[jimm]

Let's say I want to simulate acceleration going forward. First, there's the burst of forward motion provided by the cable rig, and that can be > 1G. By also gradually flipping the person onto their back you can simulate continued acceleration of 1G because lying on your back feels the same as 1G of acceleration forward. The VR rig would still show you accelerating forward. I am guessing that if the rig also slowly moved back to its original starting point the user wouldn't notice.

[ljk]

Thanks for explaining, I kind of understand it now, but what if the acceleration is > 2G, then gravity won't be enough to simulate it, and I'm still a little skeptical that the user won't feel the rotating and "slowly move back" to original position, but I've never used a VR headset so I might be completely wrong here

[jameshart]

Your body's not that good at measuring acceleration. Sure, it'll be hard to convince your brain that blood's pooling in your feet, but being leaned way back will provide a pretty convincing >1g forward acceleration feeling if the visuals are right.

[patcon]

This is really neat! I'm really curious what the motion would look like from outside the room, and what the limits of a simulation would be using this technique...

It seems like the sort of fun project that would be cool to simulate in a graphic engine -- pairing the playing of certain games with a 3D model of the simulation room :)