Editor’s Note: In this weekly column, David Robustelli will breakdown the latest rapid prototype he and his team at CapitolaVR have created for VR and/or AR. They are responsible for games like Duckpocalypse as well as prototype projects such as HoloLens Golf, Gear VR Mirroring, and Pokemon GO for HoloLens. Check back each weekend for new prototypes! You can see the previous entry here.
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For this weeks rapid prototype we built a short game experience while looking into some existing locomotion techniques. In our office we don’t have that much space to run around, so we took on the challenge to create something that allowed us to run around through a neverending forrest. This game is build around a locomotion technique called ‘Ninja Run’, and it allows the user to have a continuous experience without the disruptive need to teleport from place to place.
You can check out the video through the link below:
The biggest threat to motion sickness is accelerative movement. While your eyes experience a change in motion, your body is standing still in your living room. Your body thinks its sick and wants to help get rid of possible toxins that might have caused this uncommon sensation. The trick behind this locomotion technique is to only accelerate while your body is in motion as well. Hold both triggers and lean forward with your hands held back, the further you lean the faster you will go. You are able to look around and still maintain your movement vector in the same direction. You simply need to move your body to steer.
Since we need something around us to actually experience speed, we added a procedurally generated bamboo forrest. The player is holding two katana’s with which he can slice around and chop down trees while running through the forrest.
By adding a trigger activated boost, the player is able to jump into the direction he is looking and even soar above the trees. Each boost resets any existing velocity into the new direction, eliminating sideway motions that would otherwise cause discomfort. The added wind stream creates a tunnel vision effect that further directs your vision into the direction of movement.
Another trigger slows down time, and temporarily unhooks the controllers from the locomotion system so the player is free to use the swords without adjusting its course of motion.
The game ended up to be a very comfortable and satisfying experience without the addition of any kind of actual gameplay. Again this is another experiment that shows that the rules of VR are meant to be broken and with the use of very simple techniques we are able to bend them further, allowing new creative experiences to become a reality.
This is a guest post not produced by the UploadVR staff. No compensation was exchanged for the creation of this content. This contribution was provided by David Robustelli, Head of Digital at CapitolaVR.
