Wipeout Recreated With an RC Car 90
An anonymous reader writes "If you've owned any of Sony's PlayStation consoles then there's a good chance you've also played one of the Wipeout games. It's a high-speed racing game that helped make the PSOne popular, and it's now been recreated using a remote control car. The project is the idea of Malte Jehmlich. He decided to create a track out of cardboard reminiscent of the Wipeout tracks. He then hooked up a wireless camera to a remote control car, and modified the controller to be an arcade cabinet with a wheel and forward/reverse selector."
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Meh.
Magnets in the track + Hall effect sensor in the car (or the opposite arrangement) = boost.
RFID? Why bother?
(Kids, these days...)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Way too high-tech. A simple reed switch probably does the trick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_switch
Model trains use them, for example.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the view is via camera, weapons might as well be overimposed on it, in "augmented reality" style (with proper random effects on speed / direction of the hit vehicle; perhaps also some electromagnet underneath it firing from a big capacitor...). Of course, that starts to bring you "back" towards software...
Re:Make you wish you where a hard-hacker. (Score:1, Interesting)
There are some incredible early flight simulators that used analogue computers, and huge model landscapes that are 'flown' over by a video camera.
Here is an article about one from 1958:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/06/19/giant-analog-flight-simulator/
These have always interested me, as they are realistic simulators, and so had to react like a real plane would. They could change engines by plugging in a different board, or move the centre of gravity of the plane, introduce faults with the plane, or even simulate weather conditions. And all without a digital computer! In fact, analogue computers are very well matched for this application. Most early plane design used analogue computers extensively too.
Re:Rollcage (Score:3, Interesting)
On a similar note (Score:4, Interesting)
I've *always* wanted to have the money to burn that I could create something I thought of even when I was a kid.
Combine "laser-tag / Quasar" with a 3D FPS. If anyone ever watched Knightmare as a child, they'll know what I mean. Basically, have a "blank set" in an arena somewhere - literally just plain green boxes and walls. Stick ten people inside the arena, each with VR-style headsets with similar tracking. Their heads up display provides the 3D/texture detail over the green-screen, so it just looks like you're "inside" a Quake / Counterstrike / Whatever level. Equip players with a "gun" of some kind and then track the 3D position / heading / trigger of the gun using whatever means.
With some simple green-screen tricks you can put the live image of your opponents into the virtual world quite easily (camera on the headset, green-screen overlay on the video game image - because the arena matches the virtual world, no need to worry about depth, wall-perception, etc.). When players shoot, they just trigger a message and then the video game decides the outcome. Dead players get their screen blanked, game over, and have to make their way out of the arena. You could even include grenades, etc. quite simply, and so long as the physical arena matches the virtual one, you can apply it to virtually any 3D game.
You can't "jump" onto ledges, or do crawling, jumping, camping etc. unless you're capable of it in real life, but yet there's no stupid-quasar-feel to it and you can have lives, damage, shields, etc. The game doesn't have to "draw" you at all, or try to interpret how you're standing, or what bits people can see of you (damage-taking should be as simple as finding a coloured blob on an all-green arena in the direction of the gun-facing and determining if they were shot or not and working out which player they are should be quite simple), the game "feels" like you're inside it, and you can only do things that you can actually do. Campers would end up with cramp, bunny-hoppers would be exhausted, etc.
Probably it's just me and nobody would play it but if I was a millionaire, I'd damn well build something like that in my mansion for my friends to play with.