Playing a First-Person Shooter Using Real Guns 225
Blake writes "A group called Waterloo Labs rigged up a few accelerometers to a large wall and projected a first-person shooter onto it. Using some math, they can triangulate the position of impacts on the wall, so naturally they found someone with a gun and bought a large case of ammunition. Even cooler, this group usually posts a 'how we did it' video a few weeks after a project's debut, including source code."
System (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't sound the same (Score:2, Interesting)
True story: in boot camp, on pre-qual day I was platoon high shot, with a 242/250. On qual day, I fell to a 237 (choked under pressure) and someone else stole high shot.
Later, in the fleet, we were going to be tested, right? So, the knuckleheads in the butts thought they'd be funny, and they gave me crap windage data, flagging me as a total miss on half my shots. I KNEW I was hitting, so I blew it off, even though it meant I couldn't log any windage data for qual day.
So that night, this wise ass in my platoon said I was going to go unq, and I bet him 20 bucks that not only would I qualify, I'd kick the whole platoon's ass in doing so.
The next day, every target had an officer monitoring the marking and scoring. I was platoon high shot. The guy tried to get out of the bet, saying I was a "ringer". He ended up buying me a pint of schnapps instead (I was underage, so I was ok with that).
Did you know the army gets tested by shooting at sheet metal signs 300 yards away? If the sign goes "Ding" they get marked down as a hit. No scoring! No competition targets! It's amazing they ever hit ANYTHING in the field...
MY rifle instructor taught us how to evaluate the wind speed and correct with the windage dial (1 click = 1 inch per hundred yards, for you non-hackers out there). None of this "Kentucky Windage" crap. Ah, the good old days! I wonder what happened to SSGT Hawkins? I bet he still shoots in competition...
I'm thinking about getting a modern, American manufactured SVD and trying it out in marksmanship competitions... I get chills just thinking about it.
Konami did it already (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, their version used something like Airsoft pellets rather than live rounds, but the idea was the same. Kind of a fun game, if you ignore the pellets that keep bouncing off the target and hitting you in the face...
Some info on the game. [arcade-history.com]
Re:Source code (Score:1, Interesting)
You've never shot a gun, have you?
Re:Air Force people learn to shoot guns? (Score:5, Interesting)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert Heinlein
Re:Or they can just move to my country... (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I live there's an indoor shooting range with a projection system. I remember one afternoon in the late nineties when a couple of us went and had a huge amount of good, clean, violent fun with the street battle scene from the movie Heat [imdb.com] - must have been a year or two after it was released.
After that I've often wondered how one could go about creating a 3-D projection system for total immersion. One of the walls I ran into was the problem of running onto a wall :-) And then soon after, paintball took off....
Whats old is new.... (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a recent twist on something that has been going on in Firearms training since (at least) the 1970's.
My father, who was an LE firearms trainer for 20 years, would setup a sheet of drywall and movie projector and play "home movies" of car stops and building entries filmed in the first person. The student would fire live ammunition at the "screen" and the projector would be paused at the moment that the terminal force decision was made/executed.
Discussions would then be carried out about the shoot out and then the next guy would go (with a new clip, of course).
Low tech? Sure, but not bad for some rural cops 25 or 30 years ago...
Having said that... This is an amazing idea and I would very much like to build one of these for myself. I always wanted to play Redneck Rampage with my USP45. :)
Re:Sadly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, this will make the games more like simulators for killing people. Hell, I played a (crappy) sniper game for an hour and then walked out of the arcade onto a catwalk above a food court... and couldn't help picking out targets. Mentally, of course.
In this case anyone playing will learn that you can't reload just by firing off-screen, and that real guns are loud, kick, eject shells... and they'll get used to it. I'm not saying that it will turn an ordinary person into a killer, but there is an argument to be made, and it does get stronger in this case.
Hardly improves on an old method (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me of basic training in the army in the 70s. A projection screen is rolled around two rotating vertical cylinders, one on the left and one on the right, therefore forming a "double layer screen". A movie is projected on the front of the screen and light also shines from the back. The trainee shoots at the screen, where the movie representing the advancing enemy is running. At the "bang", the movie projector freezes the frame and we can see light shining from the back through the two aligned holes in the front and back screens. The instructor can determine whether it's a hit and then the cylinders are rotated so that the front and back holes are not aligned anymore and the impact disappears, and the exercise continues.
Re:Air Force people learn to shoot guns? (Score:3, Interesting)
From various biographical material, it seems that Heinlein demonstrated all those abilities except "plan an invasion" (he was in the Navy between wars) and "die gallantly" (he died of old age).
Edward.E. Smith probably could have pulled all those things off as well (in his case, probably including "plan an invasion")...
Re:Doesn't sound the same (Score:3, Interesting)
:D
A few years ago I was at Markham Park in S. Florida introducing a friend to shooting. Though I have the technique and terminology down pat, I'm not really a good shot (lack of practice mainly). I can hit an 8" target pretty consistently at 125 yds though (yes, is pretty pathetic but I'm damned proud of it).
So I was standing there explaining how to load, how to unload, what to do when the "all clear" blows, etc.. My friend was picking it up. In the next lane was a guy dressed in full camo. He had some elaborate looking weapon that was about as tall as I was. He has a stand, sighting scope, some sort of navigation looking equipment. I figure the guy really knows what he's doing. When he prepares to fire, I tell my friend to look.
So the guy sees us and starts firing. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Loud ass weapon. I take my own scope and look at his target. He misses every single shot. He curses. Adjusts. Switches magazines. Squeezes off another bunch of shots. Misses everything. Curses again.
There used to be another guy there that I saw quite often. He was missing his pointer finger and pulled the trigger with his index finger. If there was a stereotypical ornery, ex-military guy, he was it. He didn't talk much. In fact was pretty rude to me a few times, but he could hit just about anything. He fired pistols, rifles, pretty much anything that had a trigger. He's the kind of guy I'd want on my side in a war.
Anyway, point of this is that every ex-military guy at that range shot at a completely different level than those who didn't have that training. I didn't see a lot of police officers, but I'd expect they would be similarly proficient.
Oh last story:
Another friend was with me one time at the range. Before the all clear was called, he started walking out to collect his target. Next thing we hear on the loudspeaker, "Hey, dumbass in 15. What the hell are you doing? Hey everybody, check out the moron in 15. Yes, I'm talking to you.." and kept on going for another minute or so...
Very similar to archery targets (Score:3, Interesting)
Just browsing the summary, but this sounds very similar to some of the archery systems they have set up at hunting stores.
A woodland scene is projected on a screen, and you actually fired your own arrows (points replaced with a blunted tip) onto the screen. It would mark where you hit, and then 'score' your performance based on where it felt the best position to shoot the animal was.