03-28-2019, 02:03 AM
So far, I've tried a few of the featured rides in VZfit Explorer which makes it really easy to get right into a ride with interesting locales. I wasn't sure how well the transitions between frames would work, but the fuzzing out and in works pretty well at lower speeds from what I've noticed and it worked better than I anticipated. One feature that could be cool or useful would be showing few second videos with a quick speed through or highlights when you hover over a ride to give you a preview of the featured rides and maybe an upvoting system along with that (also recommendations based on previous rides and compared to other users?). I like the freedom with the Google Maps Street View, but courses with defined distance and start/end points and approximate times could help for exercises as well as maybe multiple stage rides over the course of a few days like the Tour de France or longer trails/roads. An overlay to keep track of your best times or go against your own or a friend's ghost would also be nice motivators to make it more fun. A geocaching type thing to try and find cool natural features or details caught in the Street View footage (a screenshot mode to capture cool views or moments or gamification with objectives could go well with Explorer).
The main issues I've run into are steering with the head tilt, recentering the bike, and the rendering with objects jutting out really far. It feels like I need to tilt my head too far to the point where it's uncomfortable to steer and a sensitivity slider may help with this. Without any additional hardware, I'm not sure how well steering can be mapped from natural motion to VR besides the headset, but maybe the Oculus Quest controllers could be mounted to the handlebars with brackets or somewhere else to detect movement or pressure to better map leaning into a turn. The Quest head leaning tracking may work better than the Go, but the Go is all I have to go off of at the moment.
For the recentering, I often have issues with it and can never reorient the bike back with the road, even when I try recentering while facing another direction. I think it would help to make sure that recentering puts you and the bike parallel to the road instead of just reorienting the bike. I typically exit out and restart a featured ride to fix the orientation of the bike to the road. It's really disorienting going along a curve with the bike facing off at a slight angle not in the direction I'm moving. It may be better to have the bike go along a fixed track with transparent dotted or dashed lines along the road showing the path since this gets rid of the recentering or isn't dependent on the head tilt tracking and I can lean naturally into a turn without needing tracking. This could be a separate "lock to path" mode if people still want to have the freedom of steering. With a fixed path, it may also help the rendering artifact issues I see occasionally as well.
On the beta feedback side for VZfit Explorer or VZfit Play, it may help to have dedicated forums or threads for feedback rather than everyone creating their own threads. Looking forward to using Explorer more and I need to give VZfit a try.
The main issues I've run into are steering with the head tilt, recentering the bike, and the rendering with objects jutting out really far. It feels like I need to tilt my head too far to the point where it's uncomfortable to steer and a sensitivity slider may help with this. Without any additional hardware, I'm not sure how well steering can be mapped from natural motion to VR besides the headset, but maybe the Oculus Quest controllers could be mounted to the handlebars with brackets or somewhere else to detect movement or pressure to better map leaning into a turn. The Quest head leaning tracking may work better than the Go, but the Go is all I have to go off of at the moment.
For the recentering, I often have issues with it and can never reorient the bike back with the road, even when I try recentering while facing another direction. I think it would help to make sure that recentering puts you and the bike parallel to the road instead of just reorienting the bike. I typically exit out and restart a featured ride to fix the orientation of the bike to the road. It's really disorienting going along a curve with the bike facing off at a slight angle not in the direction I'm moving. It may be better to have the bike go along a fixed track with transparent dotted or dashed lines along the road showing the path since this gets rid of the recentering or isn't dependent on the head tilt tracking and I can lean naturally into a turn without needing tracking. This could be a separate "lock to path" mode if people still want to have the freedom of steering. With a fixed path, it may also help the rendering artifact issues I see occasionally as well.
On the beta feedback side for VZfit Explorer or VZfit Play, it may help to have dedicated forums or threads for feedback rather than everyone creating their own threads. Looking forward to using Explorer more and I need to give VZfit a try.