WalkAbout
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| WalkAbout | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Type | Room-scale |
| Required Devices | Motion-tracked controllers |
| Description | After reaching playable space's edge, virtual world is blurred and grid appears. Virtual world shifts to encompass physical play area, forcing player to turn and face open play area. At this point the virtual world comes back into focus and grid disappears. |
| Pros | ??? |
| Cons | ??? |
| Creator | Tekton Games |
| Examples | The Dark Within |
WalkAbout is a Locomotion Method.
Additional Information
Tekton Games announces their development of WalkAbout — an exciting new locomotion system for room-scale virtual reality that allows users to explore arbitrarily large virtual environments comfortably on foot using only a relatively small play area. This new system will be featured in their soon-to-be-announced psychological thriller/horror title, The Dark Within, coming to the HTC Vive among other VR platforms.
The WalkAbout system allows users to look in the direction they wish to travel in the virtual environment, and then hold down a button to enter the WalkAbout system. Once engaged, the virtual environment is frozen in place relative to the user. The virtual world is blurred while at the same time a grid representing the physical play area in the user’s room appears. The blurring of the environment and appearance of the grid serve to shift the user’s focus from the now frozen virtual world to a representation of the actual physical space around them, preventing the discomfort which would otherwise be caused by the mis-match of visual cues and the vestibular sense of motion. The user simply turns around until they are facing toward an open, walkable stretch of the physical play area and then releases the button to drop back out of the WalkAbout system, at which point the grid may disappear and the environment resolves back into focus. The user then continues walking in the desired direction.