PrioVR, the full-body tracking suit, rebounds from its failed
Kickstarter with a fully-functional prototype at CES 2014 that will pair
with the Oculus Rift headset.
The
PrioVR full-body tracking suit will be paired with the Oculus Rift's
immersive headset at CES 2014 for an unprecedented virtual reality
experience.
(Credit:
Nick Statt/CNET)
LAS VEGAS -- The future of gaming, at least to those banking on the rise
of virtual reality, lies not just with better graphics or voice
control, but with sensor suits and headsets that bring our real-world
movements to life onscreen. At CES 2014, the PrioVR full-body tracking
suit is on display and the company behind it, YEI Technology, is
partnering with VR headset maker Oculus Rift to showoff a fully
immersive gaming experience later this week.
Sailing toward the far-off sci-fi future of those powered exoskeletons in "The Matrix" or the video game series Crysis, the PrioVR hardware is a string of strap-on sensors extensive enough to make anyone look like an actor in a motion capture studio. Its half-body system includes sensors for a user's head, elbows, and wrists that can be expanded into a full-body suit that tracks one's shoulder, waist and leg movements.
"That allows you to drop on the ground, roll around, shoot under your leg, curl up into a fetal position," said Paul Yost, YEI's chief of R&D. "We have this collection of inertial sensors that combines with a software that ties all that together into this skeletal model. All that happens on the system itself, so there's no computational load on the PC other than the communication."
Combined with that software are API plug-ins, Yost pointed out, that are
compatible with all major gaming engines, allowing developers to drop
the suit support into into any application with relative ease. PCs are
the starting point, but YEI hopes to expand to consoles as well.
As far as movement goes, players wield a nunchuk-like controller similar to that of the original Wii to navigate the game environment and utilize both hands and his or her upper body to make more nuanced movements. On the floor at CES, a user strapped into the half-body PrioVR prototype played a first-person shooter demo, shifting in his chair to peek out of corners and furiously angling a virtual weapon with his hands.
While this iteration of the PrioVR is new, YEI's attempts to jump into the VR market trace back to last fall. PrioVR originally launched on Kickstarter last September, where it racked up an impressive $111,000 but failed to meet its $225,000 goal.
Sailing toward the far-off sci-fi future of those powered exoskeletons in "The Matrix" or the video game series Crysis, the PrioVR hardware is a string of strap-on sensors extensive enough to make anyone look like an actor in a motion capture studio. Its half-body system includes sensors for a user's head, elbows, and wrists that can be expanded into a full-body suit that tracks one's shoulder, waist and leg movements.
"That allows you to drop on the ground, roll around, shoot under your leg, curl up into a fetal position," said Paul Yost, YEI's chief of R&D. "We have this collection of inertial sensors that combines with a software that ties all that together into this skeletal model. All that happens on the system itself, so there's no computational load on the PC other than the communication."
(Credit:
Nick Statt/CNET)
As far as movement goes, players wield a nunchuk-like controller similar to that of the original Wii to navigate the game environment and utilize both hands and his or her upper body to make more nuanced movements. On the floor at CES, a user strapped into the half-body PrioVR prototype played a first-person shooter demo, shifting in his chair to peek out of corners and furiously angling a virtual weapon with his hands.
While this iteration of the PrioVR is new, YEI's attempts to jump into the VR market trace back to last fall. PrioVR originally launched on Kickstarter last September, where it racked up an impressive $111,000 but failed to meet its $225,000 goal.
About Unknown
0 comentarii:
Post a Comment