Hereticle: Why you can no longer sculpt chewing gum in the center of the monitor? Or as we did invoice the sight and went to Kickstarter

Like, you know, to shoot sometimes. Shooting games. From the first, and less often in the third person. What is called FPS.



But it all started with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, of course. Doom caught us on the 2nd year of University and we played in it, curiously, to Silicon Graphics Indy and O2. O2 I even bought, used, from a nostalgic and sentimental feelings. Then he began not to play. Job development in the field of 3D, family, and love. Rarely-rarely gets to see at least that there is in this world, Fraga, Arendarenko smoke and explosions. Then reappeared some time. And once, looking at his fallen virtual body...

All must have paid attention to the fact that the bullets, rockets and other deadly projectiles in all of these shooters are flying in the center of the screen. Always. I paid. It is then added precise shooting and shooting from the hip, and different variation in these provisions, as well as factor in spread when running and walking. But first, the doom and quake it was all just people in the center of your screen when you press Ctrl or left click the corpse. Shooting is at the center, because in games, we look at the gaming scene through a kind of camera that turns when we are turning our “head”, and make a separate office for the head and to restore comfortable is extremely difficult. For tank simulators are doing it out of despair, and for the shooters to do so, to maintain the momentum of the game, extremely hard.

In General, the thought has long been nagging at my fevered brain that I would do something like this to hang or place in the center of the screen, well, that helped to aim. And once, looking at his fallen virtual body, I decided this is the kind to buy. And not found anywhere else in the market. And told my friends. And they are not found. Got on forums and found! Found that people dots on the screens, markers, water, and permanent. One friend said that in the “office” they had stuck pieces of chewing gum on the screen... Then I made the first prototype of a transparent slide for presentations. Painted on the cross slide, pressed his webcam, “calibrated” and tried:

red cross - slide
(the red cross is made on the slide)

And I realized that it was good. Amazing impressions of the game in the already rather “jaded” Call of Duty: World at War, left no doubt — I want this thing to yourself and everyone.

I threw a cry of former brothers — in-arms- the old friends at the University, local and overseas — and the work began. The name was born during the discussion with Iggy: “Reticl — heretics”, thoughtfully said Iggy, after hearing the conversation I used the word reticle is one of the English words denoting the crosshairs. So we have a name — Hereticle and Iggy have become part of our international team. He also designed the logo — a stylized crow on a grave sight. Well, website the draft is also his handiwork. Iggy — he's creative personality.

The main problem we have seen is to make a cute and convenient accessory that can be easily removed when not needed. Models with stretch marks and pendants quickly disappeared. Also quickly became clear that the base of the sight should be fixed on the monitor, like a webcam, only to hold on tight to the tilting of the sighting node didn't hit “calibrate”. We tried the first prototype of LEGO ogogo as he worked, and it seemed all was good. But when it was made the model of plastic — it turned out that he was sitting not on all monitors. Then empirically has been found (using the same LEGO) the ultimate version in terms of size.
This sat on everything, even on the fridge. Actually based on it and built two final prototype:

The first prototype is made mainly of plastic (rod steel):
image

good job, stylish and inexpensive.

The second is almost all metal, steampunk:

image

to release in limited quantities, for fans of masterpieces and original products.

What to play with this gear I wonder appreciated all around. But I was not left alone the question, why with this patch the gun play more interesting and more fun than the usual software sight. It turned out, because of the distance. Due to the fact that the slide and subsequent prototypes were not close to the screen, turned a curious effect: now the point of focus for the eyes of the player. As usual, of iron (not optical and not diopter) sight on this weapon, where it is necessary to focus on the crosshairs, not on target or slots. Besides new impressions of the game with this gear, our pricelist will force the player to sit straight in front of “fly”, otherwise, we are for a result not meet. Again, because of the remoteness of the sight from the screen, the view direction of the player matters.

image

In fact, I certainly dropped a lot boring for the reader, the details — who had to work out the details for production, knows how much of any fuss (although I personally like all the “fuss” was very interesting). But once it's all behind as soon as we were in the hands of two ready, battle-proven models, the question arose: how can we bring this marvelous device to the gaming community, and how to find the means for mass production? We chose Kickstarter: it is perfect for our purposes — a large audience, transparent collaboration, simple and intuitive way of presenting, and most importantly — feedback.

We at first did not realize that it is a separate, large-scale task — to prepare materials and video clip (the clip is one of the key aspects of a new project on Kickstarter) for a huge audience. Then we heard that trouble will not less than on a prototype. Texts describing and explaining we already had ready to go, we have them for the site I built. But the clip! We, of course, never with such problem did not face. We are not the Directors, not the operators, and certainly not the actors, so that's time — and say everything is beautiful in the camera, and even in English (some can, but too shy). Very little in the camera and camera can. There was no reason to. To study and train is impossible, would take a lot of time, the project would be “cool.” And we decided that the VoiceOver is a professional and in the story direct speech to the camera. Shooting, editing and sound recording took almost ten long days... But the video kinda turned out. And a voice was found worthy, and, miraculously, almost instantly, thanks to the familiar sound.

But by this point we had finished everything else, text, website and sophisticated campaign. Several more days were spent for final preparations, strokes make up. While I was writing this article, we applied for Kickstarter and finely trembled in anticipation of approval of the visual signal. Which came unexpectedly fast, a little less than a day after submission. Today, when I last edited this article, we've already clicked on the green button to launch the campaign. And now we are sinking anything that would stand still, watching her move. Come see me too!

I want to thank everyone who helped us and contributed in the process of creating a prototype, roller and many other important details. Detailed list we are on the project website. Special thanks to our families who bravely withstood the absence of fathers and husbands engaged in such an important affair.
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru

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