A Look Ahead

Cobra 427

Do any of you remember "Flight Simulator"? Do you remember how akward the controls were? Do you remember the truly 2-D graphics that it had and how difficult it was to land the plane, not to mention how difficult it was to NAVIGATE from one airport to the other?!

 

~ Cobra Chris

 

Yes you are right. I also had this one and totally forgot about it!

Do any of you remember "Flight Simulator"? Do you remember how akward the controls were? Do you remember the truly 2-D graphics that it had and how difficult it was to land the plane, not to mention how difficult it was to NAVIGATE from one airport to the other?! THERE my friends was something that was truly akin to nothing more than a video game! I hated it when it came out, and I STILL hate it to this day! My dad was in love with it because it was the first thing to come close to being behind the control stick of the real deal without putting life, and limb in real jeaopardy. I can still remember the horrible scratch track that they used as the sound for the engine. I can still hear it in my head as I write this!

The ground was all one colour (medium green), so was the sky (light blue), and the artificial horizon was practically invisible, and the altimeter was so janky that you might as well have stuck your head out the window, and watch the clouds roll by! I can't tell you guys/girls how many times I crashed my plane - more times than I care to recall. I thought "Thank God that I'm not this bad a pilot in real life"! I don't know how many people I would've killed including myself! Chalk this one up to bad game programming, and the lack of true technology. I'm very glad for the technological advancement that the internet has since it IS the real reason why computer technology has come so far that everything on the screen looks like it should in person (photo-wise). Sound is something that you can alter, but pictures are a world away from being able to just synthesize and be happy with. 

~ Cobra Chris

Back inte 80s I had a video game called "B-17 Bomber". You picked your mission took off, then the voice would tell you where the bandit was coming from. You then would switch to the gun position and shoot at the attacking fighter. You then did your bomb run, dropped your bombs and hopefully was able to land back in jolly England without being shot down by the Luftwaffe fighters. And back then this was really cool and different.

Fast forward to the present and it looked like a very poor representation of the actual thing. I'm amazed at the kind of computer generated animation that is presently available. 

Liquid Magma

Recently got to play with my friend's Oculus, wow! I agree we need some good new flight simulators! I had fun flying around the moon, but I have always wanted a way to look anywhere I wanted to search and track bandits in my old simulators. I can just imagine the possibilities. It has been a while since a good flight simulator has come out too.

 

Been considering an Oculus rift for an upcoming space sim that is coming out. Price is still very high though and I think I would rather wait for v2 than grab the first generation of new tech. It looks very very cool! There was even a treadmill type device on Kickstarter that worked with it that would actually combine the VR headset with the actual physical motion.

Recently got to play with my friend's Oculus, wow! I agree we need some good new flight simulators! I had fun flying around the moon, but I have always wanted a way to look anywhere I wanted to search and track bandits in my old simulators. I can just imagine the possibilities. It has been a while since a good flight simulator has come out too.

Don, based on my experience and conversations they are ages ahead of software 5 years old. 

I worked a little bit in the early days of VR.  I think it is currently more hype than reality, at least compared to the abilities we were looking for in the early days.  So far it seems to be glorified video games, limited to a limited mobililty vantage point, like a seat in a vehicle.  The emphasis seems to be all in the display (and even there the results have been slower than I imagined.  Very much work is still needed for sensors for location and head and body azimuth. 

Biggest challenge now I see is the kinesthetics for sensing walking on a grade. If you are walking about on a flat floor, and the story calls for you to be going up a grade, how do you make the subject feel he is indeed going up a grade.

Another problem I see is the limited scripts.  The computer should be able to play many, many alternatives depending on choices of subject.  Many of the available programs are basically just travelogs playing a linear fly-through of some area.