Racing simulators are ten a penny, but the closest an FPS player will get to an immersive experience is buying some branded peripherals. Armed with a pre-release level of Battlefield 3, The Gadget Show enlisted a team of design experts to transform a Birmingham studio into an FPS simulator costing £500,000 ($650,000). A four by nine meter video dome surrounds the player as they stand on an omni-directional treadmill that lets you walk wherever you want to go. Ten infra-red motion tracking cameras and a sensor on your gun enables the picture to follow where you point it and a Kinect hack controls your jumping and crouching. The fun doesn't stop there -- 12 paintball markers mean that every time you get shot in the game, you'll feel it. The show airs in the UK on October 24th at 8:00pm, Channel 5. We've got a behind the scenes gallery below (supplied by those lovely people from the show) as well as PR and a trailer after the break.
%Gallery-136970%
%Gallery-136970%
Battlefield 3 taken into the next dimension by UK technology programme, "The Gadget Show"
Unique simulator provides the ultimate immersive experience for First Person Shooter (FPS) fans
Birmingham, UK (17th October 2011) – Battlefield 3, one of the most highly anticipated games of 2011 is yet to hit the shelves, but UK technology programme The Gadget Show, gained exclusive access to a pre-release level and hand-built a simulator to play it.
As part of a challenge for the new series of the show, presenters Jason Bradbury and Suzi Perry brought together a team of design experts and an amazing array of technology worth £500,000 ($650,000) to build this one-off creation.
Centred on the world's first, portable omni-directional treadmill (designed by Swedish company MSE Weibull) the simulator lets you control the movements of a Battlefield 3 character with your own body. Other key technology employed includes: 12 paintball markers that allow the player, in real time, to feel the enemy gunfire experienced in the game; a wireless gun system; ambient LED lighting; and an Xbox Kinect camera hack.
The idea for the simulator came in July this year when The Gadget Show realised that graphically-sophisticated games are held back only by the way many of us play them - sat in front of 1 static monitor.
By projecting the game inside a 360-degree, 4 metre high and 9 metre wide video dome (provided by Igloo Vision) the gamers' experience is made as visceral and immersive as possible.
Ten infra-red motion tracking cameras continually monitor the real-time movements of the gamer on the omni-directional treadmill. This data is sent to the PC running Battlefield 3 to control the speed and direction of the in-game character.
The same cameras also track the direction in which the gamer points their wireless gun. Using this information the simulator can rotate the 180-degree projected gaming image around the dome to keep the gamer immersed in the action.
The immersive experience is completed by a pixel-mapped, ambient LED lighting system used to flood the dome with colours direct from the game; and a bespoke Kinect camera hack makes it possible for jumping and crouching in the dome to be replicated in the game.
Unique simulator provides the ultimate immersive experience for First Person Shooter (FPS) fans
Birmingham, UK (17th October 2011) – Battlefield 3, one of the most highly anticipated games of 2011 is yet to hit the shelves, but UK technology programme The Gadget Show, gained exclusive access to a pre-release level and hand-built a simulator to play it.
As part of a challenge for the new series of the show, presenters Jason Bradbury and Suzi Perry brought together a team of design experts and an amazing array of technology worth £500,000 ($650,000) to build this one-off creation.
Centred on the world's first, portable omni-directional treadmill (designed by Swedish company MSE Weibull) the simulator lets you control the movements of a Battlefield 3 character with your own body. Other key technology employed includes: 12 paintball markers that allow the player, in real time, to feel the enemy gunfire experienced in the game; a wireless gun system; ambient LED lighting; and an Xbox Kinect camera hack.
The idea for the simulator came in July this year when The Gadget Show realised that graphically-sophisticated games are held back only by the way many of us play them - sat in front of 1 static monitor.
By projecting the game inside a 360-degree, 4 metre high and 9 metre wide video dome (provided by Igloo Vision) the gamers' experience is made as visceral and immersive as possible.
Ten infra-red motion tracking cameras continually monitor the real-time movements of the gamer on the omni-directional treadmill. This data is sent to the PC running Battlefield 3 to control the speed and direction of the in-game character.
The same cameras also track the direction in which the gamer points their wireless gun. Using this information the simulator can rotate the 180-degree projected gaming image around the dome to keep the gamer immersed in the action.
The immersive experience is completed by a pixel-mapped, ambient LED lighting system used to flood the dome with colours direct from the game; and a bespoke Kinect camera hack makes it possible for jumping and crouching in the dome to be replicated in the game.