Locomotion techniques in VR
How do different locomotion techniques affect the experience of walking in a virtual reality environment?
Fatemeh Bakhshoudeh, Yawen Deng, Andrea Maderthaner and Larissa Wagnerberger
Technologies have enabled walking in VR environments to be pleasant and immersive. VR controllers, natural walking, and Walking in Place (WIP) are some of the most popular walking techniques in VR. In order to discover how the walking experience is affected by these technologies, a comprehensive evaluation was conducted. The user experience was investigated in terms of game experience, immersive level, and motion sickness level respectively, which were measured through questionnaires. In the process, participants were required to finish the corresponding questionnaires after experiencing one estimated technology and were invited to interviews after all three tests. Quantitative data such as speed and distance were also measured automatically during the game. The evaluation indicated that Cybershoes, i.e the WIP technology used here, were the most challenging, but most tensive and tiresome technology; VR controller was the most dizzying one, and natural walking was the least tiring, but the least challenging one. The reason behind the motion sickness was also discussed in the view of multimodal interaction, followed by a possible future development, e.g a deeper investigation of motion sickness and the modification of the controller’s technical details.
