Wow! Signed up to GTPlanet just to get involved in this!!!
Mr Latte, you are indeed crazy! in a good way. I thought, and close friends and family think, i am crazy with my rig ambitions, but you sir are on another level!
WARNING: i got carried away, ok, i'm sorry, it wont happen again.
Anyway, i found a link to this thread from InsideSimRacing last night. I was up until 1:30am reading through it all. flippin ek. I was knackered when i got to the end, if you can call it the end! You could probably sell the film rights to this little mission of yours! (well, maybe not) I read with eager anticipation as things progressesed. It was with good humour that i read the earlier posts discussing the exclusion of triple screens in the game, knowling full well how that turned out!
you must have been overjoyed when they announced it. (That said, still no LAN play!)
I think we're pretty similar in some respects, although your technical knowledge when it comes to sound is more than likely a little more advanced than mine at the moment. (I'll get to it in a minute, but its really my interest in the tactile side of things that brought me to this thread)
Your rig certainly looks like it's going to be the showpiece you intend it to be, and i'm sure that when the unitiated take a seat, they will be blown away with the experience. I assume you're not planning on keeping it all to yourself now!
I'm slowly working on a set up that is aiming to give the best experience possible, but at the same time remaining mobile, to the extent i can pack it up relatively quickly, stick it in the back of a car and take it somewhere and set it back up, again, relatively quickly. Like you, i kind of based all of this ambition on GT5, which i presumed would be awsome. I got given the game as a gift when it came out but held off playing it until recently as i felt my set up wouldn't do it justice; my set up being defined by the fact i would still be using a dual shock controller! I'm a veteran of all previous GT games but never had the opportunity to sort out a proper set up.
I say that i'm at phase 2.5 of my project. How many phases are there? Hmmm, i'd say 6!!
Bezel = Devil, so i went with a 3 projector set up. i got hold of 3 Acer H5360's on special offer at pc world. Possible not the best place for a good deal but i was in the mood to make a purchase, the reviews were good, the price was good (£430 each i think) and the fact i could get 3 identical new units was very desirable. As 3 makeshift screens (possibly remain part of final project) i went to hobbycraft and purchased 3 plain canvases. I dont know the dimensions right now, but they are pretty big, just about got them in the back of the car.
So having a quick play with the alignment, with various bits of kit propped up with whatever i could find, i had a pretty much borderless 3 screen set up. Getting the actual in game aligment options set up properly is something i'll do later (screen curvature)
My aim is to have all the gubbins (PS3's, Amps and Projectors) in a unit that will sit behind the seat, and rise above the seat so that the projectors are overhead. If you can imagine an F1 air intake with the little spoilers coming out the side and the driver sat in front of it. The acers are pretty cool bits of kits. They have auto sensing inversion. So with them placed above the drivers head, if left in the standard position, the image would be very high, too high above the natural line of sight, unless you tilted the unit down. But then you would need veritcal keystone correction, which is possible (again an auto feature) but not ideal. It's therefore just a simple case of inverting the projector. Now the image, rather than shining out and up, is shining out and down, and so long as its high enough to get over the drivers head and the beam not be broken by the wheel, you've got an image presented more at the line of sight.
The Acers throw distance is not great and the manaul zoom is pretty poor to be fair, so the placement of the units is key. However, placing them behind the driver allows for a bigger image without needing additional space at the front of the rig to get the screen distance, if for instance the projectors were placed in front of the wheel. It also helps keep things clean in front of the driver. This is all key for the usability in other locations.
Final projector and screen aligments would all be made once the main seat and rear 'gubbins' structure are sorted, but in theory and in beta practice it all looks good.
SOUND
You'll turn in your grave, but the new Sony PS3 Wireless 7.1 headset came out recently, and i'm wondering if i even need a traditional surround sound set up?! It's not that i dont want it, i'm just thinking with my portability goal in mind, sound can be handeled well by these headphones. They are getting rave reviews in the US. I will however require some amplification for the tactile element i want to build into the seat. This is a certainty. I totaly agree with you. I think motion simulation would be good fun for a while but i would see myself actually turning it off at times just because it becomes annoying!
So this is why i found your thread. I'm keen to get a sense of direction/orientation with the tactile sound. It started off, before i read your thread, in just querying whether or not stereo buttkickers was possible. If your thread has tought me anything its that it is!! And i think i understand your set up from this perspective, but i still have a few queries.
I'm not going to even try and replicate your set up. It doesn't fit with my end goal. At a really basic level, i could just get a ButtKicker Gamer2 and stick it under the seat and run it off the bk amp. Done. Easy.
But i'm obvioulsy not going to do that am i! I'm looking for some solid, precise and immersive 'rumble'. So my initial thought was to get 2 mini buttkickers with 2 buttkicker amps and split the composite signal from the PS3, placing the BKs somewhere on the seat or frame but as far apart as possible in order to achieve a clear left right seperation.
My questions/queries:
- Lack of audio control - Wind Noise is an issue in GT5 and i dont want the rumble to just take over. Iwant it to be really clear and precise when hitting rumble strips and changing gear and the like
- overly aggressive rumble of the buttkicker without the balance of a complimentary transducer. should this be a real concern?
- does a mini BK pack enough of a punch? or should i be thinking about 2 Advance Buttkicker
- in some of your images it didn't look like there was phisically much of a seperation between the left and right mini buttkickers on the underside of the seat. With such little seperation do you still get a real sense of left and right tactile input (not factoring in the Clarkes)?
Apologiese if you already have done so, but can you explain why you have used the buttkickers where you have and why you have used the Clarks and Auras where you have?
From your experience and your knowledge in this area now, if you were in my shoes and were building a solid seat, but with portability in mind, what do you think would be your ideal set up, not necessarily from an audible audio perspective, but from an audio tactile perspective - Project R Lite, if you like!!
Sorry for going on a bit!! but there was a whole 3 years of development to comment on!!
Looking forward to seeing your project progress over the coming months and i'll of course give you an update on mine when ready.
Cheers
James
PS
Have, but not fully configured yet:
Entry Level Cobra racing seat
G25
3PS3's
3Acer H5360's
Want:
F1 Playseat (any thoughts? i'm thinking it might not feel right on long stints)
Tactile set up
Clutch/Brake pedal adapter to give more brake pedal resistance. Not fussed on losing the clutch function at this point.
