Dark Shadow Studio is up and away with virtual drone racing
Taking flight: Reece Griffin, left, and Casey Thomas, right, with a competitor at the Ballarat Drone Racing Challenge in April 2016. Their simulator is a virtual version of the increasingly popular sport. Photo: DSS.
A Ballarat gaming and video reality development studio is heading to a major Melbourne tech expo to highlight a drone flight simulator it has designed.
Dark Shadow Studio (DSS), a Ballarat-based group, has in a very short period been invited onto the ABC’s Good Game and garnered interest in their work from studios in the USA. They have designed a drone racing simulator that may have applications well beyond the gaming realm.
DSS project manager Casey Thomas and lead designer Reece Griffin are big fans of the sport of drone racing, which involves taking the tiny quadcopters with cameras attached and racing them around courses and obstacles at speeds up to 150km/h. Spectacular crashes are common.
“We’d like to get actual racers to use our simulator,” says Reece. But the expense of crashing a drone means a simulator is a great way to learn.
The inaugural Australian Technology and Gadget Expo will be held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre this weekend, June 25 and 26.