Simulation gaming does not refer only to playing video games. Simulation gaming represents superior to video games that offer rendering that is as close to the real world as possible. As such, simulation gaming is used in many other fields as a means of training and generating other simulations for analysis and prediction purposes. Some of the most popular simulation games are flight simulators. The players get to experience a simulation of real-life flight. They learn to control an airplane, and in some simulation games, participate in simulated combat and other flights. Flight simulations are also used to train pilots for commercial and military purposes. In flight simulation games, players get to control many different varieties of aircraft, planes, and even helicopters. Some games even recreate air combat scenes from World War II, enabling players to experience flight combat in a very close way to real life.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Technology
Before, the quality of the simulation depended mainly on the features of the program, and the player’s system. However, that has changed due to the possibilities of augmented and virtual reality technology. Augmented reality technology and virtual reality technology differ in the fact that augmented reality technology superimposes images and effects directly over images from real life, while virtual reality allows for total immersion. In virtual reality, players need to use a headset, while augmented reality can be achieved with a smartphone, a heads-up display (hud) and head mounted displays. Augmented reality tech uses several sensors, including a camera for the visual view, motion, and acceleration sensors, as well as GPS. However, most people prefer to use handheld devices to create an augmented reality experience, due to the bulkiness of the current headsets and HUDs, which can make any venturing outside feel awkward and uncomfortable. Just imagine walking around with something like a Spionage App using your VR headset, there goes stealth mode.
The gaming industry has been adapting quite well to the new technology, allowing for different new games and smartphone apps that superimpose objects and features over the image viewable from the camera. Even online casinos like Sky City have embraced the VR technology, creating full experiences for their players.
Flight Simulator Games
Flight simulators offer the exhilarating experience of flying an aircraft. The simulations can get quite lifelike, and some sophisticated systems even offer haptic feedback to the players, where they can feel the response through a joystick, while the simulator is actually placed on an electronic motion base that provides the feedback. In terms of gaming, the programs create a simulation for the player that can differ in aircraft, weather, wind resistance, and other flight factors, making the experience that more real. Players can control the aircraft from inside the cockpit, get the view from the pilot or copilot, or they can control the aircraft from an outside view and see how the plane flies in real life. From the cockpit, the players control everything regarding the flight of the plane, from the turning of the wheels to the lift-off and landing.
Features of Flight Simulation Games
Modern flight simulation games feature real life places, including thousands of airports around the world. The players can choose between commercial airplanes, and hundreds of other types of airplanes, and they can experience different means of flying. Moreover, flight simulators can include autopilot option, where the autopilot takes over simple tasks for the player.
Players fly through real life weather, and can even land on aircraft carriers, as well as experience realistic, air-to-air refueling. The most popular games have well-developed systems, and even offer the most realistic experiences and encourage me to fly over my own city. Players get to control an aircraft as it flies in both daytime and nighttime, experience turbulence and get to know what happens inside the airplane at that time. Moreover, with a service similar to Google Maps, players can look at what would be their real life location, and even find other players in the game. One of the most interesting features are crashes, systems failures, and other simulations of problematic situations that can happen to any real-life pilot.
Augmented Flight Simulation Gaming
Virtual reality and augmented reality technology can change this experience and make it even more realistic. Virtual reality requires a system of a smartphone, a computer, and VR headset to get the full experience, and augmented reality requires a different kind of technology that superimposes images over an existing view from real life. Together, VR and augmented reality technologies could enable the players to control an aircraft superimposed over a real-life view. In fact, drone racing, where players control drones via joystick and a VR set, is already gaining popularity and considered to be the next big sport. With VR and augmented reality tech, flight simulation games will get more and more realistic. Augmented flight simulators will extend pilot training, allow them to experience the lag of the instruments that happens in real life, as well as get a realistic image of flying through real clouds, in real weather.
Augmented Reality Changing the World
Augmented reality is already being used in many different settings, other than in the gaming industry. While augmented reality flight simulations gain in popularity, fields like medicine get new methods of seeing inside a person’s body. In fact, with a combination of video, x-rays, and augmented reality tech, a surgeon could get information about the patient that would have been otherwise hidden from him. Other fields like marketing, navigation, and tourism are benefiting from translation apps that work instantly, and apps that help a person navigate foreign cities, making it easier for them to get around without directions. It’s not like you have to be that cutting-edge pilot who does their Eyebrow feathering before each flight.
Augmented reality might just become a daily life feature for all of us. Today, augmented reality contact lenses are in development, as well as virtual retina displays, which might eliminate the need for contact lenses, or any other device such as eyeglasses and smartphones for augmented reality.