Newbie question/idea regarding in-game movement

[george_lynanski]

I've recently gotten interested in VR and have noticed that one, large
hurdle seems to be the problem of how to walk/run in games. I've looked
into rigs like Virtuix Omni and KAT Walk, but they seem like they are
(and will remain) constricting and limited.



I was thinking about a way in which a person's feet could be fitted with
sensors which would always register the direction in which their feet
were pointed. This would allow the direction/motion of their feet to be
segregated from the rest of the sensors which are built into the
goggles and controllers. These feet sensors would be aligned to an
arbitrary 'true North' (so to speak) inside the game so that they would
always register which direction the player's feet were as they related
to the feet of their avatar. These sensors would also provide a
real-time update of the player's feet as they related to the safety
boundary they have drawn for their room-scale play area.



So here's the computationally difficult part: would it be possible to incrementally rotate the entire
game environment (as the player walked forward or backward) so as to
coax the player to walk in a circle within their play area, while
seeming (within the game environment) to be walking in a straight
forward direction? It would be similar to a concept used in film-making
(for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0g3g6AvLtM).
Obviously, the incremental rotation of the entire game environment
would need to be so seamless that it would be imperceptible to the
player. However, since this effect would be linked specifically to the
feet sensors, it would not occur simply by them turning their heads or
moving their controllers.



The end result would be that they could physically walk (perhaps even
run) within their physical, room-scale play area, but would in fact be
moving in a circle. With each step forward, the computer/feet
sensors/game engine would track how close they were getting to their
virtual boundaries and rotate the direction of entire game environment,
causing the player to continually walk in a left (or right) direction
circle.



Since I'm not a programmer (nor do I understand how the brain's sense of
spacial equilibrium works within VR), I have no idea if such a thing is
possible to code. It just seems like it would be a clever software
solution (and minor hardware add-on with regard to the feet sensors)
that would allow players to have 'real' motion ability within their play
area without needing to invest in large, impractical walking
treadmills, etc.