The FeelFX Motion System Project

Ok guys........here is my crazy 5 DOF project that I had promised many of you once I got it all organized and on-line. :razz:

The site should explain and show most of the project other then construction photos that I need to get on. But there is quite a bit of research, illustrations, interactive graphics, video, pictures and more.

The picts and videos are 6 months old as I have the unit apart for some upgrades and to get them ready for the surge and roll module add-ons but they pretty much show the direction.

The first look video was meant to be somewhat entertaining (in a toung and cheek fun kind of way)..but there are some things you need to know about it.

As far as the video goes, I was going to make a standard video and just add some background music and then a co-worker had an idea to add some narration and make it look like a real thing/company.

So it turned out well and hopefully looks somewhat professional but there are a few things in the video that are not true and that part of it was done for fun.

- FeelFx is just a project not really a company
- Counsel support is not a realty yet
- I make no claims to how any of these modules would work with other systems as there is no testing on that (but modules are simple)
- rudder pedals may work but not at the same time as a yoke as what I am using has 1 controller ID limit.

Other then that, I am happy with what I have so far but there is so ...so...so ....much more to do and so many ways to improve it.

Also a major thing that is not shown is the pedel/rudder attachment to the end of the chair and the wheel/stick attachement. This is really important to get the controls solid during movement. In the video the wheel is attached to a wieghted wood lap bar but know it is a 4 bolt attachment with a hinge release bolt for the user to enter the chair.....so there is a lot more that has happened lately...It is all pretty over whelming to create this stuff in a quick manner.

The other thing not shown much at this point is the electronics and the control boxes of which there is one for each motion. This I do hope to soon in a behind the scenes section

Thanks everyone for your patience...Hopefully a few will find some things useful from what I have done so far.

BTW...make sure you check out the interactive graphics and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

http://www.feelfx.com

Nice interactive content

I'd put some rollercoaster and onboard vids on the wishlist.
Are you sure someone needs a feeltrack for Titanic? Perhaps some motion to wake you up when you're near falling into sleep

The surge an and heave mechanics seems quite complex.


http://www.feelfx.com/

Thats right, but how long will the slider be, to simulate this kind of motion. Perhaps 30cm travel isnt enough. BTW: Have you seen the NASA Simulator already ;D
And this type of movement requires much motor torque, as it has to accelerate and brake your entire body and seat wheight.

And the chain-cogwheel combination could be a bit dangerous perhaps.

I like your modulated concept. Altough I think you should better use the X-Sim Software. It has a video Plugin, as well

Your chair looks comfy, it's nice and slow and soothing. Add some woodwind music and you could form a partnership with a VR therapist! Here I am on the verge of developing a platform to create phobia's and you can go into biz fixin 'em!

WWW looks slick, tongue in cheek cheesy. I think that was your desired aim wasn't it? I'd say you'll get a few of the ol boys shackles raised with some of the misinformation but lol hey that's marketing!

Only criticism I'll give seeing as you've asked for it is the V/O sounds a bit hollow and untreated, but else a good non funded play!
:top:

@ego

yea rollarcoaster vids would be interesting or probably a dvd that has a few ride vids. Actually the test video for feeltracks is a high quality video of disney's star tours. If you not familiar with it, it is a ride movie at disney based on star wars very fitting for motion and vibe effects.

ya Titanic is my least favorite. I think a track for that would be better suited for intellivibe incorporation or or environmental effects....yea - it doesn't fit motion to much

I think I will take that off the intial list.

The idea with surge is that it goes maybe 60% of the total travel of a power seat chassis. You feel initial movement and direction change, but not this crazy g-force trust....just your movement in the proper direction. And yes I would like to see it go faster .....24V if this can be done safely.

Yes saw the nasa video ....very cool if we are taking about the same one. For budget and size contrainst, I am going for small form factor with lots of DOF choices.....always hard to too....and always a work in progress.

chain-cogwheel combination is not too dangerous as long as you are not going to fast. I don't like it anymore and are going after pulley and cable...talked a bit to Thanos and got some good info on what he has done. I believe I have found a good local supplier of the pulleys. chain-cogwheel combination was good for testing but not the best...I agree

Once mechanics seem to be working ok, X-sim is what I see as the new replacement for game control...very nice free tool..It seems it has an amazing amount of control and options......far more then I could ever hope to try and make on my own. What I have right now is good for testing until maybe Thanos has the I/O board finished.....but yes X-sim is the best direction.

For movies I am not so much sold on the x-sim plugin, but I maybe wrong? There are tons of features in authoring that you have not seen and I can post that new page soon..... but there are three main user features that are extremely important for motion tracks to work effectively.

- auto start & sync from a commercial DVD/blue-ray disc and from a set-top player

- ability to support intellivibe effects as well as possible environmental and scent effects (the last 2 are future, but the first one is reality now)

-ability to control the track and stay in synce via settop player's remote (currently irman as the hardware I am using for the PC side of this sync)

I believe the current video plugin is motion only obviously and only windows media from a harddrive file. It has a nice interface though...add DVD integration and I think things would change...but to be honest, there is a whole lot that I want to happen with the feeltracks then just motion.

Thanks for checking out the site.....Appreciate the feedback

Regards Kyle

@evan

that video shows the chair moving slower then I want as it was the first go-at-it, but in some respects, not to much faster.... other then surge...that needs more power....hence my 24V questions

not sure what you mean with your goal being to create phobia's I'll have to check out your site again or just explain? was your vision to make others aware of The gaming violence overflowing into the real-world...can you elaborate more?

Glad you liked the site. The video has some misinformation and is somewhat (as mentioned) tongue in cheek but it is real and actually works......the rest (pages) is pure direction of where I am wanting to take it.....If there is any information on there that you find inaccurate...let me know cause I have no problem with constructive critisism and would want to opinions from others as that is always a good thing

V/O in video was read a couple times and untreated somewhat but sounds better with good headphones or subwoofer. As mentioned was having fun.....but you have to do that sometimes

BTW Have you been looking into designing environmental and tactile effects integration into video/gaming? You site sais impact effects to chest, flashes, heat blast?

Thanks for the feedback

Yes we are on similar tracks with adding a full visual auditory and kinesthetic experience to our multimedia installations be it gaming, presentations or DVD. Since the 'Lawnmower Man' my quest has been for the holy grail of multimedia ie: virtual reality.
I was being a bit cheeky with saying my goal is to make phobia's, any good B grade horror flick can accomplish that, no actually my research is heading into psychotherapy so I was adding an ironic twist to what I said! So yeah in order to adjust negative to positive phobia's I'll have to make 'em first! But first order of the day I need to finalise, what ego has dubbed, my torture chair!

I am very interested in your solution re: piggybacking a DVD with a cue track. Obviously you will be running multitrack for individual control of a switchboard. I have just had a look at the i-vibe www Is this what you use? How is it? How many switches can you control? Is it analogue or just on/off? Like you I too want to control smell, touch, lights, feel etc etc.

When I find time I'll definitely have a squiz at that Xtra you mentioned with Director. The last MPEG2 Xtra I played with in Director was Tabuleiro and that allowed timeline cue synching, but that was yonks ago. Another way to go is running a 3rd party app and synching to sound like the sound stage engineers do with their curtain and light control synching, you can get quite a few tracks that way. I have just looked at directxtras.com and in particular directcommunication xtra, this xtra looks interesting too! The www offers a joystick xtra as well.

Back to topic. Like ego I noticed the sprocket and chain drive. It looks very neat and tidy and definitely a talking piece over wine but what about the chain slap when changing directions in a hurry? Does it tend to slap or stretch a bit?

Evan

Hi Evan,

The plugins I use should work with 6 or higher I use MX 2004.

The multitrack starts by a plugin that I may not of mentioned. It is a sound input plugin and will start a event at a certain decibal level. When that happens the timeline and the DVD control is in sync. You must also test your sound system first so that the volume level is good for the sync....then you can pause change you volume to louder softer or whatever and play / continue on being in synce from then on. The reason this is important is because everybody has different home reciever /amp equiptement so you need do a setup one time ...like THX.

I am also looking at just syncing based on timecode as it might be more accurate, but you have to set your player at a certain timestamp to begin...that might not be adventagous to some.

Not to plug i-vibe too much but it is probably the best out there for tactile feedback. You probably want to read their forum for reviews. I was going to use immersion studio and design my own vest and seat, but ran across this product and exchanged emails with the creator for a year + before buying...mainly because I was doing alot of focusing on motion at that time. Now that I have one it is great. It is digital and effects can be custom design and triggered via keystroke or (game controller for games) also has game telemetry data technology simular to X-sim except it only does vibes. It is very powerful in that arena and is about the closest thing to simulating motion / G-force (other then a real motion platform).

It is a good buy but understand that currently it supports only 6 games via game data. For multimedia and audio to vibe technology you can do some cool things. There are a few things with the controller program that I would like to see, but the developer is very swamped right now I guess so support might be slow....He is open sourcing it though, for those who know C++ (unfortunately not me).

The functionality of Tabuleiro is built into director now plus more. The directcommunication xtra is pricey, but good if you want to control something other then EZIO and K8055. I use the free joystick plugin now. The ravjoystick that cost $$ does nothing different. The developer of the free joystick plugin has volunteered to open source it as well.

Back to motion sim topic.......Chain has spring tension for pitch which was needed to get it to work. I do not use spring tension on yaw, but should. Both are planned to be updated to a cleaner pulley method for a number of reasons...chain worked though. Was occasional slap, when using with pitch because of the angle....one the reasons going to pulley.

Cool, its nice to see your website up again. I have seen it before but now it looks better with the additional explaining of the motion cues.

Thanos

Update
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Hey everyone,

It's been awhile just got really busy for a week or two.

I started focusing on the Motion/Feeltrack thing and then a monitor of my 2 went out (which you need for timelines (or it at least its hard when you lose one and you are used to two).....so I have gone back to working on the motion mechanics.

Just last night I was able to get surge and yaw working together with no issues. Right now I used a wheel + gas and brake for control so no game data yet method yet....but plans or to go that route.

I also started making an improved relay controller for heave to get heave, surge and yaw running together and then off to getting back to roll.

For the time being, I am controlling heave via my original super cheap relay circuit, which is a High current TTL driver to switch 2 DPDT 40A auto relays. The relays only need 9V to switch the driver, which pulls the 5V logic up to so they can control 12V 40A motors.

Here is a link to the driver

http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/it ... 8&catid=49

it is $9-13 but I can make it for $3 and the relays are $2 each.

This is only reverse and drive so no speed control because the motors are moving as fast as they can and I would not want to slow them down (at least for now and for testing) Once all works fine I can change out to a speed controller later. Right now PWM ports are a premium anyway.

ego,

In answer to your what I am still using question, I got the EZIO board I had to fninally work and was able to get another so still using those 10bit PWM controllers

My current set up:

Yaw: #1 EZIO pwm port #1 10bit
Pitch: #1 EZIO pwm port #2 10bit

surge: #2 EZIO with pwm port #1and2 10bit (unfortunately the controller for surge needs both ports but I get 1024 steps so I'm not to dissapointed

heave back side: EZIO Digital out #1 #2 (produces a more acuurate voltage then the velleman was on the digital outs)
heave front side: velleman K8055 pwm #1 #2 (continuous 5V now but will be ready for speed control in the future if I swap out those relays with a real solid state controller)

Roll: #1 EZIO Digital out #3 #4 (again only because it produces a more acuurate voltage then velleman) Roll does not need speed control for now...will need another i/o card for pwm logic source If I do later....but first things first.

so basically, it's just been consentrating on polishing up the mechanics and seeing what I can get away with from a cost vs performance standpoint. Some only need mechanical relays and some need duel 10bit pwm with 1024 steps. When I am happy with all. switching software and controllers will be just a matter of just changing to something new. I want to first try and meet my goal of 5 DOF for under $995.


regards
Kyle