The inside out headsets are problematic but that’s why “lesser” motion sims work better with them and why overall you want less travel. Luckily you don’t need lots of travel in VR. Just the hints of motion are convincing.
It’s good to understand what goes on with tracking. The optical parts - inside out, Lighthouse, or other, all use the optical part to fix locations periodically in space. The heavy lifting and more immediate/simpler to read fast data for head movements is done using accelerometers. The optical fixes just pin the motions down occasionally.
It’s the accelerometers that cause problems even if you are in an enclosed sim and the tracking cameras only see the frame of reference that is moving with you. But small motions are much less consequence and not very noticeable.
But one big thing folks can do is strap a Buttkicker or other bass shaker to your chair and rig a subwoofer amp to it. It’s cheaper and easier than motion but adds a lot of presence to the experience. VR in racing cars made me feel I could feel the rear end sliding out even without traction loss/yaw. The imagery is just that powerful. Add vibration cues that follow what’s happening and it’s a mean substitute for motion.
I built a Messerschmitt 109E home cockpit a few years back and stuffed it with saitek and goflight panels, multiple monitors running Air Manager and what not. It worked fantastic in fsx and xplane11 and I had a blast.
But now that I’ve discovered VR in msfs, all that stuff is totally redundant.
Now it’s just me, my Warthog and my G2 and it’s better than the best experience.
Soon I hope to get the Yaw VR Motion seat and that will be the total end of my home cockpit building career.
I had an A-10c setup. triple 40" screens with head tracking, 27" touchscreen for the MIP, and home made side panels. 2 weeks after I got VR it all came apart and sold. I haven’t flown DCS (except for the occasional helo trip) since MSFS VR came out.
BTW: HOLY ■■■■ that’s so cool!!!
Thanks! Now I’m the same boat as you. VR killed my need for a diy home cockpit. But man was it fun building and setting it up. And showing it off too haha!
Time to shift the diy skills onto something else!
The “G seat” thing is a lot of work but not too tough. You either build a chair with the paddles or add hinges and paddles to an existing chair. The paddles all move independently and are activated generally with industrial size servos so they can all move independently to simulate sustained G loads and that’s their advantage. There’s a fair bit of work in them but nothing too hard. I’ve never tried one to know how well it works but the guys that build them like them.
The seatbelt trick is pretty cool, though. You just rig the normally fixed end of the belts to something that pulls on them. If going on top of a motion sim, to keep moving mass lower, you can actuate them with cabling like on bicycle brakes and gears and the tensioning part itself mounted on the sim base. I am rigged for tensioning seatbelts when decelerating and it’s a neat feeling.
I was just checking out the videos of it again. The Motion Integrated G-Seat - part 1: Introduction - YouTube He’s gotten older and balder (like the rest of us).
I may have to take a stab at it. I have 6 electric wheelchair motors that I pulled out of the landfill. the 24 volt motors and controllers work. I was going to use them for a motion platform but they will work with a g-seat.
Thanks for the post on this, as I am researching motion platforms (next level racing and DOF Reality), use VR with a G2, and have seen articles about the software necessary to cancel the effects of the headset moving or at least mute it a bit. Still early days it looks like on the software but both NLR and DOF have settings I think in their motion platform software to help VR users get the right balance of body movement with not moving the VR headset too much in a non-intuitive way. There aren’t too many posts about folks who have used motion platforms (either just the seat like NLR or the full cockpit like DOF) so I am trying to see if there is a consensus view forming on what is best for MSFS.
Just finished up the pedestal center section about 2 months ago and finally completed the dual engine start panel on the bottom. Taking it out for a flight in the C172 to KCGZ
Nice setup to bad you have to loose all that screen display area to a cockpit display that isnt needed. Would be nice if you could turn off instruments and just have the windshield display.
Even if you could generate a pure outside view without a virtual cockpit, you need the horizon to be at your eyeline when level, and MSFS will always place the center of the view frustum at the vertical mid-point of the display. You can’t have an asymmetric view frustum (this is something they really need to do for multi-monitor support for advanced display systems). So in @azpilot61’s setup, the horizon would end up well above their eyeline, whereas the way it’s built now, the horizon is at the eyeline.
With VR you are in the cockpit of the actual plane. It’s better than flat panel monitors used as windows in a plywood shell. Just old school way of doing things I guess. Once you go VR… With a capable rig that can actually run VR at smooth fps. You will never go back to flat panel flying again. It just sucks.
Lol. Yeah it’s curved but still very 2d. You can see your wall behind it and the desk in front of it. When you look to your right you don’t see what’s out the window of the plane, you see your cat staring at you. He’s wondering why you don’t have VR.
Lol…with the G2 I can see everything in the Sim. It’s right where it should be… Well mostly.
. I’ll miss the physical connection with the cockpit i’m afraid.
