What is it about?
Our study explores how to make character transitions in virtual reality (VR) games more immersive and natural. Unlike traditional media, VR games tend to focus on a single character, missing out on the complexity of multiprotagonist storytelling. We reviewed existing multiprotagonist VR games and tested two transition techniques—Static Map and Rebodying—to understand their effect on the player experience. We found that Rebodying, where the transition is a smooth "growth" animation, felt more realistic and delivered a better spatial understanding.
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Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash
Why is it important?
VR storytelling has the potential to be as rich as novels or films, yet VR games often lack multi-character perspectives. By investigating natural character transitions, our work opens the door to more complex narratives in VR. Our findings highlight ways to enhance player experience and perceived realism, paving the way for VR games that can tell more layered stories.
Perspectives
The most exciting part of this research was designing and implementing a custom VR game for the Quest 2, featuring a complex, multiprotagonist story arc. Working within the computational limitations of a mobile platform brought unique challenges, but I’m thrilled that we managed to make our game available on the Meta Quest store. Making artifacts like this freely accessible is a powerful way to share research insights with the public.
Dr. Sebastian Cmentowski
University of Waterloo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Matter of Perspective: Designing Immersive Character Transitions for Virtual Reality Games, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, September 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3611023.
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