Force Feedback: Beyond steering wheels (long)

I'd definitely consider a force feedback seat, especially if it were integrated with a force feedback steering device. As John pointed out, some feedback is better provided via the wheel, other feedback is worthless if it doesn't come through your butt. Great post. Jim

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> Lots of "spot on" insight on the merits of a force feedback seat > snipped.... > Now, my question to all of you who've made it this far is this: Would > you find the idea of a Force Feedback seat interesting if someone > could bring one to market for $300 or so? Consider this an informal > survey; either post your responses here in the newsgroup, or send them > to me directly via e-mail. Also, if you'd like to add any ideas to > this concept, feel free to do so. > Enjoy! > -- John Bodin > Publisher, The IRL Insider Magazine On-Line > http://irlinsider.adnetweb.com/

Sorry ... I fooled the spell checker. I meant TILT TABLE TB

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>I think you're exactly right. I've been wanting to rig up some sort of tile >table for my sim, although, of course the problem is, there is no software >to support it. >I've spent a fair amount of time around flight simulators (from fixed base >all the way up to full motion rigs), and the old saying was, "inaccurate >motion is worse than no motion". >Maybe someday ... >TB >>I'd definitely consider a force feedback seat, especially if it were >>integrated with a force feedback steering device. As John pointed out, >>some feedback is better provided via the wheel, other feedback is >>worthless if it doesn't come through your butt. >>Great post. >>Jim >>> Lots of "spot on" insight on the merits of a force feedback seat >>> snipped.... >>> Now, my question to all of you who've made it this far is this: Would >>> you find the idea of a Force Feedback seat interesting if someone >>> could bring one to market for $300 or so? Consider this an informal >>> survey; either post your responses here in the newsgroup, or send them >>> to me directly via e-mail. Also, if you'd like to add any ideas to >>> this concept, feel free to do so. >>> Enjoy! >>> -- John Bodin >>> Publisher, The IRL Insider Magazine On-Line >>> http://irlinsider.adnetweb.com/

I think you're exactly right. I've been wanting to rig up some sort of tile table for my sim, although, of course the problem is, there is no software to support it. I've spent a fair amount of time around flight simulators (from fixed base all the way up to full motion rigs), and the old saying was, "inaccurate motion is worse than no motion". Maybe someday ... TB

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>I'd definitely consider a force feedback seat, especially if it were >integrated with a force feedback steering device. As John pointed out, >some feedback is better provided via the wheel, other feedback is >worthless if it doesn't come through your butt. >Great post. >Jim >> Lots of "spot on" insight on the merits of a force feedback seat >> snipped.... >> Now, my question to all of you who've made it this far is this: Would >> you find the idea of a Force Feedback seat interesting if someone >> could bring one to market for $300 or so? Consider this an informal >> survey; either post your responses here in the newsgroup, or send them >> to me directly via e-mail. Also, if you'd like to add any ideas to >> this concept, feel free to do so. >> Enjoy! >> -- John Bodin >> Publisher, The IRL Insider Magazine On-Line >> http://irlinsider.adnetweb.com/

I think if you are going to do force feedback, you should do it right. Go with all the forces, not just what you can feel in your hands. My idea of the perfect force feedback system would be a chair that is designed to rotate on a pendelum as you turn a corner. This would be the only realistic way to simulate the g's that pull on you when cornering, and you could increase the speed of rotation to increase the amount of g's felt. Granted, this is something that is not feasable for the home pc user, but it might be doable in the arcades. Sega has already worked quite a bit with force feedback seats ever since the super monaco grand prix days, and they also have the afterburner cabinet that was capable of rotating 360 degrees. Combine the two, and increase the rotation speed, and you might have a good force feedback system. This is just a guess, of course. It might not be possible to rotate the chair safely to accurately produce enough g force. but wouldn't it be cool? By the way, I don't see force feedback pedals as an advantage, other than having a consistant pedal feel rather than a spring.

I've played around quite a bit with Force Feedback wheels now, and I find that although it does add some useful sensations, it just doesn't feel exactly *right* with all those forces coming through the wheel. Granted you do get *some* forces through the wheel, but right now, even the best implementation of Force Feedback seems either over-done or under-done in some ways. Invariably, after a few hours with a Force Feedback wheel, I find myself gravitating back to my solid, trusty TSW2. For the past week or so, I've been switching back-and-forth, trying to figure out just what it is about Force Feedback that I like, and what it is that just doesn't quite work for me. This is a luxury many of you don't have, I know, but it does give you an opportunity to really evaluate the technology. I've also spent a lot of time observing what I feel while driving a real car, and comparing the feelings and sensations to what I get via a Force Feedback wheel. Granted, my Honda Del Sol isn't in the league of most of the cars that are being modeled by the sims I've been playing with, but I also have some minor experience with racing Karts and such, so I feel that all my real-world experience gives me some basis for comparison. After all this analysis, I finally decided that although some of the forces that come to your hands through a Force Feedback wheel are useful and realistic (building resistance in turns, less resistance in a slide, a certain amount of shudder and shake, etc.), many of the effects are the kinds of things that would be better experienced through the seat of the pants. On the road, you do feel various forces through the wheel, but *most* of your driving queues come through the seat of the pants. Not all, mind you, but I think I'd gain more in a sim if someone were to channel the forces that come through a Force Feedback wheel into the chair I was sitting on -- not just more of a realistic experience, but more realistic and usable sensations. My hands fighting against a wheel tell me one thing, but my solar plexus getting jostled around (even the least little bit) tells me a WHOLE lot more. Pay attention to this for yourself on your ride to work tomorrow, or on your next trip to the grocery store -- the difference between sitting at your desk and sitting in your car has less to do with what comes through the wheel and more to do with what comes through the seat of your pants. Given all this, I think that the ultimate FF device -- at least for driving sims -- would be a Force Feedback SEAT. I'm not talking about a something really out there and somewhat overblown like the "Rock and Ride" seat, mind you -- I think someone could devise a VERY good Force Feedback seat that only incorporated a single axis of motion (lateral), with only a few inches of travel (maybe 2" of total left-and-right play). I'm also not talking about something that tilts, either -- I'm talking about linear left-and-right seat motion. Imagine if all the jerking and twisting forces that are fed to a FF wheel were routed instead to a chair that could shift left or right about an inch. I know it sounds like that small amount of motion wouldn't provide much in the way of either force or feedback, but try it for yourself, right now -- rock your desk chair to the left and the right no more than an inch either way, and imagine if you could feel those sensations in sync with what's going on in your favorite FF-equipped sim, rather than only being able to experience it through your hands and wrists. Intriguing thought, isn't it? The idea could be taken even further, and rather than just incorporating a single (lateral) axis of motion, the longitudinal axis could also be used, and instead of mapping the Y-axis forces to the X-axis, you could experience braking and acceleration effects, too. This would be the ultimate, I think, but I really believe that a single (lateral) axis of motion would do wonders in itself. The beauty of a single axis of motion is that it would be twice as simple and twice as easy to implement as a two-axis system. I also think that a single-axis system incorporating a simple, inexpensive-yet-comfortabe plasitc seat could concievably be built and marketed for less than $500. More *** variations incorporating real racing seats and two-axis operation could be do-able for more, but I think even there the overall cost could still be kept below $800 (which is roughly what the Rock and Ride seat goes for). Furthermore, I think that if there is a market for products like the Rock and Ride seat, ECCI wheels, and the top-of-the-line TSW wheels, there should be also a market for a Force Feedback system such as this. Granted, this is the type of thing that no mainstream controller company is going to be able to put on the shelves at retail computer outlets like Electronics Boutique, Best Buy, or CompUSA, but it's just the type of product that lends itself to becoming a cottage industry unto itself. Now, my question to all of you who've made it this far is this: Would you find the idea of a Force Feedback seat interesting if someone could bring one to market for $300 or so? Consider this an informal survey; either post your responses here in the newsgroup, or send them to me directly via e-mail. Also, if you'd like to add any ideas to this concept, feel free to do so. Enjoy! -- John Bodin Publisher, The IRL Insider Magazine On-Line http://irlinsider.adnetweb.com/

I think you have missed whats going on under your seat. You feel the G-forces of the car breaking and accelerating, some of the G-forces will last a second or two. and its more then just a feeling under your ass, you may feel it in your arm or shoulder being pushed against the door panel or your chest being tugged by the seatbelts. You can't replace the feelings with a little jerk of your chair, The feeling of your car going through the corner would be a constant strain on your body, and when it suddenly looses grip, you feel nothing only to be jerk hard when the tires re-grip the surface. You can't reproduce that without the help a full motion simulator on hydraulics. I feel that the FF wheels are a waste to the true sim fan. more of a toy for the arcade racers that like to have the wheel jerking about as they bounce off of walls on there way to winning. I Do however think a set of FF pedals would add realism. A progressive gas pedal, A break pedal that pushes back. maybe add a little break fade, when over used. someday. -- Kevin Anderson ICQ # 6769389

>I think if you are going to do force feedback, you should do it right. Go >with all the forces, not just what you can feel in your hands. My idea of >the perfect force feedback system would be a chair that is designed to >rotate on a pendelum as you turn a corner. This would be the only realistic >way to simulate the g's that pull on you when cornering, and you could >increase the speed of rotation to increase the amount of g's felt. Granted, >this is something that is not feasable for the home pc user, but it might be

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>doable in the arcades. Sega has already worked quite a bit with force >feedback seats ever since the super monaco grand prix days, and they also >have the afterburner cabinet that was capable of rotating 360 degrees. >Combine the two, and increase the rotation speed, and you might have a good >force feedback system. This is just a guess, of course. It might not be >possible to rotate the chair safely to accurately produce enough g force. >but wouldn't it be cool? By the way, I don't see force feedback pedals as >an advantage, other than having a consistant pedal feel rather than a >spring.

Why the chair has to rotate ? To have enough g to simulate a long and fast corner, the chair has to rotate fast enough and quite a long time, it could make one to feel sick rather than give a good cornering sensation. My suggestion is a hydraulic chair/monitor combination cabaple of tilting to both sides and to front and back. When the simulated car is taking a right corner the chair tilts to the left. When car is braking the chair tilts to the front. Olli-Pekka

On Tue, 23 Mar 1999 11:36:25 +0200, "Olli-Pekka Ojanen"

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>Why the chair has to rotate ? To have enough g to simulate a long and fast >corner, the chair has to rotate fast enough and quite a long time, it could >make one to feel sick rather than give a good cornering sensation. My >suggestion is a hydraulic chair/monitor combination cabaple of tilting to >both sides and to front and back. When the simulated car is taking a right >corner the chair tilts to the left. When car is braking the chair tilts to >the front. >Olli-Pekka

I think the Rock and Ride seat would be good for something like this if they would incorporate some electronics into the mechanism -- something to take the Force Feedback signals from the joystick port and feed them to the chair's force actuators, rather than simply tying the actuators to the joystick's motion -- why have a seat that only mimics (and amplifies) the motions of your hands? That does a bit to simulate actual motion (move the joystick left to bank left, you tilt left), but it doesn't do anything for sensations like buffeting and such. That's where Force Feedback signals come into play. -- JB

John Bodin wrote <snip nice idea> I like your idea. I know some people in the business like this idea also. The nice thing about this is that it can be developed for both sim racers and air simers. I saw a chair on a website (still searching I lost the URL) of your idea. It was suspended on a pole (kinda like a Hangman sketch), and could tilt on 2axis (front/rear and tilt on left/right). You had a nice Windows program where you could load some configurations depending on each game. So let's say Grand Prix legends... depending on your wheel input you could map the Y-axis of your wheel (turns left/right) to your chair axis, and gas/brake (can even be separate axis) to the X-axis. It's not perfect since it's a fake way to adjust the feelings (it goes with the progressively of the wheel potentiometers, not the actual game engine). It's not perfect, but close. One nice thing is that it was independent from the actual game. It was a TSR working on it's own, only with the inputs it got from the wheel. It could tilt about a feet in rotation on each side.. Of course it can only do about 1G in average max, but it's better than nothing. Still, it was alot more than 300bucks. I doubt you can do such a thing for 300$, giving the Intensor chair does only cheap FF and it's the double in price. -= Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank> -= NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.nros.com/ -= SimRacing Online http://www.simracing.com/ -= Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. -= May the Downforce be with you... "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

There is another possibility - SOUND. I've had an Intensor Chair from BSG Labs for some time now. It does as good a job at immersing you into a game/sim as a FF wheel does, using only sound and sound wave vibration. A sound-based seat, using 3d sound, could generate vibration that would simulate the direction of G-forces. The forces could be simulated by low frequency vibration coming from tire squeal. If the left tires are squealing, you would get heavy vibration on the left side of the chair. If the rear wheels are spinning under acceleration, you would get vibration on your back. With good speaker placement, you could tell exactly which tire is squealing. Importantly, note that no special support by software is required, other than 3d sound, which almost seems standard now. The key here is to forget about absolute realism - it's too expensive to duplicate - and come up with new ways of providing feedback. > I've played around quite a bit with Force Feedback wheels now, and I > find that although it does add some useful sensations, it just doesn't > feel exactly *right* with all those forces coming through the wheel. You are on the right track here. We are probably expecting too much from FF wheels alone. The actual forces on a wheel in a real car are not as important to driving as the G-forces felt on your body. For this reason, the best way to implement wheel-only FF would be to s***the pursuit of realism, and try to generate coherent feedback of car handling that may not necessarily mirror the real world - but I don't think sim producers are going to pursue that path. I've been thinking the same thing for a long time. I don't agree with the side-to-side idea though. Your wheel would have to be mounted to the seat, or else you body position would be moving in relation to the wheel. You would end up with a big, expensive monstrosity. My wife won't approve :) I think a seat that tilts a bit would be a better solution, though I'm having trouble envisioning a simple (cheap) mechanical system to do that. The problem with any of these systems is that it requires software support, and the track record of sim makers on supporting new hardware is dismal. Heck yes, I'd spend $300 on something that is really good. But, it's painfully obvious to me now that the roadblock is not necessarily in the hardware - it's in software support of the hardware. Who in their right mind would develop a FF seat like you are talking about, when you can't even get decent FF wheel support? It's a chicken/egg situation. -- Pat Dotson IMPACT Motorsports http://www.impactmotorsports.com/pd.html

EXACTLY! I think current FF wheels do a decent job of giving you more of an "in the***pit" feel, but it's just not quite right. A seat (either by itself or in addition to a wheel) could be MUCH better -- AND it wouldn't have to go for absolute realism. The g-forces themselves can't really be duplicated properly, even in the most expensive military flight simulators, but you CAN come up with better Force Feedback cues than what's provided by current FF contollers, IMO. -- JB

On Tue, 23 Mar 1999 00:42:40 GMT, "Kevin Anderson" >I feel that the FF wheels are a waste to the true sim fan. >more of a toy for the arcade racers that like to have the wheel jerking >about as they bounce off of walls on there way to winning. I Do however >think a set of FF pedals would add realism. A progressive gas pedal, A break >pedal that pushes back. maybe add a little break fade, when over used. >someday. Hi Kevin, I used to feel this way about FF and sims. But, then I bought the Logitech FF wheel, based on its merits sans FF. To date, I have seen one very exceptional use of FF, and that's Viper Racing. Driving VR with FF has changed my opinion of FF in general, because they have implemented it correctly. Also, you leave me a bit confused as to why FF wheels are "a waste," yet FF pedals would "add realism." If FF is implemented correctly, and if it gives realistic feedback, the why the distinction between wheel and pedal? If anything, I would say that FF in pedals - for the sake of realism - is less important than FF in the wheel. I don't know what you drive, but when I drive, I get plenty more information about what my car is doing through the wheel, than through the accelerator or brake. Brett

> >The key here is to forget about absolute realism - it's > >too expensive to duplicate - and come up with new ways of > >providing feedback. One part that wouldn't neccessary be too difficult to implement would be a Force Feedback BRAKE PEDAL! That, IMO, would be more useful than steering... 2 cents..:-) Matt -- ----------------------------------------- Matthew Knutsen "The Art of Legends" - GPL add-ons www.cheekracing.electra.no/GPL/simrace1.htm -----------------------------------------

> >The key here is to forget about absolute realism - it's > >too expensive to duplicate - and come up with new ways of > >providing feedback. ..... > AND it wouldn't have to go for absolute realism. The g-forces > themselves can't really be duplicated properly, even in the most > expensive military flight simulators, but you CAN come up with better > Force Feedback cues than what's provided by current FF contollers, Well, if you pay taxes in the USA, you are helping to fund an attempt to produce a "real" simulator. Check out: Linkname:The National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) URL:http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/perform/nads/ The specification and claims are great, the actual project is way behind schedule and over-budget. IIRC, the initial budget was US$ 25,000,000. I believe that this escalated to $40M and may now be well over that. -- Doug Milliken Research Associates Inc.

message URL:http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/perform/nads/ huh huh huh...he said 'NADS'. -----------== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ==---------- http://www.newsfeeds.com/ The Largest Usenet Servers in the World! -----------== Over 66,000 Groups, Plus a Dedicated Binaries Server ==----------