Locomotion

This page is a stub, please expand it if you have more information.

Locomotion are ways to move through the virtual worlds of VR.

Methods

Teleportation

No need to call it anything fancy. This method of locomotion is pretty simple and obvious. Look or point in the direction you want to go and click a button to warp. Screen fades to black if you are more concerned with keeping players from getting sick than you are with frustrating them with slow navigation!

Pros: Intuitive, understandable, simple.

Cons: Exhausting, confusing in move from point A-B puzzle games.

Omnidirectional elevator

Get this, its an elevator that can go in All directions! Not just up or down, this thing goes wherever you want, but don't rotate it around or players will get terribly sick.

Pros: Fun, simple, not exhausting

Cons: Picky people will claim it makes them feel sick. Players are locked to their elevator.

Cockpit

Hope your game calls for it, having a cockpit around the player can help prevent simulator sickness bu only if its a driving factor in terms of core mechanics. Having a frame, rollcage or cockpit helps most people feel as though they have a stable environment within which they are riding in and traveling around with.

Pros:

Cons: only applicable in certain situations such as Mech games.

Problems and Solutions

Room-scale

Locomotion in virtual reality presents many problems and many opportunities to innovate. Aside from traditional input devices like mouse, keyboard and gamepad, the most obvious method of locomotion is simply walking around within the range of the positional tracking devices. One problem presented by "walking" is the available space of the room. Physical obstacles such as walls and objects will prevent the user from advancing. One solution to this problem is a omni-directional treadmill such as Omni. Another option is to use teleportation or elevators to virtually transport the user to a new environment while keeping the physical space the same.

Input Devices

3DRudder, Cyberith Virtualizer, KAT WALK, Omnideck, VRGO, VirZoom, Virtuix Omni