be an arcade cabinet with a wheel and forward/reverse selector."
Alright, that's awesome.
Needs booster pads though.
And where are all the weapons?
To much anime is bad for the brain...desu.
Sorry. Couldn't help it.
it could fire blue, red and green turtle shells....
First person Micro Machines Racing! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines_(video_games)
I remember the PSOne, such a popular console with its massive arcade cabinet and steering wheel. Wha?
These hard hacks are awesome. Make you wish you where able to build stuff like that. I am sorta limited to soft-hacks, that is fun, but nothing like this :-/ But everyone his own.
Another reason for why this is interesting, is that its sorta a videogame withouth the computer part (lets ignore all the CPU involved). You can built computers withouth electricity, using gears or hidraulics... you can built computers with anything that let you create logical triggers OR / AND / OR. And seems you can built videogames with pre-computer-technology era stuff. Imagine creating a videogame using 50's era technology :-) You place a dude in the studio with a joystick (this is simple tech), you broadcast the joystick signal to a van that has ben wired to be radiocontroled by this radio signal (I guest with 50's technology you can do that) and put a broadcast TV image in that van (is that possible with 50's era technology?).
This type of thinking is interesting for people like me, that like to think computers are not electronic machines, but logical machines that ...well... we normally built with electricity.
-Woof woof woof!
Seems like the thing would be prone flip over with the batteries mounted so high like that. Even if the width of the car was increased by mounting them on the sides that would probably help.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Combine the flip problem with the fact that in wipeout you are floating in some kind of hover craft the obvious solution to any hardcore PS1 fan would be to emulate Rollcage instead. when the car flips you could easily swap the steering by using a ball bearing and a tube with contacts in, or somesuch.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
If you take this as the proof of concept I think there is a proper business to be had.
Better tracks with some camber. Better cars. Better camera. Better cabinet to sit in. Better car to cabinet feed back. Force feed back wheel & chair tilt.
Just made coin-op games interesting again. Well done. I want one!
You'd need a way to differentiate between boost pads and weapon triggers though. If a reed switch is for the boost...
How about a high-power LED for the weapon triggers, and a LDR on the base of the cars? That way when you drive over the trigger, you get a 'shot' of water.
You'd also get a free shot if you flipped over or something too, to get you back into play.
To much anime is bad for the brain...desu.
Sorry. Couldn't help it.
Yes this is awesome but before you youngsters get too uppity about it I remember a time when all arcade games were basically like this. You actually controlled a little toy car or a little submarine or whatever. Mind you in those pre-microprocessor days the games were laughably crude compared to Jehmlich's masterpiece but us old timers gotta grab every chance we get to adopt a condescending air of "seen it all before"ness
Really cool!
Props to Malte for actualizing his idea into an amazingly cool working prototype!
imagine this thing with RC helicopter!
finaly, a flight sim with decent graphics..
He should have based his design on "Rollcage" (same genre of game by Psygnosis) and not Wipeout.
Especially since he would never have to bother with manually flipping the car over.
It's ironic - they used to make computerized games that would emulate real life. The circle is now complete...
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I've *always* wanted to have the money to burn that I could create something I thought of even when I was a kid.
Combine "laser-tag / Quasar" with a 3D FPS. If anyone ever watched Knightmare as a child, they'll know what I mean. Basically, have a "blank set" in an arena somewhere - literally just plain green boxes and walls. Stick ten people inside the arena, each with VR-style headsets with similar tracking. Their heads up display provides the 3D/texture detail over the green-screen, so it just looks like you're "inside" a Quake / Counterstrike / Whatever level. Equip players with a "gun" of some kind and then track the 3D position / heading / trigger of the gun using whatever means.
With some simple green-screen tricks you can put the live image of your opponents into the virtual world quite easily (camera on the headset, green-screen overlay on the video game image - because the arena matches the virtual world, no need to worry about depth, wall-perception, etc.). When players shoot, they just trigger a message and then the video game decides the outcome. Dead players get their screen blanked, game over, and have to make their way out of the arena. You could even include grenades, etc. quite simply, and so long as the physical arena matches the virtual one, you can apply it to virtually any 3D game.
You can't "jump" onto ledges, or do crawling, jumping, camping etc. unless you're capable of it in real life, but yet there's no stupid-quasar-feel to it and you can have lives, damage, shields, etc. The game doesn't have to "draw" you at all, or try to interpret how you're standing, or what bits people can see of you (damage-taking should be as simple as finding a coloured blob on an all-green arena in the direction of the gun-facing and determining if they were shot or not and working out which player they are should be quite simple), the game "feels" like you're inside it, and you can only do things that you can actually do. Campers would end up with cramp, bunny-hoppers would be exhausted, etc.
Probably it's just me and nobody would play it but if I was a millionaire, I'd damn well build something like that in my mansion for my friends to play with.
camber
then the cart could really stick to the corners and crank some speed. this thing has heaps of potential. especially as the karts could have weapons, speed control, be modded like crazy. and the whole thing could be run o'er the good ol' net... Arr, I predict some underground gambling to be done. screw rooster fighting, this is the next big thing. my kart is going to be made from epoxy lego for sure! respect to the work and spirit of fun that has gone in there! the wharehouse site is very cool too.
Waiting for the other shoe to...
...let's see him try that with Homeworld
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I know it's prime for some lash, but why is this on Slashdot? Even the fad of "ooo look I can send a camera to space" presented a somewhat greater challenge then this. And this isn't even in idle.
I'm savoring the irony in using physical reality to simulate a simulation.
That game has one of the best physics engines I've ever seen. Looked very realistic aside from a few minor flaws I spotted.
I can't be the only one who immediately thought "how did they recreate a classic 'surfer rock' song from the 60s using a radio-controlled car?"
You could use this technology with a different green screen set.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9anuy_virtualization-gate-siggraph-2009-e_tech
Or even just paint the environment like a level and use augmented reality to add the weapons and effects similar to this:
http://vimeo.com/6885648
Perhaps a combination of the two where the real world (green screened) acts as the game's "physics",
and a few stock physical objects (like Nerf balls / guns) are modified digitally to become various weapons and items?
Orlando FL location. It was under a transparent floor, and you remotely piloted little r/c trucks with lights and a cam from stand-up stations equipped with a steering wheel and CRT. Spectators could watch (and guide) you roaming around looking for lost treasure or whatever from above, while you drove the car. They had a lot of tech problems with the system, including some of the cars catching on fire, so I believe they eventually scrapped it. I played with it when it was working, and it was a lot of fun.
Is it just me or does Vimeo always suck when videos are linked from /.? I get a few seconds then the video craps out under the load...
At least Youtube seems to always work.
Anyone have an alternate video link? Vimeo sucks yet again...
https://twitter.com/googlepubpolicy/status/20393606477
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That's totally friggin awesome. I just wish their comment security worked, but it doesn't, so I'll post my comment here instead.
The ideas in the comments on /. are awesome as hell though, like ways of implementing boost and whatnot :3
I just don't think that little car can do 'Wipeout boost' fast though. ;P Maybe if it were one of those larger scale and disgustingly overpowered brushless competition dealies that go nearly 100mph or something stupid like that... But then you're moving into lolwaytoofast and lolholeinthewall territory.
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