What players may not know is that teleportation is not a lazy solution to moving about in virtual reality, but a direct response to motion sickness. Floating hands are a design choice, not a shortcut. The games aren’t bad. It’s just that virtual reality often has to reinvent the wheel.
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VR games are still testing the best ways to make games fun and players comfortable. While using an odd button to crouch or attack may be cumbersome on consoles, the wrong decision in VR can make players physically ill, resulting in nausea, eyestrain, and other side-effects.
Motion sickness is probably the most frequent topic of discussion on my team when talking about features. It's usually the first question asked if something involves either the player moving, or a...
Motion sickness is probably the most frequent topic of discussion on my team when talking about features. It's usually the first question asked if something involves either the player moving, or a significant portion of the world itself moving.
This is compounded for us because we're designing educational experiences which need to cater to a very diverse demographic of people, a lot of whom have never tried VR before and so have acquired no tolerance at all.
I've never had motion sickness before - cars, boats, even light aircraft have all been totally fine - but setting HL: Alyx to smooth motion and smooth rotation is more than I can handle. I can...
I've never had motion sickness before - cars, boats, even light aircraft have all been totally fine - but setting HL: Alyx to smooth motion and smooth rotation is more than I can handle. I can just about stomach smooth motion with fixed turning, but even that has a time limit for me.
Interestingly, Echo VR was fine - disorientating in a kind of enjoyable way, but no discomfort even with the smooth 3D motion. Whether it's the higher refresh rate/FoV on the Index, or something about the style of gameplay is something I couldn't tell you.
It's strange how counterintuitive VR motion is. You would expect snap turning and teleporting to me more jarring, but they make quite a noticeable difference. It seems the brain is better at...
It's strange how counterintuitive VR motion is. You would expect snap turning and teleporting to me more jarring, but they make quite a noticeable difference. It seems the brain is better at recalibrating quickly than trying to understand motion it can't feel.
Some people can handle smooth turning, but I'm not on of them. I don't even try that option in games anymore.
For smooth locomotion, I find I can get used to it after a bit of a warmup. It was too much when I first started VR, but I can handle longer sessions in HL: Alyx now without problem.
In Skyrim VR, I actually prefer teleport motion while outside and smooth locomotion in interiors. Couldn't tell ya why.
Smooth locomotion definitely took some getting used to for me. I call it "getting your VR-legs". At first my body would try to lean in the direction that I was moving in game, which led to lots of...
Smooth locomotion definitely took some getting used to for me. I call it "getting your VR-legs". At first my body would try to lean in the direction that I was moving in game, which led to lots of almost-falling. After I put more hours into it, though, I don't have any issues with smooth locomotion. Smooth turning however, is disorienting as hell. I don't get motion sick or disoriented at all otherwise, but smooth turning in Alyx especially made me wanna fall over at first lol
Somewhat unrelated, but I really would like to see more full-body locomotion games like Boneworks. I really hope one of the major game engines (i.e. Unity or Unreal) creates and ships a complete...
Somewhat unrelated, but I really would like to see more full-body locomotion games like Boneworks. I really hope one of the major game engines (i.e. Unity or Unreal) creates and ships a complete Boneworks-style character controller for VR. Because it seems like every VR game has to implement it's own movement and character controller system, with wildly varying levels of quality. Since VR games are primarily created by smaller studios, having a good baseline could really help improve the general quality of games.
From the article:
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Motion sickness is probably the most frequent topic of discussion on my team when talking about features. It's usually the first question asked if something involves either the player moving, or a significant portion of the world itself moving.
This is compounded for us because we're designing educational experiences which need to cater to a very diverse demographic of people, a lot of whom have never tried VR before and so have acquired no tolerance at all.
I've never had motion sickness before - cars, boats, even light aircraft have all been totally fine - but setting HL: Alyx to smooth motion and smooth rotation is more than I can handle. I can just about stomach smooth motion with fixed turning, but even that has a time limit for me.
Interestingly, Echo VR was fine - disorientating in a kind of enjoyable way, but no discomfort even with the smooth 3D motion. Whether it's the higher refresh rate/FoV on the Index, or something about the style of gameplay is something I couldn't tell you.
It's strange how counterintuitive VR motion is. You would expect snap turning and teleporting to me more jarring, but they make quite a noticeable difference. It seems the brain is better at recalibrating quickly than trying to understand motion it can't feel.
Some people can handle smooth turning, but I'm not on of them. I don't even try that option in games anymore.
For smooth locomotion, I find I can get used to it after a bit of a warmup. It was too much when I first started VR, but I can handle longer sessions in HL: Alyx now without problem.
In Skyrim VR, I actually prefer teleport motion while outside and smooth locomotion in interiors. Couldn't tell ya why.
Smooth locomotion definitely took some getting used to for me. I call it "getting your VR-legs". At first my body would try to lean in the direction that I was moving in game, which led to lots of almost-falling. After I put more hours into it, though, I don't have any issues with smooth locomotion. Smooth turning however, is disorienting as hell. I don't get motion sick or disoriented at all otherwise, but smooth turning in Alyx especially made me wanna fall over at first lol
Somewhat unrelated, but I really would like to see more full-body locomotion games like Boneworks. I really hope one of the major game engines (i.e. Unity or Unreal) creates and ships a complete Boneworks-style character controller for VR. Because it seems like every VR game has to implement it's own movement and character controller system, with wildly varying levels of quality. Since VR games are primarily created by smaller studios, having a good baseline could really help improve the general quality of games.