My Rift Rifle (DIY)

Hey guys,

Just in the process of making myself a VR rifle for games like onwards. The moment I played that game I realised you really need some sort of solid attachment to be able to feel like you are actually aiming a rifle (and to help accuracy at that!).

I saw the noobtube and thought the general premise looked good, just wanted to make it more sexy.

So over the last week or so I have been designing and making the Rift Rifle - it's still WIP so I'll update as I get stuff done.

I am also wondering about a recoil unit made from a solenoid, but not sure how I would get it to match the in game action yet - would be open to any ideas. My initial thought was to make a trigger that presses the rift trigger and also activates a micro switch, then have a selector to choose between single and auto. I can't really see a way to make that work physically though.

Anyhoo, for now just a straight up rift rifle, no recoil.. 3D printed parts are using XT-CF20 (a carbon polymer composite that I freaking love - parts come out with no warping and extremely strong), the rest is cut on the CNC from ecocast aluminium plate and 2mm carbon fibre sheet.

Design:






First part cut from Aluminium (butt plate):




Printing Shoulder pad:




Combined:




Cheek rest is made up from various 3D printed parts, 2mm carbon fibre sheet and an aluminium mount rail. 2mm neoprene foam will top the cheek rest (it's in the post!).




Biggest milling job I've yet done in aluminium - 20mm plate and due to the depth I had to hog out a lot of it to stop the chips fouling the slot.








Assembled for a test fit:




First prototype of the Touch mount, I have since changed the design to extend it 5mm further up the rift body, larger rear slot with better lead-in path for the wrist strap and increased clearance to allow a thin rubber/foam membrane on the inside edges for better retention. Anyone else think the in action print shot looks like buttocks?!






That's where I'm up to so far. I'll hopefully get a chance to print out the re-designed touch holders soon and I've got the CF tube and neoprene foam in the post.

This is awesome

Just brilliant, super work. Look forward to seeing progress and perhaps a video in use?

Cheers chaps!

Yeah, I need to look into how people do those mixed reality videos. That would be a good way to demonstrate it rather than looking like a moron swinging a fancy stick around a room.

Zeeflyboy said:

Just in the process of making myself a VR rifle for games like onwards.

Click to expand...

The biggest aspect, IMO, will be correct hold for a rifle. The Vive controllers work fine for pistols, but most two-handed weapons are different.
You generally want the front controller oriented to be 'palm-up', as you'd hold the foregrip of most rifles, with perhaps a pivot for those games where your weapon does have a front pistol-style grip.

I assume you've factored in the headset itself, making sure it doesn't interfere with the cheek rest?

Zeeflyboy said:

Yeah, I need to look into how people do those mixed reality videos. That would be a good way to demonstrate it rather than looking like a moron swinging a fancy stick around a room.

Click to expand...

You mean the 'picture-in-picture' thing, where we see what you're seeing as an inset to the main stick-swinging moron video?
Bound to be a number of apps that do that...

Yeah I'll have to play with the palm up thing. Mind you some of the nicest guns I've used (I had a history of airsoft) had vertical fore grips.... does put your wrist in a better position for manoeuvring a gun. I generally find that I preferred vertical fore grips for general use, palm up grips work nicely for firing from prone.

Good idea though, I'll add looking at a multi position forward mount to the list. What do you think about a small deployable bipod?

Yeah the cheek rest is fully modular and adjustable, I haven't yet tried it (difficult without the tube to put everything in the right position) but I think it should be able to be positioned to avoid clipping the mask. If not then it could be shortened in a v2 fairly easily.

Don't mean picture in picture, I mean fully blended together like this (from 18 seconds onwards):

Simply awesome.. Please do a limited addition run for us folks on OcUK

Zeeflyboy said:

Yeah I'll have to play with the palm up thing. Mind you some of the nicest guns I've used (I had a history of airsoft) had vertical fore grips.... does put your wrist in a better position for manoeuvring a gun. I generally find that I preferred vertical fore grips for general use, palm up grips work nicely for firing from prone.

Good idea though, I'll add looking at a multi position forward mount to the list. What do you think about a small deployable bipod?

Yeah the cheek rest is fully modular and adjustable, I haven't yet tried it (difficult without the tube to put everything in the right position) but I think it should be able to be positioned to avoid clipping the mask. If not then it could be shortened in a v2 fairly easily.

Don't mean picture in picture, I mean fully blended together like this (from 18 seconds onwards):

Click to expand...

thats quite easy. The guy is filmed against green screen playing the game and at the same time the ingame footage is recorded using whatever software people use to record ingame footage.

Then you just overlay the guy onto the ingame future and sync up, edit and produce final video. Can use Adobe Effects to do it.

Zeeflyboy said:

does put your wrist in a better position for manoeuvring a gun. I generally find that I preferred vertical fore grips for general use, palm up grips work nicely for firing from prone.

Click to expand...

Some shorter SMGs make good use of them, as they create less tension across the chest, but I was never a fan... Haven't tried Airsoft so perhaps that's different, but for anything weighty I'd want support beneath.

But it's also more about matching what's on screen and I'd bet most FPSes and the like don't all have pistol foregrips.
Your project, though, so your call.

Zeeflyboy said:

Good idea though, I'll add looking at a multi position forward mount to the list. What do you think about a small deployable bipod?

Click to expand...

As a long-term user of the L86, I love them... but totally unnecessary on a game-sim peripheral, especially as you are unlikely to be diving to the ground and laying in, let alone needing one for stability purposes.
But even if you did need one, I'd think it'd be more of a hindrance if you can't see the real-world surroundings you're doing such things in.

varkanoid said:

thats quite easy. The guy is filmed against green screen playing the game and at the same time the ingame footage is recorded using whatever software people use to record ingame footage.

Then you just overlay the guy onto the ingame future and sync up, edit and produce final video. Can use Adobe Effects to do it.

Click to expand...

Mixed reality definitely isn't 'easy' there's quite a bit more to it than what you said there. Tribal Instincts has done some great videos on Mixed Reality, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZI7-3rK-X4

Impressive work with the rifle stock. Seen loads of variations of these for the Vive, must be great to have to tools and ability to customise one to exactly how you want it. Nice work!

I was just thinking it'd probably be quite difficult to get it to perfectly line up (i.e. avoid the gun naturally tilting up or down on screen) since as far as I'm aware onward expects that sort of pistol grip front and back, if you tilted down the rift controller would that put the muzzle down slightly unless you compensated with a higher position...

But then I realised that actually there's no reason not to slot the front touch controller into it's grip and then you can switch up your hand position either on the pistol grip along with the touch, or on a separate grip just in front of it.

I agree btw - on longer guns it makes no sense to have the pistol grip front, but M4 sort of size and shorter I always liked it. I was sad when my pistol grip had to make way for my m203. Happy again when I saw what TAG Innovation made more recently projectile wise for the M203 though... but that's another story...


So got a bit done today.

Finished the touch holder design and printed that and the new tube mount out. The new touch mount is awesome - perfect fit and the wrist strap just slots straight down the back without even trying, even if you come in at an angle.

Printing updated parts:




Test fit... liiike a glove.






Normally I like to cut CF underwater to avoid dust issues, but my water tray is missing a screw and isn't water tight at the mo - instead I relied on my vac with HEPA bag and secondary fine particle filter. Don't mess with CF dust at home kids.





RR - Rift Rifle


Neoprene foam turned up and promptly fitted:




The whole thing is looking a bit sorry for itself as the alu is half way through it's first finishing cycle in the tumbler, need some more plastic triangle media to get a bigger depth before carrying on as it's not deep enough at the moment for the larger parts (hence the uneven finish on the main frame piece).




I'm now happy with the touch mounts, so just need to print the front one, print the tube mounts and wait for hardware like the CF tube to turn up.

I've got some ideas for horizontal foregrip but I want to wait for the tube to arrive and the grips to be fitted before deciding on a way forward.

varkanoid said:

thats quite easy. The guy is filmed against green screen playing the game and at the same time the ingame footage is recorded using whatever software people use to record ingame footage.

Then you just overlay the guy onto the ingame future and sync up, edit and produce final video. Can use Adobe Effects to do it.

Click to expand...

I'll have to look into it cheers, think my friend might have after effects.

While "true" mixed reality isn't an straight forward as that isn't rocket science either.

Unfortunately, most of it is geared up towards the Vive controller and kit but it is possible with the Rift.

Anyway, plenty of written and video tutorials out there.

Zeeflyboy said:

I'll have to look into it cheers, think my friend might have after effects.

Click to expand...

Ignore what was said above I was talking about the actual process of making it not getting the footage which is the hardest bit, once you have it is simple to line it up and match it. Might take a long time to edit but its not that hard. Not talking about a highly professionally produced version just something similiar to the example given.

Easiest bit is filming the guy. The side shot is no problem. The first person shots will require some kind of headcam. The more inventive you are the harder it gets. What is a bit tricky is getting the green screen and lighting correct. Need to make sure its as uniform as possible to avoid shadow and colour change. Obviously make sure the subject isnt wearing the same as the background.

What you need to do first is storyboard some moves. Have your subject practice them. Then figure out how you are going to record the ingame footage at the same angle/viewpoint that you are filming the subject. Remember you dont have to worry about lighting/camera etc for the ingame footage once you figure out how to record it you just hit record! Probably involve multiple run throughs to get the right footage.

Good luck!

This is fantastic work, looking forwards to seeing the finished product.

Impressive stuff!

varkanoid said:

Ignore what was said above I was talking about the actual process of making it not getting the footage which is the hardest bit, once you have it is simple to line it up and match it. Might take a long time to edit but its not that hard. Not talking about a highly professionally produced version just something similiar to the example given.

Easiest bit is filming the guy. The side shot is no problem. The first person shots will require some kind of headcam. The more inventive you are the harder it gets. What is a bit tricky is getting the green screen and lighting correct. Need to make sure its as uniform as possible to avoid shadow and colour change. Obviously make sure the subject isnt wearing the same as the background.

What you need to do first is storyboard some moves. Have your subject practice them. Then figure out how you are going to record the ingame footage at the same angle/viewpoint that you are filming the subject. Remember you dont have to worry about lighting/camera etc for the ingame footage once you figure out how to record it you just hit record! Probably involve multiple run throughs to get the right footage.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Dude, seriously, you've obviously not done this before or even googled it.

Mixed reality video with VR isn't just the same as recording game footage then overlaying. How do you think you even get the 3rd person view in games that are purely designed to be played in first person?

"getting the footage which is the hardest bit" - "Might take a long time to edit" - both totally the exact opposite of how it works.

Producing something of this quality is acctually straight forward:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfNzhLXYGc

"Storyboard some moves"? While storyboarding any kind of video make sense, the current state of the art with mixed reality copes with real time movement are requires almost no planning, other than being familiar with the limitations.

Anyway, OP needs to read up online. Find out about how to make use of the Virtual Controller Driver to create a 3rd virtual controller he can associated to a camera and find out what games support creating mixed reality videos and in what way.

http://secondreality.co.uk/blog/how...ity-videos-for-the-vive-with-two-controllers/

Here's what can be achieved in it's most basic form with no post production or real planning (top right shows output, this is kind of like a debug video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJutav_kUAQ&list=PLZyoXzslaiwbQqDZh4wuLpgbRV5p1JVQI&index=15

This is awesome, can't wait to see it finished.

Just done the first stage in finishing the alu parts - Just bought myself a tumbler the other day so I'm experimenting a bit.

In theory this pass is pre-polish. Removes tool marks etc








Needs more time but that thing be nooooisy and don't want to disturb the neighbours as the garage isn't particularly noise proof!

After some more tumbling time it'll then be time for a clean up and then a big long tumble in rouge charged walnut shell, hopefully giving a nice shiny finish.


Other than that, carbon tube turned up and looks good size wise... I have just done another tweek to the touch holders for ergonomics, need to print the left and right ones out then that's pretty much all the parts done. Also just ordered some of the screws and fixings I still need to get.



Won't have time to do much this weekend but should have it more or less finished next week when the final fixings arrive and I can print out the last parts.

Impressive - very nice going with this. You've got skills too!