Msc Gaming Chair Project

Hi

I am studying a Msc Product Engineering Design course and I am currently doing a thesis on gaming chairs. My project goal is to develop a gaming chair prototype that improves the immersion of the games and makes the user feel like they are in the game itself by using sound, physical feedback and other psychophysics techniques.

I am currently investigating the current trends of gaming chairs such as the technology they incorporate such as sound, lights, materials etc. I am also trying to find out what are the most common issues that are currently faced with gaming chairs and how are companies trying to resolve these problems in addition how successful have they been in overcoming these problems.

I was wondering if you may be able to help me by providing information about the development of gaming chairs and possibly give me advice on what to consider in my audio chair prototype such as audio, physical feedback and other criteria it should fulfil. Also what are your requirements for a game to be immerse yourself in the game?

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated
Kind Regards

Yer_Dah

I doubt you'll find many people actually have custom "gaming" chairs, they tend to be both large, expensive and focused on one type of game.
Flight sims and car racing games are the main ones.

Putting a subwoofer below the seat to transmit vibrations into the chair is a common feature.

However the ability to put rear left right speakers from a 5.1 system into the back of the chair is a good one.
Although you'd want to look into correct placement of all the speakers (to get good surround sound that places the listener in the middle of the sound scape needs the correct placement of speakers) and probably the screens (a single screen would work but a multi-screen surround setup would be better)
Again correct placement to surround your head means getting in and out of the chair will require some form of opening mechanism.

It's not going to be cheap and I doubt it would be a viable product outside a small niche market, as a design project it's probably a good idea, you might want to restrict it to a single type of game or even a single game.
eg MS Flight Sim X

For sound I am planning on having multiple speakers like 2 either side of the users head, 2 at chest height and 2 down at hip height or bottom of the chair. Each speaker will only activate depending on where the sound was coming from in the game such as if someone fired a shot and the bullet whizzed by your head the speakers at your head make the noise and if your running about in the water the lower speakers go on. I feel doing it like that would help add depth to the sound.

For testing purposes I am considering in testing it on a horror game either Left4Dead or Amnesia as I have a couple of other ideas than sound that may help with making the gamer feel they are part of the game but I am currently looking at what's available, what the gamer needs are and what requirements I would need to fulfil

What you have to consider are most games are coded in 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 as such walking in water is not going to trigger the lower speakers more then likely the front ones coupled with the sub. Your tied by the coding in the games I'm afraid unless you want to re write the games or process the sound on hardware via the chair itself means writing applications. Going for a standard 5.1 is going to be the most feasible, 2 in front either side of the monitor,1 centre speaker at the front, 2 behind the chair itself and the sub below the chair as pob has said. You could opt for 7.1 which adds a extra 2 speakers by the persons head though this is probably overkill lol

e.g Like this guys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6pEC83dFio

You're also forgetting something. We can't accurately determine height via sound. Without a visual cue, audio is virtually on one plane, so you'll gain little by having speakers high and low.

I have took all of your views about my sound idea and have to agree about it not being easy or even possible to do and I am looking into 5.1 surround sounds and considering its placement

yeah, 5.1 is your best bet - 3 by monitor/TV (Left/Centre/Right) and 2 in the headrest of the chair (Rear Left / Rear Right).

Is this a stationary (typical living room chair for gaming on a TV) chair or a rotatable office-like chair (for gaming on the PC)?

You'll also want to consider cable placement (or going with wireless speakers).

I had an office chair to which I attached the 2 rear speakers that came with my Soundblaster Audigy. I ran the cables down the back of the chair and across the floor to the bass box, but I then had to watch that I didn't run over the cables with the wheels of the chair or turn the chair too much (which would either stress the cables or yank them out of the bass box).

As this is going to form part of an accessed qualification I hope you will be attributing your sources correctly ;)

Look at the outputs you can get from a game. You need to have some way of translating these into the sensations you want the gamer to experience. Graphics and multi-channel sound are a given, but what else is there? Some games use force feedback, others don't. How is the game using force feedback? Primarily it's targeted at input devices, not all of these will be applicable to something you're sitting on.

So most of the effort will need to be in software - how you parse the games outputs and drive the effect creators that you can place in the chair. You might want that software to sit after the game has created it's outputs, or you might want to create a standard that game devs can make calls for - in this case you need to think about how to make it worthwhile for them.

Just placing speakers around a chair isn't going to be much of a project ;)

oh and if you're looking at this sort of design, the model I bought the padding wasn't the best, you could feel sharp corners on the wood under the padding (had to use a cushion not to get stabbed in the leg, and I'm not exactly a heavy bloke (was 9st when I bought that chair))

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Just placing speakers around a chair isn't going to be much of a project ;)

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Oh I have several tricks and ideas up my sleeve ;)
So it won't be just speakers but I have got some physical feedback ideas and I am currently looking into smart textiles and other areas.

I am considering in having the chair design based on one of those living room chairs.

Right now I am looking into what the customer would want in a gaming chair and use that data in developing a concept. I have a survey up so if you can take some time in completing it that would be great.

http://kwiksurveys.com?s=LKLEHL_62262f4

done.

I suppose this is really about enhancing a virtual reality.

Disney are particularly good at this, some of the illusions they create in some of the 3D theatre presentations (compressed air blasts round the ankles coinciding with images of mice coming out of the screen, a seat cushion deflating to simulate acceleration of a seat, coupled with appropriate images are just two examples that come to mind. A trip to DisneParis, or if you can manage it, a chat with some of their engineers and designers might be worthwhile.

A chat with some flighgt simulator or other training simulator companies might be a good idea. at first sight it seems that the solution is to use all the sensess (including, smell, taste?) to complement each other.

Of course, for wargaming, having real and loaded weapons pointing at the gamer, linked to the opponent's computer would generate a very realistic scenario, but I doubt it would be very popular :)

This sort of design, as posted by Blademrk, is fine for console gaming where you're sitting back with a controller, but that leaves PC gamers out. A decent gaming chair that can be used at a desk would be of interest to me at least...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterb

I suppose this is really about enhancing a virtual reality.

Disney are particularly good at this, some of the illusions they create in some of the 3D theatre presentations (compressed air blasts round the ankles coinciding with images of mice coming out of the screen, a seat cushion deflating to simulate acceleration of a seat, coupled with appropriate images are just two examples that come to mind. A trip to DisneParis, or if you can manage it, a chat with some of their engineers and designers might be worthwhile.

A chat with some flighgt simulator or other training simulator companies might be a good idea. at first sight it seems that the solution is to use all the sensess (including, smell, taste?) to complement each other.

Of course, for wargaming, having real and loaded weapons pointing at the gamer, linked to the opponent's computer would generate a very realistic scenario, but I doubt it would be very popular :)

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I went to Universal studios in Florida and there was a Shrek 4D attraction and some of the stuff did feel real. Like as you mentioned air blasting your legs to simulate spiders falling on them was realistic and at the end the donkey sneezed at the camera and there were nozzles that sprayed some water on your face which was pretty uncomfortable but effective lol.

I don't know if the university would allow me to have simulated weapons pointing at folk considering when I discussed my idea with my advisor about having a horror based chair that used special sound effects and physical feedback such as air to unnerve the user but he told me the ethics committee wouldn't allow the project to go further as there are policies against developing products to stress people out.

I'm about to go out so not read all the posts, sorry if I'm repeating something.

My experience of trips to places like PC World, Comet and Best Buy has shown that the type of gamer chair they have in this places are essentially a low rocking chair with speakers, where these are being demonstrated the rocking nature of the chair ends up ripping the audio connectors out of the socket which destroys both the jacks and the sockets making the audio unusable. For a chair of this type to function correctly a really good method of getting power and audio signal is required that will overcome the issues with breaking easily but also ensure good audio quality.

I'm in favour of a modular design that has a simple base chair and then can have various frames added to it with additional mounts for things like flight sims, steering wheels and pedals for racing games or even a surface for a tactical pad and mouse to be used so that it can be connected to a HTPC for PC gaming in the living room.

But for me the most important thing would be having a robust design that doesn't allow cables to get wrecked through normal use.

Ignore this, the spam it was responding to has been removed.