Kickstarter Launched!

Finally, I pressed that "Launch" button! Man, you can spend an eternity fiddling around in there with the project. But now I though, enough is enough. Let's launch and get the ball rolling and see what happens.

If this fails, I can always try Indiegogo and Tilt anyway... :)



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chillance/treadgaming-exercise-while-playing-games

Kickstarter Launch Imminent

I just want to give a short heads up here about the Kickstarter Launch of this project I will have this weekend!

Cyberith Virtualizer

Someone contacted me about my project and mentioned this Virtualizer I didn't know about.

Basically it's a Virtuix Omni but seems to be better.

Kickstarter just ended but still.



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1259519125/cyberith-virtualizer-immersive-virtual-reality-gam

TreadGaming Landing Page on Heroku

Hey, just a quick post about a landing page I just put up on the lovely Heroku platform. I made the webserver in Go, and since it's just providing static files, it was rather quick and easy.

http://treadgaming.herokuapp.com/

TreadGaming Orbiting Video

I made a 3D deisgn of my PCB board in Blender 2.71, and this is how it turned out:

Fun TreadGaming Intro

I used fiverr.com way back and got someone to do some talking to a ridiculous script I made. I just now added sound effects and music to it, and this is how it turned out:

TreadGaming Marketing Image

Since I'm sending a few emails to a few news sites, I created an image that I think sums this project up nicely. I need more, but I think it's a great starting point. Feel free to use this (or any other image) to show of my project.

Possibility to Subscribe to a Mailinglist

I added a quick "Subscribe" possibility on here to the right. It's meant for me to see the interest in this project, and the subscribers will know things before others. I will not give away the emails to anyone, because I value them more than that. It will also be handy to use to inform you guys when the crowdfounding will start, so you will know it before everybody else to be able to get the "early bird" deal.

I'm using MailChimp, where limit is currently 2000 subscribers. Shouldn't be a problem I think...

Also, you can unsubscribe anytime you want. How to do that should be in the email you get for subscribing.

TreadGaming Firmware Flashing Utility

I thought I just post some screenshots of the simple tool that was created to ease flashing a new firmware. Screenshots are from Ubuntu, but is the same in Windows and on Mac OS too. This is not by any means the final version, I just wanted to put this out there.

Starting up screen. 

Connected. Now selecting the firmware...

Firmware is selected. Time to flash it...

Firmware flashing completed!

Red LED Indicating Connected Wii Nunchucks

I'm always trying to figure out smart ways of using what I got. And I just added a neat indication of how many Wii Nunchucks are connected. And, I'm doing this by blinking the red LED. It will blink one time quickly when one Nunchuck is disconnected, and blink two times quickly if both are disconnected.

Quite neat and not so intrusive. Especially useful when in use and all of a sudden one Nunchuck might not work or if there is some other odd things going on. If the red LED blinks you can see that a Nunchuck is disconnected. The device shouldn't send any data for that Nunchuck if it is disconnected now though, so that shouldn't be a problem either.

TreadGaming The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim GamePlay

A new video is up showing me walking about in the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a meadow type of area. Quite relaxing and enjoyable. Feels totally different when you actually have to move your legs to move around for sure. I need to remove the "stamina" bar for an even better experience, because I can run much longer before having to rest than the guy in the game... Anyway, this game uses a "press and hold" type of button to run. And one can clearly see it working just fine here. And all other interactions works as well, making this game totally playable.



What's good about testing different games like this is that I can tweak and add functionality to the firmware to support it if needed. This game is quite suiting for my project too as there are so huge areas to explore.

TreadGaming Dead Island Riptide Gameplay

Finally a new video demonstrating the possibilities with this project.




Here you can see that the "trigger button on faster speeds than calibrated max value" works quite well. Basically it means that for games that actually don't run when the analog forward movement is at max, there now are buttons which can be used if the game expects a button for the running. This game works like that. I have 3 different button scenarios. You can pick whatever depending on how the game works. This game does a button press to start running. And then again to stop. Other games might keep the button down and others expects a rapid pressing. I have support for them all (and adding more types is rather easy). So now, when I go faster than my calibrated value (which is at walking fast), it will press the run button, and he runs in the game.

There is a stamina meter, which now actually makes more sense to remove, as now the stamina is up to how long you are able to run before taking a breath. :

What I forgot to show here is ducking, jumping and flashlight, but that works as well. I might as well do a video showing that too...

It's kinda cool, because a swing of the right Nunchuck presses the "B" button, which in most cases means cancel. Up on the right Nunchuck presses "A" button. Works as "jump", which is why I mapped it there. It's also for "confirm" choices, so there it's more getting used to. Left and right on the left Nunchuck is strafe. Down on the left Nunchuck is ducking obviously. :)

Left Nuncuck is mapped to the new functionality I just added where I can cycle between buttons. Currently 3. So, the top button on the Nunchuck cycles through what the bottom button on the Nunchuck will simulate pressing in the game. Quite nifty, although it might take some getting used to. But, if you map it well, it's actually like the Nunchuck had more buttons! So, as shown at the end of the video, I have the "prepare to throw weapon", "kick" and "Select menu" mapped to it.

Buttons Galore

In a recent post I mention to add extra buttons for when reaching above calibrated max speed. It's added and works great! I've been playing with it for a while, and playing is now even better than before. Dead Island Riptide uses a button press to run, so, as I have added 3 buttons, you just pick the one that suits the game. In this case the second one in the list here:

1. First button is pressed and hold down as long as you are ABOVE the calibrated max speed.
2. Second button press when you CROSS this calibrated max speed threshold.
3. Third button is a rapid pressing button when you are ABOVE the calibrated max speed. This one may need to be tested some more, as the speed between presses isn't tested in a game yet. Currently it's 200ms between button presses.

Playing this game I noticed that I'm missing one button that is handy. And that is to be able to kick in the game. I'm able to do pretty much everything else - change weapons, look at the map, upgrade the character and weapons, but still missing one or too that would be handy. The game has a handy popup menu system for some things, which enables me to hold down a button and select a weapon for instance. Or, hold another button and select from a few entries such as inventory or map. But, even with this, I'm missing some buttons. Note that a Nunchuck has 2 buttons, a game controller such as the XBox 360 one has 10+ buttons so...

Anyway, I thought hard about it, and figured, why not add functionality that enables me to use one button that can select what another button will trigger! How cool is that!? You map one button which will work as a button changer for another button. For the Wii Nunchuck I was thinking using the smaller top button as this selector, and the bigger one to trigger the button. Basically, the top button will loop through a set of buttons that the lower one will trigger. This might not be totally ideal, but this will enable so much more for a game. Sure, more button presses, but also more functionally. Also, as I have total control over the firmware, this will be additional buttons, so the 11 buttons I have now will be there. I will just add say 6 more for the 2 Nunchucks. I will add this and see how it goes. Main problem is that you need to remember which one is currently selected, but other than that, it should be quite useful. As long as it's not mapped to something "bad" it shouldn't be a problem, as you can just back out and select the one you wanted.

In the future it would be more handy with a popup menu or something for this, but it's a longer project. Anyway, it won't ruin anything I have so far, as you don't have to map the buttons to any of these new buttons if you don't want to use this functionality.

Anyway, it should be pretty easy to add, so, this is what I will do now. After this, I will test and record movies with me gaming using this!

EEVblog #592 - Mailbag - Treadgaming Featured

It took a while. I send this in early January, and he finally opened it. It's fine with me though. I went on a vacation in January, that is why I send it away then because I knew it would take a while for him to get to it.

Anyway, I want to personally thank David L. Jones for it! Great video! Understandable confusing at first. Mouse? Treadmill? What? But, in the end, he got it! Awesome!



I can also mention that the Wii Nunchuck pads on the back aren't supposed to be blank. They are suppose to be exposed, but I figured he won't use it with a Wii Nunchuck anyway. The firmware on it was only to use it as a mouse anyway so... It's easy to fix though. Just scrap of the plastic and expose the copper with a flat screw driver.

http://www.eevblog.com/2014/03/18/eevblog-592-mailbag/

"In Use" Teaser Renders

 Hey,

I've made these renders many months ago, and the idea is to make a small video of it eventually. These renders takes about 40 minutes to render per frame, so making the video clip takes a lot of time. Especially since it takes time to redo it and tweak it to my liking... Anyway, here are some renders of it and it also shows a vision of mine. It illustrates quite well the setup I have home as well. 

I have in the last week tested a lot, and made a few fixes in the code. I will put up more videos if it in action soon too. There is always something more I want to add to the code, as with testing I think of new things that would be nice to have. I try to avoid too much extra though, and keep things relevant.

For instance, since my PCB has this neat laser sensor, it would work superb as a USB encryption/decryption key or one time password generator such as the yubikey.  The sensor could work as a seed/salt generator as it can provide noise and random data. This is great in the encryption world.

Anyway, currently I'm adding a simple, but interesting functionality where, if you reach higher speeds than the calibrated max speed, it will trigger a button press. I might as well add 3 extra buttons, where one is pressed at this max threshold, the other is pressed and kept in while above the threshold and the third is pressed rapidly while above threshold. That way, one can decide what button to use depending on what game you play. Some games toggle walk/run on a button, others you have to hold the button and others you have to press the button rapidly to run.

Again, just some added useful functionality. It's especially handy to have in place when doing those demo videos, which is why I want to add it now! :)