How much is this wireless headset going to cost us?
Would it work with say Three-D velosity and other games like the blind
software games and the games like aliens in the outback and other BE games?
Now this would bring us one step closer to maybe a little pain if we could
use it with blast chamber.
To bad we can't get a belt of some type to come with it for that workout
while playing that favorite game of yours.
Don't get hit or shot or fall into one of those deep holes.
Please get back to me.
I am using a platronics wirless headset with a boom mic on it for Microsoft
flight simulator and the third party voice input program It's Your Plane.
Man, if we could get this project off of the ground.
Thanks.
Ron and current Leader Dog boz who states
"that a service dog beats a cane paws down any day of the week."
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Kaldobsky
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 7:33 PM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: [Audyssey] Some updates on what I'm up to,since I forget to keep
audyssey in the loop.
Hey guys,
I spend most of my time on the audiogames.net forum, and every now and
then I'm reminded that I've shared news with them but forgot to post it here
as well. My apologies, people of the audyssey list! :D LOL.
After my 2.9 patch for Swamp I began working on a new project. To make
a long story short, I learned I was going to need to get a second job in 2
months so I wanted to make the most of them. I officially ended development
on Swamp and have dedicated myself to getting some stuff accomplished in the
2 months I have left. After I get the additional job I will have a lot less
time available to work on projects, so I don't know how that will impact my
efforts as a game developer.
The new project can actually be thought of as 2 separate, but linked,
projects. My new game is going to be an RPG based in the Daytona/Castaways
storyline. It will take place many years after the Daytona game, and you
will learn what happened to the leader from the end of the Castaways game.
The mouse hardware requirement for Swamp was a terribly unpopular move
for a very very long time. Using the word unpopular may even be an
understatement, ROFL! Well that battle was fought and won, and I feel the
audio games community is a better place now that the mouse is an accepted
tool for gaming. This opens up more options for game developers, and that
is always a good thing! Well this RPG is going to follow in those foot
steps and require a new piece of hardware. In a move that will go down in
audio games' history as an epic mistake, or as a revolution, my RPG will
require players to have a 3D head tracking headset I have named the See
Munkey. (I still crack a smile when I say See Munkey out loud.) While
wearing the headset in the RPG you can simply move your head around to move
the head of your in-game character. This will give a more natural playing
experience plus allow you to easily look up or down to get a 3D feeling of
your
surroundings. To determine the locations of sounds in the real world, we
naturally move our heads to see how the sounds will change. This gives us
far more data than we can get from being perfectly still, which is how we
normally are in games. I'm trying to give players that same advantage
inside of the game world.
Development of this device has burned through 3 weeks, which is more
than I planned for. The good news is that I not only have a working
prototype but I've already ordered a shipment of parts to produce 13 more.
More detailed information about the "Munkey" will show up once I'm ready to
sell them but here are the basics:
The device clips on to your existing headphones, or clips on to a
plastic headband that comes with it in case you use ear buds instead of
headphones. It does not produce sound to replace your headphones, which is
a common misconception, but rather tracks the orientation of your head in
all 3 axis. This data can be read by games and programs to customize the
experience. This is similar to how a game can be designed to receive input
from a mouse or a joystick.
The device can be used by other developers! If these do find their way
into the hands of many players, it will be a brand new tool for developers.
It is my understanding that BGT is already set up to handle serial
communications, which means programmers who use BGT will be able to
incorporate the headset immediately into their own projects. Other
developers can easily look up how to read and write to the device using
serial communication, which will give them the same ability.
Games that aren't designed for the headset won't suddenly become 3D when
you use it. This is the same as playing a game that isn't designed to work
with a joystick or mouse. Separate software can be used to map the See
Munkey to the mouse or keys though, which means you can have an interesting
new way to play even those games. As an example, Swamp is not designed to
use the headset yet I was still able to play using it. I mapped turning my
head to the mouse X-axis, forward to tilting my head down, and backward to
tilting my head back. I didn't do it at the time, but I could have also
made tilting my head left or right to perhaps side step, reload my weapon,
or toggle the radar. It wouldn't replace the need for the keyboard, but it
was definitely a new playing experience!
So yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing lately.
I'll answer some questions before they're even asked:
Q: How much will it cost?
A: The device will be $50 plus between $4 and $8 in shipping, depending on
where you live. Since I haven't shipped any out yet I don't know the exact
shipping prices yet. I'll update that once I've sent out a few and know the
exact rates.
Q: Where will you sell these?
A: My website will be set up with a special page to sell these once I'm
ready to do so.
Q: Can I pre-order one?
A: No, I will not accept pre-orders. I've already had a handful of people
ask me about that, but I'm absolutely not comfortable taking anyone's money
until I've got the product in my hands to ship out to them.
Q: What happens if I drop it?
A: The device is completely encased in hard rubber to make it, hopefully,
drop proof.
Q: What happens if I eat it?
A: You'll die. Actually I don't really know that. My friend Steve isn't
being a "team player" so I can't answer this question yet. The device is
about 2.5 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 3/4 inch tall so swallowing it would
be difficult but not impossible. It also has a 6 foot USB cord on it, so I
actually think you'd choke on that after getting the thing down. LOL!
Q: Will other developers have to pay to use this device in their
games/software?
A: Nope, not at all. I'm definitely not going to get rich from selling
these things, so the entire point is to get a new and useful tool out there
for other developers to take advantage of. This probably isn't the perfect
solution to adding 3D to audio games, but it's far better than what we're
using already.
Q: Will this come with a warranty?
A: I don't know, but probably not. Most places that give you a warranty are
charging everyone extra money to pay for that. I've cut every corner I
could to make these as cheaply as possible, so replacing devices with a
warranty would quite literally be money coming out of my own pocket, and I'm
far too poor for that! HAHA! I do believe I'll at least let people send
back broken headsets to I can see if they can be fixed. I'll feel terrible
if someone gets a broken one, which is why I've encased them in hard rubber
and am sending them in boxes rated as "indestructable". I'm pretty sure I
could step on this prototype without hurting it, but I'd rather not find
out.
Q: Can I get a cordless version?
A: Sorry no. Making this thing cordless would easily double or triple the
price. I searched high and low to get just the right parts to keep this
thing affordable, and wireless just didn't work for that. To give a small
idea of how many corners were cut, just ONE of the parts in this thing costs
$100 when purchased fully assembled! I went with off brand, unassembled
parts, that had to be calibrated manually and run my own software written
from scratch.
Q: What happens if I buy one and then you build a more advanced version?
A: I've actually planned for that. The See Munkey headset is already packed
with all of the accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, processing power,
and memory it should ever need. Writing software that turns all of those
sensors into reliable Yaw, Pitch, and Roll data is something groups have
invested years into. I've spend about a week coming up with my own, but I'm
sure that will improve quite a bit over time as I work out more complicated
math to improve performance. The headset has already been designed to grow
over time in 2 ways, without you needing to replace it with a new device.
If I wake up in the middle of the night with some brand new idea for coding
the See Munkey, I can release it as a firmware update that anyone can choose
to download. That would improve the performance of your device while still
having it work on every game and piece of software that it worked on before.
It would just work better! The other option is for
developers to output the raw sensor data instead of just the yaw, pitch, and
roll. So lets pretend that a game developer feels he can do a better job
arriving at yaw, pitch, and roll than the device naturally does. In his
game he can pull the raw data and use his own set of mathematical equations
on it. For developers who are happy with the results provided by the
headset, they can just have their game pull in the 3 processed values. I
like this approach because people are going to come along that are far
smarter than I am. With the ability to read the raw sensor data, they will
be able to make the See Munkey perform in ways far beyond what it can do at
this exact moment, and yet no one would have to go buy a new one! Yay! :D
Q: What was the third question?
A: That was asking about pre-orders. I don't allow pre-orders.
Q: Does the See Munkey use binural sound to more precicely simulate real
life when sounds are around you?
A: That would be a software thing, and the See Munkey is just hardware. If
a developer is using binural sound in his game or program, then the See
Munkey can easily be used to enhance it, but we are talking about 2
different things.
---
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You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
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