Walking In VR An Observation

I hate to be a naysayer, but for me personally, walking on the spot just doesn't cut it. At best, it feels like I'm doing a predefined leg-gesture to move around in VR, rather than actually walking around.
That being said, if it's immersive for you, it's sure to be immersive for other people, so you should totally go for it.

I definitely like the idea of using a flipper-shape to make the 'step' gesture easier to recognise in software. How is it for backwards walking-on-the-spot though? Is there any risk that you'd accidentally step on the flappy bit of the flipper, causing you to lose balance and fall over?
Another handy benefit is you could put stuff like batteries or bluetooth shields onto the flappy part and have it enclosed...

"mptp" wrote:
I hate to be a naysayer, but for me personally, walking on the spot just doesn't cut it. At best, it feels like I'm doing a predefined leg-gesture to move around in VR, rather than actually walking around.
That being said, if it's immersive for you, it's sure to be immersive for other people, so you should totally go for it.

have you tried treadmills - I have not, but I expect the same to be true for them as long as we have not 1:1 translation of leg movement into games.

I very much prefer the idea of not paying hundreds of euros and not having a bulky device standing in my room as long as the difference is likely to be minimal. Not to mention that with something like PrioVR you are able to get full tracking without being limited by a cage.
I want to be able to sit in the grass and watch the butterflies.

Well, for leg-movements, since we tend to automate their motion throughout the day (wheras we tend to very consciously move our arms, hands and head around), I don't think 1:1 positional tracking is essential.
I think for a VR walker, what is important is the feeling of friction on the sole of your foot. I've not tried an omni-directional treadmill, but the reason I feel it would be great is because you can feel that sense of friction as you step forward. Walking in place doesn't give you this sensation, so whenever I have walked in place on my balance board and used the weight-shifts as a forward-command (just playing around a while ago), it has felt like an empty gesture.

That being said, I don't think omnidirectional treadmills are the answer - being strapped in is unacceptable, and having a huge object in my room just for walking around in VR is unacceptable.

...I really need to write a blog post about locomotion in VR or something, this is like the 3rd time today I've went to say 'I've talked about friction in VR walkers before...' :(

"mptp" wrote:
Well, for leg-movements, since we tend to automate their motion throughout the day (wheras we tend to very consciously move our arms, hands and head around), I don't think 1:1 positional tracking is essential.
I think for a VR walker, what is important is the feeling of friction on the sole of your foot.

I think while we might not pay as much attention to it, we are used to know how our body moves when we assert force to our foot and the feeling of friction then needs to match the movement in VR. I doubt that this will feel very natural - or at least I doubt it feels anywhere near good enough to warrant the pricetag and the compromises you have to live with.
But since we agree on that anyway I am curious how developers will react to treadmills - somehow I have a feeling that natural walking speed won't be a thing even for most made for VR games.
VR works just fine with accelerated movements (as long as you do not overdo it) and that would mean treadmills will always feel off or we will have to develop a lot of patience :)

Walk in Place is obviously the best solution in terms of cost/effectiveness. However, I don't know if there is already a tracking system that translate speed of on-spot steps into virtual movements.

Walking/stepping in place will ruin the immersion. Having a realistic walking/running motion will be the best way to maintain a true immersive experience.

I want to put my foot forward as i would in real life and have a similar response.. this would actually give the illusion of moving forward in the virtual world.

well http://www.virtuix.com is coming soon, so let's check....

When walking is concerned - from many experiences the combined effect of having an ability to naturally move your legs, torso, upper body and head gives you the greatest level of immersion since your senses are not "contaminated" by unnatural moving patterns or barriers.

Room scale VR has been around for quite some time e.g. VR caves or head-tracked setups on single projection screens) and have proven their point. However the immersion gets a bit damaged when you hit the physical walls / have to avoid the projection screen, thus distance teleportation/flying was rapidly introduced in these setups.

It is likely that there will be a combination of physical movement (micro level) and virtual teleportation (macro level) in games (to still make if fun to play) to give you an amusing experiences in VR. The pricetag for the actual setup you use will be hugely different if talking about a consumer setup or arcade center setup. There is no "one-solution" out there right now.

Getting one-to-one sub-millimeter correlation between physical and virtual movement is simple if you allow the user to move in a normal sized living room.

Cheers