Through the walls: overcoming obstacles
Virtual reality introduces new requirements for game design , imposes its own limitations, one of them is the fact that the user cannot (yet) be stopped in front of the virtual wall.
You do not need to be a terminator in order to go through the virtual 50-cm steel safe door. This can be a problem when exactly a wall is a difficulty that a user must understand.
In the traditional "flat" 3D games, this problem is solved very simply: the digital character stops and is not allowed to pass through the steel door. And this does not cause any objections, since earlier we had no connection between the real and digital worlds, but in VR everything is not so.
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Trying to continue to use this principle in virtual reality, it quickly becomes clear that this is a bad idea: control over the position in virtual space is transferred to the user - and as soon as this happens, the visible picture (VR) ceases to correspond to tactile (real) movements of the head and body, and this leads to the “Motion Sickness” known to us, in other words, you are beginning to feel sick.
One of the possible solutions is a trick with a portal in the wall. With this approach, we still allow to pass through the walls, but it looks like a portal to an empty room . When looking back, you can see another passage into the room just left. Taking a step back to this portal, we are again transported beyond the wall.
In our example with a safe at teleportation, you are transported through a steel door, but not into a safe, but into some empty abstract room, and there will be a portal at the back with the ability to reappear in front of the safe. Depending on the scenario of the game or your desire, this method can be adjusted accordingly.
Thanks to this technique, players will not be able to cheat and spoil their gameplay, but we still set the position and orientation of the head in space. Nausea doesn't go anywhere.
Technical implementation in engines such as Unity, Unreal or Source is quite simple. You can program the portal once as a function, and then call it for the corresponding walls, doors and other objects.
This effect can be compared to the SteamVR tracking system (“Chaperone”): one of the walls in sight disappears shortly before moving to the next scene if the player comes too close to it.
However, in most cases, everything happens like this: visitors to virtual worlds do not want to ram their virtual walls with their heads. The observed makes you believe in the reality of the virtual world on a subconscious level so much that a person will have to force or overcome himself on a psychological level in order to pass through the solid material of the virtual world.
In the future, such techniques, the so-called "best practices", will be introduced into each engine. This will save VR developers from unnecessary problems and additional work.
Have you encountered other problems when developing your virtual worlds? Or he found a cool solution? Then write to me , I will be glad to your message.
You do not need to be a terminator in order to go through the virtual 50-cm steel safe door. This can be a problem when exactly a wall is a difficulty that a user must understand.
In the traditional "flat" 3D games, this problem is solved very simply: the digital character stops and is not allowed to pass through the steel door. And this does not cause any objections, since earlier we had no connection between the real and digital worlds, but in VR everything is not so.
')
Classic solutions are not for VR
Trying to continue to use this principle in virtual reality, it quickly becomes clear that this is a bad idea: control over the position in virtual space is transferred to the user - and as soon as this happens, the visible picture (VR) ceases to correspond to tactile (real) movements of the head and body, and this leads to the “Motion Sickness” known to us, in other words, you are beginning to feel sick.
One of the possible solutions is a trick with a portal in the wall. With this approach, we still allow to pass through the walls, but it looks like a portal to an empty room . When looking back, you can see another passage into the room just left. Taking a step back to this portal, we are again transported beyond the wall.
In our example with a safe at teleportation, you are transported through a steel door, but not into a safe, but into some empty abstract room, and there will be a portal at the back with the ability to reappear in front of the safe. Depending on the scenario of the game or your desire, this method can be adjusted accordingly.
Thanks to this technique, players will not be able to cheat and spoil their gameplay, but we still set the position and orientation of the head in space. Nausea doesn't go anywhere.
Technical solution using portals
Technical implementation in engines such as Unity, Unreal or Source is quite simple. You can program the portal once as a function, and then call it for the corresponding walls, doors and other objects.
This effect can be compared to the SteamVR tracking system (“Chaperone”): one of the walls in sight disappears shortly before moving to the next scene if the player comes too close to it.
However, in most cases, everything happens like this: visitors to virtual worlds do not want to ram their virtual walls with their heads. The observed makes you believe in the reality of the virtual world on a subconscious level so much that a person will have to force or overcome himself on a psychological level in order to pass through the solid material of the virtual world.
In the future, such techniques, the so-called "best practices", will be introduced into each engine. This will save VR developers from unnecessary problems and additional work.
Experience exchange
Have you encountered other problems when developing your virtual worlds? Or he found a cool solution? Then write to me , I will be glad to your message.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/320856/
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