My Rift Rifle (DIY)

[Zeeflyboy]

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.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

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]

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):

 

[Zeeflyboy]

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.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

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.

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

 

[Zeeflyboy]

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.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Cheers chaps.

Got a bit more done, other than waiting for a few fittings and some finishing on the plastic parts it's pretty much there.

So first things first, gave the shoulder pad a few coats of rubber wrap spray.




The alu parts have had a tumble in walnut shell and rouge. Came out pretty well, think I could do better next time... I'll take it for a first go:








And the assembled thing:






So yeah, main things I need are the m4 thumbscrews and lock nuts for the barrel clamps and then I have a plan for a small mod which will substantially increase the strength where the "barrel" meets the stock. Also waiting for a quick release sling point I ordered off ebay without seeing it was coming from china...