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Author Topic: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)  (Read 2236 times)

Offline Agent4054

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Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« on: September 27, 2011, 12:10:00 PM »
I may have mentioned the hamster ball before, but just in case I haven't, I'll give a run-down as well as show off what we're doing with it.

So the VirtuSphere is this giant plastic ball that you run around in with a VR headset and a gun with buttons on it. It is almost completely impractical as a gaming device, and costs roughly $80k.

Harrisburg University bought 3 of these at a discounted price. And they hired us to make environments for them using UDK on a few projects they wanted done. One of them was an interior environment, another was a Gettysburg battlefield, and a few others. I ended up modeling the interior environment after the Mudbrick offices. The environment was shown off at some social media summit at HU a couple weeks ago, and was met with Ooh's and Aah's apparently (it was shown off without me knowing. I was still working on it at the time).

So I finally finished the damn thing. And the creators of the VirtuSphere liked it so much they're using it as a showcase piece for future conventions/conferences/etc. O_o It'll be shown off at a conference in Vegas in January.

Some pics:
http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/office/pics/wide_new_1.png
http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/office/pics/wide_new_2.png

Those are slightly older pics, as I have fixed the chair shadows since then, among other things.

But the entire environment was modeled, textured, and lit by me, making up a total of 113 unique objects. And took me 4 months.

The Gettysburg environment took me ~1 month, but it's much simpler:

http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/fog_sun.png
http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/treeline.png
http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/union_side.png
http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/craters.png

Also had working cannons in there, but they broke when updating the environment in a newer build, so I'm redoing them:

http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/conf_cannons.png

I know some of you were curious WTF I had been doing lately since I'm never gaming with you guys anymore. Well, I've been doing this, and working on Codename: The Runner. Hence, I've been working 12-16 hour days, 7 days a week. :)
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Offline vincegun

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2011, 02:27:14 PM »
After looking at the pictures of the device, I must say.....

Impractical, yes. Necessary, OBVIOUSLY!  8)
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Offline Broken

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2011, 02:55:14 PM »
does it blend?
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Offline Agent4054

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2011, 03:47:48 PM »
It's a little scary to run in. It's so heavy that when you get it up to a good speed, it's difficult to stop. I'm also fairly confident that it would kill me if the ball ever came off of the supports it sits on and rolled over me.

Here's me after conquering the art of jogging without falling over myself:


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Offline The Shoctor

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2011, 07:48:02 AM »
I want to see video of someone getting in or out of it... You know. For SCIENCE!
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Offline _!Rathe!_

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2011, 07:33:02 PM »
They tried to get funding on the show Shark Tank.  Here is a link to the episode.
http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/episode-detail/episode-109/305566?page=3
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Offline Agent4054

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2011, 10:05:19 PM »
Yeah it's um... Well, I would personally never use the thing as a first person shooter VR device. I tried the FPS demo level they made for it, not only is the demo complete crap, but navigating WHILE attempting to shoot things is nigh impossible. Even when you get used to running around in it.

I can absolutely see it being used as a virtual tour/walkthrough device (which is what we've been developing for it), but there really isn't much practical use for anything else. A spherical walking surface is just too damn weird. The feeling of walking uphill when the virtual environment is flat? Ehhhh..

But I don't really care. I get paid, and I get to play with a cool new toy. WIN/WIN.
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Offline The Shoctor

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2011, 07:18:38 PM »
It's a home run!
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Offline Agent4054

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Re: Virtusphere (Giant Hamster Ball)
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2011, 01:06:41 PM »
Also finished the damn civil war cannon last night. http://o3visuals.com/files/mudbrick/picketts/pics/hipoly_cannon.png

Pew pew pew!
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