Dennou Senki Net Merc

I don't think that Polhemus press release is related to this project. Apparently Sega were looking into using their "Star-Trak" motion capture technology in 1996. I don't know if it was actually used though.

Net Merc is a 1995 game and doesn't utilise motion capture - it uses motion tracking. -Black Squirrel (talk) 17:14, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Here's some details... Star-Trak... --Asagoth (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Edit: Found this old article about Polhemus... but adds nothing new to the subject since is an article from 1997... it states the same... that Sega Enterprises Ltd. was "the first customer of Polhemus' latest motion capture system, Star-Trak" ... --Asagoth (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Stephen Northcott shared some stories on gamasutra.com in 2010 about his time at Virtuality and when he worked with Sega (in the comments)... when Sega requested his help, Virtuality was already using Polhemus devices in their pods... Sega was probably influenced by them in their decision to use Polhemus products...--Asagoth (talk) 20:56, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Edit: I tried to save a copy of that page ... but the comments don't show up so here's what he said :

"Stephen Northcott, 14 Jan 2010 at 10:59 am PST

I was at W.Industries which became Virtuality PLC in the 90's. The days of Dactyl Nightmare!

That was back when we produced both the stand up and sit down VR units based around Amigas, and were using Polhemus trackers for following hand and head movements. Our units were in use all over the world in theme parks and specialist centres. The idea at the time was that this was the future of arcades and more....

I remember us advising on Lawnmower Man, and working with people like Douglas Adams and the Star Trek franchises. Theme parks for the latter one if I remember correctly. I always wanted to try and wrangle that one in some way so as to get an invite to meet Bill - but never did. Shame.

As we were transitioning to PCs myself and another engineer got involved with a project we were doing under contract for Sega - and ended up going to Japan to work there in their offices in Haneda. At the time we were advising not only on that but also on a home HMD and console tie up - which we've discussed here on Gamasutra recently in another blog thread.

The project we were doing with / for Sega was their first Arcade VR game. Originally called TecWar, but renamed to NetMerc as dear old Bill Shatner had the name TecWar first. There is some irony there!

NetMerc was a technical success, despite the tiny team we had comprising myself and one other guy as the programmers, with an artist each us to keep us company. It also debuted very well in public field tests against heavy weights like Daytona which were launched around the same time on newer hardware! I think a lot of it to be honest was the novelty value of the VR experience: The headset, the massive platform with a gun the size of something which would look more at home on top of a HumVee that you could rotate 360 degrees, and the big wall sized screen which showed spectators what the player could see. We had a fantastic time at the Tokyo Game Show that year. I have some cool pictures of the unit from there if anyone is interested. Good times.

Throughout all of that time the biggest problem was the resolution of the LCDs in headsets, and making people comfortable with the quality / focus of the images and the weight of the helmet..

Oh, and tracker lag - which genuinely bought on motion-sickness in many people. Until we could get the tracking data into the device and images rendered that same frame using fresh position data VR was doomed IMO. Even a few milliseconds of lag is immediately off putting when it's your only view of the world.

For most people you had to learn to relax in the system. Your first or second go would not be much more than an experience. Many stopped right there I suspect. When I watched people play for the first time they would often come out of the system saying they had a good time, but you could tell they had not really got a clue what just happened, and wanted to save face. Their face or ours, well, I am still not sure! Or perhaps they just wanted to say they had done it and that was good enough. But VR didn't in my experience get a lot of repeat players except for hardcore gamer geeks.

Having said all that *we* had some fantastic networked games within the combat simulations. But then we were in the systems everyday. And there was something strangely cathartic, in a perverse way, about watching inexperienced people scrape along walls, staring at their own feet, and insisting they were having a great time and that they "got it".

At the time I took a sabbatical from the industry in the late 90's I had decided VR still had a long way to go before it was as immersive as we hoped it could be, and as easy and comfortable to use as it needed to be for the mass market. I also believed it would be a long time before the things I / we wanted to do creatively could realistically be achieved in digital entertainment. This was as much a limit of gaming hardware at the time as the inherent problems with the VR framework.

Our CEO during that period was still dreaming about "full body VR suits" and all the kinky stuff that possibly entailed, and the "mass market appeal" it might have. Funny in retrospect, as it was clear that just like the internet the moment that VR as a network medium was generally accessible something carnal would creep in and become an avalanche!

Ultimately Virtuality folded.

Looking back I personally think I made the right call to change paths at that point in my career. I thought at the time it would be a good 10 years before it would be realistically possible as a real main stream entertainment media.

As some people have already mused I also think that *if* 3D TV takes off in the home, and home motion control systems take hold on modern entertainment systems, and they get rid of the lag (which is still worse in those home units now than it was in commercial applications back in the day) then maybe VR will be resurrected in some way, by someone"....

As you know he worked at Incentive Software, a British video game developer (Reading, Berkshire)... they later moved into the VR field (they were pioneers), this time as Dimension International (and later Superscape Ltd) where they developed the Superscape VRT engine (Superscape Virtual Realities... there's a "playable" demo at archive.org) ... --Asagoth (talk) 21:15, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Gloves...

"Ademas del aparatoso casco que exige esta tecnología, la máquina incorpora una ametralladora que se maneja gracias a un par de guantes que proporcionan mayor realismo al juego..." (In addition to the bulky helmet that this technology requires, the machine incorporates a machine gun that is operated thanks to a pair of gloves that provide greater realism to the game ...) ... on page 39 of issue #8 (November 1995) of the Spanish magazine Ultima Generación ... yep... gloves (guantes in Spanish) ... I don't know where Ultima Generación's reporters saw gloves, but that's what they say... dunno :| ...--Asagoth (talk) 08:06, 6 July 2021 (EDT)

bizarre stuff - god knows if they got it confused with the earlier Virtuality systems, which did use exoskeleton gloves, or just put that in there to fill up dead article space -Ted618 (talk) 19:24, 6 July 2021 (GMT)

Stephen Northcott comments

tried to archive the Gamasutra article with Northcott's comments, but as alluded to above the entire section won't load on either Wayback or archive.today. The bloke gave some valuable info and corroborates a lot of what Andy Reece claimed, so surely there's a way to properly save it on here or elsewhere for referencing? -Ted618 (talk) 23:49, 6 July 2021 (GMT)

After some trial and error I managed to properly save it on archive.today ... have fun , mate... ;) ...--Asagoth (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2021 (EDT)

Dreamcast connection (???)

read through some more of Northcott's comments on Gamasutra, and if what he's saying here is genuinely true (and here), then this completely changes our understanding of the Dreamcast's early development, as well as Virtuality's agreement with Sega:

"Stephen Northcott 9 Sep 2009 at 8:54 am PST

@John As we get older I am sure our memory plays tricks..

However, what I am certain of is this:

In 94/95 we (Virtuality PLC) were working with Sega on a VR Arcade game, commissioned by Sega. I was personally involved in that project as a lead engineer in Haneda with 4 other people producing the game, 1 Sega project manager overseeing and acting as liaison to super high up Sega people, and a satellite office of 2 or 3 people staffing Virtuality, Tokyo. We worked inside Sega for most of the project, and for a while at our own offices. The project was of massive importance to Virtuality, hence us basically setting up a company over there at a few days notice after a nod from Sega that they wanted us *in Japan*.

Whilst in Sega we had enormously interesting hands on meetings with the most senior staff in Haneda on a regular basis about a wealth of projects, both potential and ongoing. We did feel a little bit like rock stars for a while there!!

You can read some comments about the VR arcade project, generally, from a fellow engineer Andy Reece, on this web page : http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=712

I also know that we were aiding in the design of a VR HMD (Head Mounted Display) for home use for a console yet to be produced in any form other than a "prototype". The name I was aware of in 94/95 was the 'Dreamcast', which was to have an always on network connection (at least in Japan).

It's possible that this might have been an add on for the Saturn, or a new iteration I suppose, but that is certainly not what I recall, and the name Dreamcast was used often.

I do remember looking at production prototypes for the HMD with some pretty small LCDS in them for the time, and an incredibly nice form factor compared to our home grown almost industrial design UK HMDs, which were for the original W.Industries / Virtuality VR units. The prototype units I remember even matched the colour and style of the Dreamcast console's casing. Although that could be a red herring as plastic prototypes are often made in those lighter colours.

I do also know that another VR partnership with Sega had not gone well prior to our involvement (perhaps the earlier 91/92 Sega VR unit) with another company, which was why our company was of great strategic interest to Sega, and also perhaps why the whole thing was so dynamic and involved a lot of intensity!"

it admittedly sounds a little farfetched considering what is already known about how the Dreamcast's name was chosen, but then Sega certainly did have tons of high-level projects on the bounce at that time. Either way, fascinating stories, and Stephen Northcott probably needs to be asked about this kind of stuff by a reputable source one day -Ted618 (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2021 (GMT)

Yep... fascinating stories indeed ... I saved that page with those comments on archive.today too... just in case ... --Asagoth (talk) 20:51, 6 July 2021 (EDT)