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Duo Sneak an Oculus Rift Onto Roller Coaster For a Wild Ride

Posted by timothy on from the keep-hands-and-arms-inside-the-cart-at-all-times dept.

New submitter bobbrocolli (3647945) writes "Equipped with a hidden laptop and Oculus Rift, O'Driscoll may be the first person to have ever gone on a 'Real VR' roller coaster with perfect motion feedback. The duo's system displayed a virtual version of the exact same roller coaster that O'Driscoll and Forder were on. With some practice they managed to sync the virtual reality roller coaster to the real rollercoaster."

18 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Yo dawg, We heard you like rollercoasters by mekkab · · Score: 4, Funny

    so we put you in a VR rollercoaster while you were on a real rollercoaster so you can coast while you coast!

    --
    In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
  2. article link after some googling - you're welcome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://kotaku.com/they-took-an-oculus-rift-on-a-real-roller-coaster-for-s-1574145196

  3. PIRATING ROLLERCOASTERS IS A CRIME!!!! by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 3, Funny

    Won't somebody stop this madness before Disneyworld, Six Flags, and King's Island are left poor and homeless like those poor Hollywood executives?

    --
    Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
  4. Staged by madprof · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah yes. I forgot how easy it was to sneak a laptop and a VR headset onto a rollercoaster. This is almost certainly planned by a PR agency. It probably happened but quite deliberately to get us to pay attention to their VR tech.

  5. And the point is ... by stevez67 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    pointless.

    1. Re:And the point is ... by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I thought so too, until I read why they did it. They weren't just doing it for the lulz by riding a virtual coaster at the same time they were on it. The point was that you could use the coaster's tactile feedback with anything at all in VR. They used a virtual coaster because it was the simplest thing to test, but that is by no means where they want to see it end.

      Put differently, people could make tracks in VR that sync up to a roller coaster track, but then change out the scenario entirely. So instead of just riding a virtual coaster while on the coaster, you're suddenly piloting a jet in a dogfight, riding on the back of a dragon, swimming through blood vessels, or chasing a bounty target in space. It'd be the same tactile experience for all of them, but they would all seem wildly different.

      It seems like exactly the sort of thing that might have applications in a theme park. It may also be useful for training purposes or for some weirder applications, such as trying to acclimate people to the nausea that might come from keeping the video out of sync with the tactile sensations.

  6. Re:WHERE THE HELL... by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Informative

    The actual link:
    http://www.roadtovr.com/two-indie-devs-snuck-concealed-oculus-rift-laptop-onto-rollercoaster-ride-lifetime/

    No reason to give kotaku clicks for their brief summary of another article.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  7. For our next trick.... by Laserfuzz · · Score: 2

    we're going to drive a car!

  8. Re:WHERE THE HELL... by XanC · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know what's bad if you have motion sickness?

    Watching a video of a guy on a roller coaster watching a video of being on a roller coaster.

  9. Google Street View by jones_supa · · Score: 2

    Make an Oculus Rift display appropriate Google Street View imagery and go traveling on the streets on a unicycle.

  10. What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Donning a Rift so you can enjoy virtual sex while your body does the real thing with your wife? FFS. People need to spend less time interacting with their gadgets.

    1. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, if I was banging your wife, I'd want to make her look like someone else too.

  11. Re:Link? by sunwukong · · Score: 2

    Put on your damn goggles!

  12. Re:What will they think of next by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The point was, if you can sync up the movements if the meatspace ride with the movements of the virtual ride, you then have an infinitely configurable ride experience, where you can change the visual setting and theme at will. They propose that there could be roller coasters in theme parks that each seat is equipped with a Rift like device, and you could select the theme of your ride, be it say, flying a fighter jet, or racing through an abandoned mine, or dodging asteroids in space, to any other of a galaxy of possibilities.

    --
    I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
  13. Re:We could pay I guess by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    You could feel every hair of the bearskin rug.

  14. Re:What will they think of next by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    Wow. Skinnable rollercoaster rides. That's so cool, it's like WinAmp!

  15. staged...but why? by globaljustin · · Score: 2

    This is almost certainly planned by a PR agency. It probably happened but quite deliberately to get us to pay attention to their VR tech.

    makes sense...I get that companies stage these "user made video" things...and I do think the video is bullshit

    what I don't get is **why** whoever put this on would think that this is an attractive or interesting demonstration...

    it's like watching VR porn while you have sex in real life

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  16. Definitely not the first, not by a long shot... by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    LaRonde (SixFlags) in Montreal did experiments with this nearly a year ago:

    https://developer.oculusvr.com...