Do the Locomotion: The 19 Ways You Walk and Run in VR Games

[kcarbotte]

VR locomotion is an unsolved problem...but not for lack of trying! VR developers have created lots of methods to prevent motion sickness in VR games. These are the ones we know about.

Do the Locomotion: The 19 Ways You Walk and Run in VR Games : Read more

 

[AgentLozen]

I have very little experience with VR but I assume that the author spent a lot of time in VR while doing research for this article. How would you rank these styles of locomotion?

 

[husker]

If VR is ever going to become mainstream, this will need to be standardized and remain immersive. People are NOT going to pay the premium price and go through the effort to set up a VR space just so they can be forced to "teleport" or "dash" or "sprint" or whatever in an un-immersive way. After ruling out a warehouse as a play space or an omni-directional treadmill, there is only one simple way to do this. and that is to track one or both feet. Why this isn't even considered is beyond me, especially since they came so close with the "arm swing" and "head bobbing" methods. Any other method should be reserved for people who have a physical disability or just don't feel like putting out the effort for real VR.

 

[junglist724]

And this is why simracing and flight sims are the only truly good gaming applications for vr right now. The locomotion problem is eliminated by peripherals.

 

[photonboy]

Husker,
It's already possible to track limb movement. Even the KINECT can do this for the XBOX.

Here's a list of products that are either available or in development for full body VR tracking: http://virtualrealitytimes.com/2017/02/21/list-of-full-body-vr-tracking-solutions/

And "mainstream" would not describe movement-based VR anyway. Only a very small percentage of people would have the capability to setup a sufficiently large area to walk around in. Most people will surely just SIT.

 

[kcarbotte]

I have very little experience with VR but I assume that the author spent a lot of time in VR while doing research for this article. How would you rank these styles of locomotion?

I believe that teleport mechanics work well, but the best solutions are Armswinger and Head-Bobbing.
Survios also combined several locomotion systems and called it the Fluid Locomotion System, which includes armswinger, grabbing the environment and the superman locomotion all together. That solution works really well. You can try it in Sprint Vector.