Since our rise from the primordial ooze, mankind has wanted one thing and one thing only: the ability to play Fruit Ninja inside of a little white room while using our hands as swords. That goal, friends, has been met and surpassed. I present to you Fruit Ninja in the CAVE, a version of Fruit Ninja played entirely in virtual reality.
The system uses 3D motion tracking along with a 5.1 sound system and “buttkickers in the floor” along with haptic feedback using a Wiimote. Students Thiemo, Alex, Matze and Moritz made the project in FH-Wedel’s Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE).
What does this mean for humanity now that its goals have been reached? Perhaps we need to now address the pressing problem of playing Angry Birds in our sleep? Or the crisis of faith created by our inability to play Minesweeper after death? My hope is that future scientists will look upon this day as the day we, as a species, finally “Did it,” an occasion that will inspire them to strive to greater heights and towards the greater good.
From the boys in Germany:
This game was made during the virtual reality workshop as a part of our media-informatics studies (FH Wedel Germany). It is preety much a 3D clone of the smartphone game Fruit Ninja. We used the preconfigured CAVE and its SDK. The CAVE consits of synced 4 PCs and 4 duo-beamers. All is rendered over OpenGL and Chromium. Because of the tracking data (4 camera-based infrared tracking) and shutter-glasses, the user has a 3D impression. The sword sits above the Wiimote, which is only used for a haptic feedback when hitting a fruit. It is also located over the tracking-system. For physics and collisions we used Bullet Physics.
To create a realistic impression we placed the sound with OpenSL over a 5.1 sound system. When you hit a bomb the floor begins to rumble (over 2 Buttkickers). There are 3 Gamemodes.
Combos are also possible and are displayed throw 1 (combo of 3) or more chilis ;-)
The game becomes more difficult, if you get more points.