Bohemia Interactive is responsible for some of the most realistic military simulation games around with its ARMA series. It’s little surprise, then, to learn the developer ‘s spin-off company is using the Oculus Rift for new projects.
Bohemia Interactive Simulations, a division of the company dedicated to creating professional sim applications, is to showcase new military setups that utilize both the VR headset and the Leap Motion hand-tracking sensor next week. The team will be at the Australasian Simulation Congress in Melbourne, Victoria showing a setup that allows users to step into the cockpit of an F-18 fighter jet as part of its Virtual Battlespace training systems.
The prototype setup uses a synthetic environment generated by its VBS Blue architecture, along with Bohemia’s own whole-earth rendering technology. Along with the Rift and Leap Motion, D-BOX Motion-Cueing Systems, which move the seat the user is sitting on and Ausimtech sim chairs are used to put players in as authentic an experience as possible. Once in VR, the user can operate a virtual cockpit using their own hands.
That’s not all Bohemia has to show at the event; it’s also got an image generation solution called VBS IG, which is projected onto a four meter dome, and is talking ‘The Future of Game-Based Training’ in a session.
In a press release, the company’s Ryan Stephenson referred to the F-18 cockpit as using “off-the-shelf VR”, which is a crucial part of understanding what makes this news significant. Simulation companies have been using proprietary forms of VR for years, but they’re often expensive and elaborate. In headsets like the Oculus Rift groups like Bohemia have a much more accessible, affordable means of utilizing VR, and you can bet that just about any military simulation company is looking into the headset.
Okay, so it’s not exactly ARMA VR, but it goes to show how seriously companies like this are taking the tech. That said, we do know that the main division of Bohemia Interactive is indeed working on its own VR title. Hopefully we’ll see something from the team in the near future.
