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VRfriend2016X
Inspiring
July 11, 2016
Solved

Will I Achieve Presence when i make my own game?

  • July 11, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 711 views
I just have the climb, lucky's tale, and farlans. i don't feel presence. i do alittle but not much. But im thinking it's because those games are not meant to make you feel presence. I'm creating a First perspective VR game where basically you live your life. you live in a house, you visit places, you interact with objects. grab throw, perform as a musician, drive cars. ..There's actual sound in the environement and at times even music tracks. you interact with characters. you exert force on objects to throw them, pull them etc.

and you can see your own hands/arms(not own, but using FPS arms). Like when i play the climb seeing my hands in front of me feels like i'm part of the scene. so that helps alot.

Anyways, can i achieve presence the way i'm interacting with the world and the way i use physics and effects.?  and the way i can see my own body( Yeah i can even see my legs torso and arms and hands.    No matter what i'll still have tons of fun when i play it.  Even if i use the xbox controller to play
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Best answer by delphinius81
Sounds like you are working on a first-person version of the sims? Sounds cool!

Switching to a first person perspective will certainly help with increasing your sense of presence. While you can feel present with a third person perspective, research suggests that's only when the camera is situated behind the avatar. So camera perspectives such as in Lucky's Tale where you are looking in on a world would not be ideal. One of the reasons people use behind the character 3rd person views is so that you can easily see your character's movement and animation. So switching to 1st person and including a fully-tracked (or partially-tracked) body (e.g. hand/arm movement) would also goes a long way.

There is a lot of research out there regarding designing virtual experiences for presence (shameless self-plug, take a look at my dissertation that explores many of the non-sensory aspects of experience that contribute to presence). A lot of what AAA games already do will greatly contribute to non-sensory aspects of presence, e.g. compelling narrative, sense of agency to the virtual world, social aspects through multiplayer, interesting and challenging tasks to perform. These are all things that act to convince the person that they are "there" and important to the virtual environment.

You also need to be aware of things that can cause breaks in presence - these can range from bugs or interference from the the real world, to interactions that just don't look or feel right. For example, the scale of objects can be off or interactions with objects don't work as a typical user might expect. Achieving and maintaining presence is very much in the details.

1 reply

delphinius81Answer
Inspiring
July 11, 2016
Sounds like you are working on a first-person version of the sims? Sounds cool!

Switching to a first person perspective will certainly help with increasing your sense of presence. While you can feel present with a third person perspective, research suggests that's only when the camera is situated behind the avatar. So camera perspectives such as in Lucky's Tale where you are looking in on a world would not be ideal. One of the reasons people use behind the character 3rd person views is so that you can easily see your character's movement and animation. So switching to 1st person and including a fully-tracked (or partially-tracked) body (e.g. hand/arm movement) would also goes a long way.

There is a lot of research out there regarding designing virtual experiences for presence (shameless self-plug, take a look at my dissertation that explores many of the non-sensory aspects of experience that contribute to presence). A lot of what AAA games already do will greatly contribute to non-sensory aspects of presence, e.g. compelling narrative, sense of agency to the virtual world, social aspects through multiplayer, interesting and challenging tasks to perform. These are all things that act to convince the person that they are "there" and important to the virtual environment.

You also need to be aware of things that can cause breaks in presence - these can range from bugs or interference from the the real world, to interactions that just don't look or feel right. For example, the scale of objects can be off or interactions with objects don't work as a typical user might expect. Achieving and maintaining presence is very much in the details.
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