A new experimental Quest game lets its maker jump on a real bike and race it on an actual sprint track. But, no, you shouldn’t try it yourself.
Content creator Valem is behind the project, which saw him remove the Quest’s Guardian limitations and head outside to a race track. Quest headsets aren’t meant to be used outside and the camera-based tracking can be spotty in high light conditions (not to mention you risk damaging those cameras in direct sunlight). We tested the kit outdoors when we first got one, too, but the results were pretty mixed.
It goes without saying that you shouldn’t try this yourself given that it’s dangerous to both you and your headset. Nevertheless, you can check out the developer’s work in the video below.
Valem took the race track and imported a map of it to Unity, allowing him to build virtual environments around the course. He then attached a Quest controller to the front of a bike, allowing him to track it in VR with a virtual model. As a final touch, obstacles were added around the course (in VR, not in real life) to avoid. Some of them were even moving, giving his game an assault course style. He then tasked himself with reaching the finish line as fast as possible.
Though a little rough and definitely not something others should try, it’s pretty fun to see in action. In fact, in one moment of tracking troubles, Valem manages to gracefully fall into a bush. All the same, it’s a pretty fascinating experiment that perhaps better demonstrates how AR might enhance outside activities in fun new ways more than VR.
