VZfit Explorer Feedback

[emalafeew]

That’s an interesting idea, and think we could support it for short periods. Just for cycling or other games too? We’ve had a few requests for the B button, such as showing/hiding the main menu, so have been leaning toward making its behavior assignable. That could be one of the functions

[Stain2319]

I was just thinking the other day that i wish i could coast. Put me down as another vote! (And make sure the left trigger on the original bike can be used for the same thing)

[Phoenix]

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.

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I'm pretty new to the system, but I'll address my experience with the steering. I also have an Oculus Go. I find that if I drop my shoulder while I turn my head, that the steering is much easier and more natural. YMMV but it works for me.

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That’s an interesting idea, and think we could support it for short periods.   Just for cycling or other games too?   We’ve had a few requests for the B button, such as showing/hiding the main menu, so have been leaning toward making its behavior assignable.  That could be one of the functions

My opinion is that you should not be able to coast in games.  They are somewhat competitive as you are ranked and the idea, from a fitness perspective is to keep to moving.  For virtual rides, fine.  I don't have to use it, if I don't want to.

[dansavatar]

I created a ride along Las Vegas Strip (one of the flattest bits of road I know), yet in riding it, I often find my z-axis loosing height, such that I'm descending into the ground, or suddenly riding into a blue screen.

All that said, I totally love Explorer.

Two things that I'd like
Show vKm or vMiles in game, like in VirZoom (for PC)

For an overall "session" Virtual millage counter (so that I can see how far I've gone including all explorer rides and play rides in "session".

[emalafeew]

I created a ride along Las Vegas Strip (one of the flattest bits of road I know), yet in riding it, I often find my z-axis loosing height, such that I'm descending into the ground, or suddenly riding into a blue screen.

All that said, I totally love Explorer.

Two things that I'd like
Show vKm or  vMiles in game, like in VirZoom (for PC)

For an overall "session" Virtual millage counter (so that I can see how far I've gone including all explorer rides and play rides in "session".

We should be able to find out what's going on with that ride, thanks for the report.

In transitioning to VZfit, we've moved to "spins" as the base measure of exercise.  A spin is one pedal revolution, relatable to how Fitbit uses steps.  You can see your total spins across Play and Explorer at https://www.vzfit.com/stats, as well as many other progress metrics!

The reason we shied away from vKm is that it relied on knowing the resistance of your bike, which was possible with VZ Bike but not VZ Sensor.  Also vKm was confusable with the virtual distance traveled by your avatar, which is additionally influenced by virtual hills, per-game speed multipliers and limits, and the difficulty setting (new to VZfit).

We know that vKm was a more intuitive metric but wanted something that would work fairly across Play and Explorer and also VZ Bike and Sensor.  We're also getting requests to show estimate calories, because that's also something you also usually see.  We're mocking up HUD variations to try all these things.

[BigDog]

I apologize if this has been mentioned already, wasn't quite sure how to search for this problem. Has anyone had issues with running through the Street View visuals when going up/down hill? Very, very disconcerting. It seems to happen near segments finishing and reorients quickly, but it completely throws you off. It seems like you're biking right through a hill or rise.

[emalafeew]

BigDog,

Can you give us a ride name and location (which you can get from the Pause Menu) to look into? The white dots should be tracking hills as well as they track curves, which is to say it's very dependent on the Streetview data but sometimes we can find ways to make improvements.

[momjeans]

I'm wondering if there's a glitch or if the site stats eventually catch up? I finished the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina ride this morning and it shows as finished on my Quest but here, on the stats page, its still showing 0%.

[momjeans]

I'm wondering if there's a glitch or if the site stats eventually catch up?  I finished the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina ride this morning and it shows as finished on my Quest but here, on the stats page, its still showing 0%.

It showed up as finished today.  

[Snowpelt]

I'm wondering if there's a glitch or if the site stats eventually catch up?  I finished the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina ride this morning and it shows as finished on my Quest but here, on the stats page, its still showing 0%.

It showed up as finished today.  

Hooray! Glad that it's working. Usually the delay isn't that long!