Combining Natural Techniques to Achieve Seamless Locomotion in Consumer VR Spaces

Abstract

We introduce a seamless locomotion concept designed for a commercial VR game. The locomotion concept was designed with the following goal: The whole game can be explored entirely without teleportation or joystick steering but only by natural locomotion. This should create a seamless fusion of exploration and discovery and, therefore, maximize presence and accessibility. Therefore, our game leverages a mix of different techniques: 1) Redirected Walking techniques such as rotation gains and impossible spaces, 2) Passive travel like lifts, moving platforms, vehicles, etc., 3) Indirect movement such as climbing, pulling a rope to move a raft, etc. Furthermore, these techniques are extended by or coupled with physical interactions or movements like crawling, jumping or sliding around corners, to distract player during the manipulation. The seamless integration of all these techniques enables the player to walk around freely in the recommended room-scale play space of 2x2 meters, while exploring a potentially infinite virtual space.