Exploring the world of Knightmare with Oculus Rift

[Canadanne]

Image below is a WIP of the Mills of Doom that I have been steadily working on recently. The cogs turn right now, the cog on the support rotates and moves up and down accordingly. Sound is pretty much done. Still need to implement the pendulum, floating object thing that moves back and forth? and make a bat fly past periodically. And yes, it's possible to fall between the teeth of the cogs and die :O

Awesome, I can't wait to see what a Mills of Doom death would be like!

[pjmlfc05]

Although not my favourite room, it will be interesting to see the outcome of this!

It was also great to see your work picked up by VR Focus, many congratulations on this achievement!

[jamesuk]

Mills of Doom from Series 2 now finished. Featuring authentic sound effects and an animated bat that flies past occasionally .








Falling between the gaps of the cogs is naturally an insta-kill


Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s6cCtXLAu8

High res screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/LSHt1

[Pooka]

Falling between the gaps of the cogs is naturally an insta-kill

I've always wondered how this would work. Despite the title containing the words "of Doom" and the massive chasm above which the Mills were suspended, it didn't seem like a massively deadly room, not least because the Mills themselves didn't rotate and the dungeoneers always seemed to be able to walk across the gaps between cogs without any problems!

A good example of how scary Knightmare can be even in a room which poses no threat and got no kills.

Adding the ability to die makes this a much better room! And the animated bat is a nice touch too!

[Canadanne]

And the animated bat is a nice touch too!

Agreed, I love these little details! And it's so cool to see this room from all kinds of unusual angles.

James, have you thought about doing Slice Me Dice Me from KMVR / Geek Week, or would the jumping between platforms not be possible?

[jamesuk]

I had been pondering on the possibility of doing the Slice Me Dice Me room at some point. Jumping is definitely not a problem as it was a requirement for the play your cards right room. Animating it should be reasonably simple and putting down triggers on the wrong tiles to make them fall away should be pretty simple stuff.

[Beefybeef]

This looks awesome, great work!

Would love to see the Fireball Chamber from series 8, though that might be a tricky one to program!

[jamesuk]

With the release of Leap Motions Orion driver which greatly improves the tracking quality, I thought I'd try integrating it into the Play Your Cards Right puzzle. Being able to see your hands in VR really goes a long way in increasing the sense of presence. With the Leap Motion in, you physically need to reach out and touch the cards After adding it in, I replaced the blocks with ones that have smooth edges to be more in line with the original and upgraded the scripts so I have greater control of the animations. The cards now progressively appear like the original, the previous block goes back in as you progress through the puzzle and unlike the previous version, touching the wrong card results in the block visibly going back in (used to disappear before).




Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwfqgt5khs

[pjmlfc05]

Loving this! Also seeing it done successfully and unsuccessfully with Julie's and Alex's team is cool! It' a long way to fall in you touch the wrong card!

[Pooka]

I spy the Arken shield in the distance! Nice touch!

[jamesuk]

Had a rather nice breakthrough earlier. Whilst looking through the Oculus Rift debug C# code, I came across a function that allows Oculus mirroring to be disabled with the press of a key. Having had trouble with mirroring normal cameras to the monitor in the past, I decided to try pressing the key and I suddenly gained the ability to show room cameras on the monitor instead of what's going in the Rift! The VR still functions like it normally does so you effectively get a nice representation of Knightmares Magic Mirror on the monitor.











Ragdoll deaths have now implemented which look vastly more realistic than the original TV program. There's no way these would've gotten past censors back in the way



Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leD8ZjRLAbs

The death at 1:47 made me flinch so hard I was jointly looking at the side wall and checking the camera was outputting to the monitor and I failed to see how much of the floor fell away. Looking back at the footage, there are times where it feels like your watching an episode of Knightmare.

With a mocap suit such as Razer Stem or PrioVR and sufficient room space (inline with original blue screen sets), I do believe 1:1 recreations of Knightmare will eventually be possible with consumer level technology as long as the mocoap suits have sufficient range. It's easy enough to blindfold the player by obstructing their vision to truly make it like the original.

[Mystara]

Indeed. We were looking at something very similar a couple of weeks ago

[pjmlfc05]

Really like the Ragdoll effect! Enjoyed the various deaths in the block and tackle. Also seeing the dungeoneer fall in play your cards right looked so realistic.

[Drassil]

I spy the Arken shield in the distance! Nice touch!

It's not so much a touch as part of the accurate recreation of Julie's team's PYCR, and is of course only in the distance until the player moves closer to it.

Dazzling work as ever, James. Thank you for continuing to share it with us. It sounds like you're gaining plenty of satisfaction from the project too.

[Beefybeef]

Awesome work, it's almost like watching the show!

Would love to see these rooms in action...