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peterept
Up and Coming
February 24, 2015

Player Rotation by accelerated head movement

Hi,

I've just been toying with the idea to use your head to rotate your body instead of the joystick. Using the joystick for me causes motion sickness because your head/body isn't moving but the virtual world is moving. Rather, if you turn your head and the body rotates in an accelerated fashion, my brain doesn't seem to get so upset.

I've built a little demo. You need an XBox controller, and you turn on Look-Accelerated-Turn mode by pressing any of: Right Trigger or Right Joystick (any direction). The more you press the more acceleration.



Download links for Windows and Mac on my blog: http://talesfromtherift.com/vr-look-turn

Has anyone explored this type of input?

    2 replies

    PatimPatam
    Up and Coming
    February 24, 2015
    Sorry i haven't tried your demo yet, but yes this has been explored before:
    https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=18422
    (and i know at least 1 or 2 developers that have tested similar concepts as well)


    Personally i find this option better than using thumbsticks, but some people still find that it can be nausea-inducing; I think it's mainly because the turning acceleration of your head keeps changing (depending if you are turning your avatar or not) and this can be a bit confusing for the brain.

    Also we naturally tend to look at the direction that we want to turn before actually turning, but this method forces you to look at the direction you want to go, then look straight, then press the turn button and then turn your head again towards the direction in order to rotate your body, which can be a bit awkward.


    Interestingly i have found that if you apply the same principle but turning with your torso instead of your head things work much much better. This way your head rotations in real life always have the same acceleration in VR (unlike in the previous method), but at the same time torso rotations create an acceleration that is detected by your head which roughly matches the acceleration in VR, and this reduces sim-sickness.

    Also in this case you can behave much more naturally and look at any direction before you start turning, and then rotate with your torso while you keep looking at the desired spot. Obviously the problem with this system is that you need to track your torso/hips orientation somehow, something that is not possible with only a DK2 (i use a Hydra for now).
    petereptAuthor
    Up and Coming
    February 25, 2015
    Hi PatimPatam,

    That is some really thorough experiements you've done.

    After trying your demo for a bit, there are some significant differences between your 2 head-rotate-body methods and the one I created.

    In yours the body rotates after the head reaches a certain threshold (from when the button was pressed). 30 degrees? And then continues to rotate without your head turning. Which means like with the stick controls, your body is turning but your head is stationary - which still can induce a level of motion sickness.

    In my approach (not as sophisticated as yours), when you turn on look-turn mode, your head rotation will cause your body to turn (just at a faster rate then normal). if your head stops moving, your body stops instantly. Thus giving you a precise rotation (improving on the sticks). Motion sickeness is reduced because you only rotate while your head is moving.

    Would love your feedback!

    Peter
    Check out my Unity VR development blog: http://talesfromtherift.com @peterept
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