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VR synced up with a real roller coaster.


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A roller coaster company called Mack, has been testing VR headsets while riding on a roller coaster. They sync up the animation on the VR headset, with the course of the ride! As far as I can tell you choose your video and then your off!

Here is the article:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/29/oculus-rift-melds-with-a-real-life-roller-coaster-ride

here is just the video of it in action:

Their will be some negatives from this though... MUCH slower load times, people who would rather see the the coaster instead of a video, while on the ride, equipment being broken, if the video ever goes out of sync... and other negative things.

Positives: this is you could use this on any coaster really! Like while riding FoF, have sound effects going off during the ride that syncs up with the alien related video on the VR headset.

One thing that could be an issue as well is, each row would have to have the video synced up at a slightly different time.

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Yea this seems pretty cool but like it could have a lot of problems associated with it as well. Best part of it I think would be you could throw up a generic coaster in a building and change it up each year with a new video, or even a new one for special events like Halloween Haunt, similar to their plans for Wonder Mountain's Guardian.

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Something like this could work if you had screens along side the track. You could change the theme depending on the season or holiday. Disneyland had something like this for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy. The ghost was synced up to the trains as it went by.

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VR died out in the 90s for a reason, I see what appears to be loose articles. Safe to say that Knotts Berry Farm will never get on board with this. The concept defeats the purpose of riding a coaster, you could do the same thing with a motion simulator.

I can say with complete confidence as others will agree, I imagine, that a motion simulator will never be able to mimic the same sensations as a coaster as long as motion simulators stay in a stationary location. They can only create hang-time. (leaning or flipping but with a hanging feeling.)

The only way a motion simulator could match a coaster's sensations would be to be able to move about in 3d space and not just be able to rotate and spin.

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I could see the loose article deal becoming an issue, unless this isn't a loose article (Say if it was integrated into the restraint or something)

However I see a potential for issues with timing..and what do you do in the case of a stack on the brake run? Lift stop, etc. Is it just a black screen or what?

It's a sweet concept and could be a game changer if done right, but it's ganna need ALOT of development

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what do you do in the case of a stack on the brake run? Lift stop, etc. Is it just a black screen or what?

On the brake run, I'd assume that the video is over (i.e. it would be designed to end at the start of the brake run), and so the headset could be taken off at that point.

As for lift stop, maybe the screen freezes and the word "PAUSED" flashes over the center of the screen? :P

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