Effects on player perception of jumping extensions with varying trajectories in VR

Abstract: In conventional games, such as roleplaying and action games, players control characters using a remote control or control panel. This often greatly expands the physical capabilities of the characters, leading to improved game entertainment and a sense of exhilaration. However, in recent years, head-mounted displays (HMDs) have become increasingly popular in the entertainment field. Instead of remote controls, player movements are often synchronized with those of the characters in the game. This provides a superior sense of autonomy and immersion in the gameplay experience, compared with the experiences provided by existing games. Meanwhile, as the player’s physical abilities are strongly reflected in the characters, the range in which a character’s physical abilities can be expanded is limited. Such a drastic expansion of physical abilities as in existing games would cause a sense of discomfort. Therefore, we propose a method that can extend physical capabilities without causing discomfort. The proposed method will lead to the further expansion of the VR game experience. Methods such as redirected walking and jumping have been proposed to augment movement in a virtual space. These methods only extend physical capabilities such that they are unrecognizable, which is smaller than the range of extensions in conventional games. Therefore, this study focuses on the “jumping” action to establish an extension method that can significantly extend physical abilities without discomfort. The VIVE Tracker was attached to the waist and instep of both feet of each experimenter, and the corresponding position coordinates were obtained. The height of each leap was multiplied by the value to be extended. The effects of significant dilatation were investigated in a simple manner. The results suggest that the sense of motor subjectivity might decrease owing to a misalignment between the sensation of jumping and visual information. Next, we investigated the factors that caused the decrease in the sense of motor initiative and the timing of the perception of the sensory gap. We found that the factor that decreases the sense of motor subjectivity is the sense of speed and that subjects perceive the gap when they are ascending. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of changing the leap trajectory on the players.Five jumping trajectories were selected: a parabolic trajectory, warp trajectory, trajectory with the apex shifted forward, trajectory with the apex shifted backward, and gradual trajectory near the apex. The questionnaire asked about the sensation, impression, mood, subjectivity of the leap, and timing of discomfort. These results suggest that cognitive abilities differ between acceleration and deceleration. In addition, unrealistic jumps decrease the sense of subjectivity. In the future, we will conduct experiments to evaluate the differences in cognition owing to acceleration and deceleration and aim to propose an optimal extension method.

Keywords: VR, Redirected Jumping, Kinaesthesia

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006055

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