i wonder what a flight sim would be like with VR and full motion?

[steve2112]

i've long been interested in building a full motion platform for a flight sim. i know how to do it in DCS as well as FSX and Falcon BMS but now DCS has VR support i'm really excited.

 

i worked out an easy to build design for a 2DOF (pitch and roll) platform and now thanks to the headset, you don't need to move around a large display, just the pilot, seat, joysticks and headset. something like this

or this

or something simpler like this

but smaller since no screen required

 

i just wonder if the experience would be too intense, i still sometimes feel a bit queasy after a session

 

anyhow, its interesting to think about it. i know there are some good forums about this

Edited September 28, 2016 by steve2112

[cichlidfan]

I have never experienced it myself.

 

However, when you consider that most of the nausea issues that people have are due to visual input not matching up with inner ear input, I would guess that combining VR with a motion platform would virtually eliminate motion sickness. The would, of course, require that the motion platform was well synced with the in sim action, otherwise it could be even worse.

[steve2112]

i just found this

https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/2dof-dcs-motion-pit.9099/

 

'

Now version 1.0 of my simulator is ready, and I am using a lever length of 4cm which results, as mentioned above, in an inclination of 4 degrees:

https://www.xsimulator.net/communit...ation-for-oculus-rift.7684/page-3#post-114278

 

I am flying with Oculus Rift, and as @noorbeast says, your brain helps you a lot in pretending a much larger movement than the simulator actually performs. Besides, the flight sim plugins (FSX and Aerofly) not only provide values for the roll and pitch angles, but also for for roll and pitch accelerations(!). By using these values you can simulate the effect to roll a bit further with each new stick movement, although actually the seat moves back in between. This is really awesome.

 

Besides, in specific designs a small angle has some considerable advantages:

When using a VR headset (like I do), you don't have any need for motion cancellation with an inclination angle of around 10 degrees. (Background info: The headset cannot differentiate between your head movements and the movements of the rig. There are some threads here discussing this topic.)

I have a pure seat mover. That means, only the seat moves, while my feet rest on a non-movable base. When the angle is too large, I discovered that it feels unnaturally, because the knees are bending too much. And this destroys part of the immersion.

When I started building, I actually did not believe the statements I now make by myself. But now I really enjoy my current version. (Which does not mean that I will not continue improving it.

'

 

interesting

Edited September 28, 2016 by steve2112

[Kirk66]

I've been working on military fighter simulators for the past 20 years, since I retired from the AF as an F-4 WSO. No current military fighter sims use a moving platform - it simply does not work in the dynamic environment of a fighter. Instead, G-seats, G-suits, seat shakers (for aerodynamic buffet), and the best visuals the mil can afford (surprisingly not that good...) are what works the best. Personally, I like a g-suit and buffet cues - g-seats are a bit hokey, IMO. It helps to have a full cockpit, and to wear all the gear. Some AFs do that, the USAF usually does not.

 

I would recommend spending the time and effort (and cash) on the best visuals first, then on controls, then on a buffet seat (sub woofer?). Motion is a dead end.

 

Now if you were building a 737 sim, a 6 DOF motion base would work great! But you would need a big room...

 

Vulture

[cichlidfan]

Now if you were building a 737 sim, a 6 DOF motion base would work great! But you would need a big room...

 

That gets right back to what I mentioned about synchronization. Getting a motion platform to react as fast as needed for high speed maneuvering would be a challenge.

 

I suspect the biggest issue with military sim visual quality is, first, the turn around time between writing the RFP (Request For Proposal) for any contract and having a deliverable, is quite long (I've been there on the contractor side). The delivered tech is easily a generation old by the time it gets uncrated on site. The second issue is, possibly, the idea that if it gets the point across, it is good enough.

[steve2112]

I've been working on military fighter simulators for the past 20 years, since I retired from the AF as an F-4 WSO. No current military fighter sims use a moving platform - it simply does not work in the dynamic environment of a fighter. Instead, G-seats, G-suits, seat shakers (for aerodynamic buffet), and the best visuals the mil can afford (surprisingly not that good...) are what works the best. Personally, I like a g-suit and buffet cues - g-seats are a bit hokey, IMO. It helps to have a full cockpit, and to wear all the gear. Some AFs do that, the USAF usually does not.

 

I would recommend spending the time and effort (and cash) on the best visuals first, then on controls, then on a buffet seat (sub woofer?). Motion is a dead end.

 

Now if you were building a 737 sim, a 6 DOF motion base would work great! But you would need a big room...

 

Vulture

 

i've heard that before but i suspect that was more true before VR. for example 'I would recommend spending the time and effort (and cash) on the best visuals first', right now is probably rift CV1 and I have that.

 

actually, there is a no cost way to try out a moving seat type sim just for kicks: teach my wife to watch the monitor (or joystick) while i'm flying with the headset on and rock and roll my seat around in response to pitch and roll

Edited September 28, 2016 by steve2112

[cichlidfan]

actually, there is an almost no cost way to try out a moving seat type sim just for kicks: teach my wife to watch the monitor while i'm flying with the headset on and rock and roll my seat around in response to pitch and roll

 

I hope you have both a comfortable couch, and possibly, good health insurance. :D

 

EDIT: Luckily the Rift cables are short so you might notice a problem before she rock-and-rolls your seat out onto the freeway.

[MacThai_75]

The DK Home version is just under $900, or about $1100 delivered and the Pro is $1650 delivered, both are 2DoF full motion rigs (both seat and pedals move).

 

Not cheap ... but a good enough price for me to try the Pro for both racing and flight with my CV1.

It's a'so very compact for a full motion rig.

 

But until it gets here in the next couple of weeks or so, all I have to go on is what people with them have to say, and with a VR HMD the reviews 'are' mostly for racing.

But the reports are good enough for me to give one a try for both racing and flight sim'ing.

 

This is an early version of the DK Pro ...

 

This is a similar rig (gearmotor based platform, as opposed to a linear actuator based rig) with DCS on a flat screen ...

Edited September 28, 2016 by MacThai_75

[cichlidfan]

Well, even if you don't like it for flying, I can see where it should perform reasonably well for racing.

[steve2112]

The DK Home version is just under $900, or about $1100 delivered and the Pro is $1650 delivered, both are 2DoF full motion rigs (both seat and pedals move).

 

Not cheap ... but a good enough price for me to try the Pro for both racing and flight with my CV1.

It's a'so very compact for a full motion rig.

 

But until it gets here in the next couple of weeks or so, all I have to go on is what people with them have to say, and with a VR HMD the reviews 'are' mostly for racing.

But the reports are good enough for me to give one a try for both racing and flight sim'ing.

 

 

cool, do you know if this works out of the box with DCS or at least there is a way to make it work?. i know from personal experience, it's not super easy (but is possible) to get telemetry data from DCS in real time. has someone does that and hooked it up to this rig?

 

do you have a link to that rig you bought? is it this http://dynkit.com/en? i see DCS is incuded http://dynkit.com/en/games

 

anyhow, can't wait to find out your reaction to it when you get it running.

Edited September 28, 2016 by steve2112

[MacThai_75]

@steve2112, yes ... that's the link to the DK Home and Pro.

 

I 'think' I'll be the first to try a DKP with DCS, but the plugin they use is actually from SimTools (there's a thread in this forum for SimTools info) but you can use other interface software as others have pointed out, that also have DCS plugins.

 

Also, there is another thread in this forum for motion rigs, that has some additional info on the DKP and well as other motion rigs.

One guy (mrsparks) just got his Atomic A3 which looks to be one 'r e a l l y' nice rig.

A few of us are anxiously awaiting his review of it once he gets some time with it. :)

 

And some have built the G-Seat, which I might be interested in marrying to a 2DoF rig before I add a 3'rd axis like the one Xsim offers, to get yaw ... if it doesn't look like the 2DoF and a G-seat will suffice.

 

The price of the DK rigs makes it at least somewhat reasonable enough to give it all a try.

[steve2112]

@steve2112, yes ... that's the link to the DK Home and Pro.

 

I 'think' I'll be the first to try a DKP with DCS, but the plugin they use is actually from SimTools (there's a thread in this forum for SimTools info) but you can use other interface software as others have pointed out, that also have DCS plugins.

 

Also, there is another thread in this forum for motion rigs, that has some additional info on the DKP and well as other motion rigs.

One guy (mrsparks) just got his Atomic A3 which looks to be one 'r e a l l y' nice rig.

A few of us are anxiously awaiting his review of it once he gets some time with it. :)

 

And some have built the G-Seat, which I might be interested in marrying to a 2DoF rig before I add a 3'rd axis like the one Xsim offers, to get yaw if ... it doesn't look like the 2DoF and a G-seat will suffice.

 

The price of the DK rigs makes it at least somewhat reasonable enough to give it all a try.

 

i'm really interested to hear your reaction to that thing. as it turns out, i have a friend coming from the Ukraine to visit me in november so i could maybe convince him to bring the kit over with him, save me postage and customs fees.

[MacThai_75]

That would be really cool, and I would guess that might make customs go faster too.

 

Yeah, I plan to do a full review from order to delivery, as well as set-up and etc. once any "honeymoon/inevitable initial frustrations" are over, then post it all here, and amend it if needed as I get more time with, and do more mods to it.

 

So hopefully it doesn't all just tank as a flight rig right out of the chute! ;)

[misoswan]

nice g-seat

[MacThai_75]

nice g-seat

 

That's exactly what I mean by marrying a G-Seat with a motion platform.

Thanks for posting!! :)

[misoswan]

I have platform i think start build my self g seat. good engine for g -seat Turnigy™ S8166M High Torque Servo 33kg / 0.21sec / 154g need 8X

[steve2112]

i just tried a simple test using my standard rig (an office chair with joysticks mounted to the arm rests) and the CV1, and a 1WP (wife power) motor to simulate pitch.

 

she didn't do a great job of sync'ing the pitch movements on screen with the chair before she got bored, but the few times she did get it right, it was pretty cool.

 

not really a conclusive test however

 

one thing i read was to get a realistic sensation, you need fast movement, something like 150-700mm/sec. i'm not sure where that measurement is meant to be taken, but what strikes me is if you only have a limited range of movement, say +/- 15 degrees, you'll burn through that range pretty fast, probably less than a second. so you may get the feeling of pitch and roll on the first part of the motion, but then left with nothing, which i suspect will be quite confusing.

Edited September 28, 2016 by steve2112

[MacThai_75]

I was surprised to see that that's an easy to obtain velocity.

Even the cheap $800 DK Home rig has .20M/S (200mm/sec) so no problem there.

 

 

Range of movement might be the biggest factor, but once in a bank, even if motion is stopped you are still feeling the side weight (roll Gs) and the same for pitch, so along with the "motion trickery" that just a HMD provides when there is no actual movement at all, it should make the experience a lot more immersive.

But much to your point ... the real confusion will come when (like in the viddy I posted on the previous page) ... the roll goes one way and you go past the seat's movement range, then you roll back but are still outside the seat's max range.

You can see that happen just shortly after he goes inverted to the right then rolls back left.

He then moves beyond the seat's range in a left roll and then there is a significant bit of a roll shuffling that the seat never seems to responded to ... so hopefully the HMD "motion trickery" will fill in. :dunno:

 

In the end I think it will just boil down to $ per giggle that we're willing to pay! ;)

 

To that effect (no pun intended) I just got word my DKP rig is finished being built and tested, and is now being painted, then packed up for air delivery this week.

So depending on how long customs is, I'm thinking late next week/early the following before it shows up in my driveway.

 

As posted before, I will review the entire process from order to first operation.

I'm sure I'll need help from the SimTools DCS plugin gurus ... to do the tweaks to get it working optimally.

 

This is a very inexpensive, no frills 2DoF rig, with the "home" version @ $1100 delivered to the USA ($800 plus $300 shipping) and the Pro version is $1650 delivered ($1350 + $300 shipping) out of the Ukraine from http://dynkit.com/en.

 

So if it works as well for flight as it does for racing, it should be fun. :pilotfly:

Edited September 28, 2016 by MacThai_75

[steve2112]

thanks MacThai_75 for keeping us informed. i like your comment 'In the end I think it will just boil down to $ per giggle that we're willing to pay!'

 

on the other thread i'm on at xsimualtor i got an interesting reply

"Well, the amount of rotation is not meant for simulating the actual inclination of the plane, but the acceleration.

And I can confirm that the 10 degrees of my rig are quite amazing when I am wearing my VR headset.

Besides, the plugins of the two flight simulations I am using (FSX and Aerofly FS 2) not just provide values for the roll and pitch angles, but additionally for the roll and pitch acceleration(!). By using these values you get the impression to roll / pitch a bit further with every new stick movement."

 

if you have a positive reaction to the rig, i think i'll take what you learn and build my own anyhow. to me, most of the fun will be derived from designing, building, testing and tweaking it. my style is typically that once i get something perfected, i lose interest in it, i'm more about the journey than the destination.

 

anyhow, looking forward to your next post. steve

Edited September 29, 2016 by steve2112

[MacThai_75]

Steve, be sure to check out the SimTools thread in the Home Cockpit forum.

I put links in there that has info on DIY projects for motion rigs, that may interest you. :)

[steve2112]

thanks again, simtools looks great. i've done some little arduino projects before so i'm quite familiar with it, all all that arduino shuff ships dirt cheap from china for free.

 

i have 6 months off before my next paying job (semi retirement is awesome) so now i'm motivated to start building. i think i'll make a heavy wooden base for my moving chair rig so i can experiment with larger ranges of motion than the DKPro will allow. and i'll go find some worm drive motors then get started.

[MacThai_75]

^^^ mai bpen rai :thumbup:

 

Please keep us posted on your project as it develops.

I'm all ears for this stuff! :)

 

And be sure to check out Frusheen's G-Seat project here ...

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2733051#post2733051

 

He's doing some amazing work! :)

Edited September 29, 2016 by MacThai_75

[steve2112]

hi macthai75, how's your motion sim project going?

 

i've got the mechanical part of mine working, but i'm waiting for the electronics on a slow boat from china, then i'll connect it to simtools

[MacThai_75]

I'm still waiting for the last box to clear customs in NY and make it to me in California.

The first box with the main frame got here on Wed, but the last box with the electronics and motors is showing no movement since the 10'th.

 

The tracking number status for that box says "Your item has been processed through our facility in ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS)."

When I google what that means ... some of what I read really doesn't look very good at all. :(

 

I have been in comms with another person that bought at the same time as I, and he is seeing the same thing.

He also received the box with with just frame parts, but the box with the arduino/pwr supply, it's case, cords and etc., and the motors ... as well as the hardware and some additional frame parts, is MIA in the system like mine is.

 

So .... I'm waiting with fingers crossed.

Edited October 15, 2016 by MacThai_75

[muse458]

i've long been interested in building a full motion platform for a flight sim. i know how to do it in DCS as well as FSX and Falcon BMS but now DCS has VR support i'm really excited.

 

i worked out an easy to build design for a 2DOF (pitch and roll) platform and now thanks to the headset, you don't need to move around a large display, just the pilot, seat, joysticks and headset. something like this

or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TokSLPB5_Bs, or something simpler like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BLvi5nvfTU, but smaller since no screen required

 

i just wonder if the experience would be too intense, i still sometimes feel a bit queasy after a session

 

anyhow, its interesting to think about it. i know there are some good forums about this

Hey Steve2112

 

Ive also been flying in VR for a while (just finished a dogfight session actually, pretty intense)... and first thing that came to my mind was "I need full motion with this!"... I see your building a 2DOF..and I have been building one through trial and error with the xsimulator forums help because I couldn't really afford the atomic' A3's of the world ,but I still wanted 3DOF and good range of motion. I would love to get your input as Im thinking about open sourcing my design so others dont have to go through the learning curve I did...but first wanted to get some input from the community to see what people actually want in a motion sim for VR.

 

would it be ok to ask you for your help on this?