

Ask HN: How much would it cost to build the ultimate VR hardware system? - darrennix

We have a lot of epic Nerf battles around our HQ and we also play a lot of Call of Duty.<p>That got me thinking... what if I could combine the running, ducking, and aiming of Nerf with the visuals and general awesomeness of CoD?  The ultimate toy... Snow Crash without the brain stem tap.<p>I'm picturing a 15ft diameter ball with precision servos coming in from all directions attached to a full body suit and helmet combo with built-in projection glasses.<p>The servos would sense your body motions to animate your character model and would also provide feedback... the sensation of running, climbing stairs, crawling on your stomach, leaning on a wall, getting shot.  The helmet would control point of view.<p>You would have full range of motion within the ball and the ball itself could move up and down and rotate in all directions to provide the appropriate gravity simulation.<p>The development scope would necessarily include modding a game to accommodate the inputs and outputs that the suit needs.  CoD would have to enable reaching down to pick up a grenade and lifting a gun, Skyrim would enable riding a horse and swinging a sword, etc.<p>Success is defined as being able to do every stock action in the game using the body movement that you use in Real Life and with the sensations of RL... gravity, obstacles, etc.<p>So, if you picked one game (let's use Skyrim) to port, how much would it cost to build a fully functioning system including hardware, software, and game mods?
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sorbus
I'm hesitant to put an exact figure on how much that would cost, but,
including all the RnD that you would need to get even a basic working system,
I would say upwards of 1 million. To get something that would work well (not
requiring frequent modification to keep it running) and be somewhat realistic,
anywhere in the region of 15m to 50m. Once the first one was running and you
could just duplicate the design, I would guess that parts and assembly would
cost around 100k.

If anyone went into this project with less than 1m to spend, I would be
skeptical of their success even if they weren't paying for labor - this is
something that would take perhaps dozens of prototypes to get perfect, and the
cost would add up quickly even if it was very modular.

However, that's just an arm chair estimate. It's not my field of expertise
(I'm not an engineer), and it's quite likely that a committed group of people
could pull it off for much less.

