I've had a vive for almost a week now, it's my first vr headset, but i don't have wands, so like a maniac i just used my keyboard and mouse to move around while standing up, no motion sickness, looks like I'm the chosen one
I was pretty new for VR trying to get into Vivecraft, and because I didn't feel like setting up the SteamVR controls, I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna play with keyboard and mouse. I set the sideways rotation to mouse. Well... it works but it was pretty intense for being just mineraft. A little more recently I got Overload, a zero-g space shooter with free turning and rolling in all axis. It has either controller stick turning or mouse with (forced) smoothing and it's fine. A little intense but completely playable and fun. Nowadays I just use max movement and rotations, I like using fast smooth turn for nice flick turns, it's the best way to do VR for me now. Joystick locomotion for sure is not even close to real walking, but currently it's the best compromise VR can do. It's not simulation, it's a replacement. It's about your ability to adapt to the replacement. In a good setting like Boneworks you can forget about the unrealism and get immersed in the experience. I feel Boneworks' body physics help.
@@SadlyItsBradley I mean, yeah... But we can't all have a giant hall to run around in as a playspace. At least smooth loco has a basis in physical movement. Unfortunately it does have its downsides. The only way to get past them is training, unfortunately. We really could do with more training aids for people new to VR
@@TheBaldrickk Absolutely, we can't. I mostly wanted to make this video to educate people about progression. And see what people's ideas about the future will bring ^_^
Might seem like a another ordinary episode But I believe this is a time capsule , we'll look back on this and marvel at how advanced we have become. Thanks Again !
I have vr for about 3 years, and artificial locomotion is a deal breaker for me. I get sick, there is not pushing through and enjoying, because you feel the need to immediately remove the headset and lay down. I only play vr games with teleport and room scale options. That I can handle for hours at a time, and is what I feel comfortable to hand over to my friends for them to experience VR.
exactly . I can only enjoy the games which needs no full body translation . like i enjoy Beatsaber can't play any car racing games for more than 5 min. I think I found the way to solve the Locomotion problem unlike anything before. will update soon
Im curious; do you get horrible sea sickness on small or even big boats and never got sea legs? I think its obviously related and probably genetic when it REALLY bad for some people. Almost ALL people will get sea sickness, but even the same amount of people can build "sea legs" and or couple that with Dramamine and tricks like "keep your eyes on the horizon" lol. But a small number of people can NEVER build sea legs, and even drugs don't help.
@@WigganNuG funny enough.. never been sea sick. I've been in ferries a few times. Both to just cross a river (no cars inside) and also cruise size to cross between countries.
I'm around in VR since late 2016 when Oculus still had no dedicated controllers and the Vive was the best (and most expensive) thing to buy. Outside of Pavlov's and Onward's default settings for movement which listen to hand movement rather than head movement, I have never gotten motion sick myself... with exception for Minecraft on the Lenovo Explorer perhaps, this one still feels odd and I can't tell why. My buddie's usually get used to VR fast as well and experience no issues. What may help drastically however is a wider adoption of making the entire human FoV display (so far that's only a PiMax thing, really) as well as developers adding a little nose to their first person games, so less people get actually motion sick. One part is done already, Facebook introducing 120Hz on the Quest2 for everyone to enjoy. Why I mention the virtual nose is simply because I have read a year or so ago that a gamedev did that to one of his PSVR games. It's something not really visible to us when playing games but as the brain uses the nose to balance out things in conjunction with noise, this might really be it.
I have no problem with artificial locomotion, but omg smooth turning fucks me up. Maybe I haven’t given it a chance to get used to it, but snap turning is enough for me (because I rarely use it anyway I just turn with my body). Also you’re spot on about VR newbies, I was also surprised to learn CV1 didn’t have touch controllers, and I also thought teleportation was a ‘lesser’ way to move in game, only added as an accessibility/comfort option or something. Had no idea that was the ONLY option at one point. Wow.
Ya, smooth turning was something that took me a VERY long time to get used to. And I only got used to it because people complained about footage with snap turning in it.
I got into VR about 2 and a half years ago and even at the start I did not experience much motion sickness and feel very lucky that I've only had it a small number of times. One of the problems I find myself ruining into with teleportation is reaching forward to interact with something and realizing I'm near the edge of my play space. I still have the same thing happen with smooth locomotion, but it can be fixed much easier by walking backwards while moving forward in game. I could also adjust my game view 180 degrees in both situations, but I generally don't use any kind of artificial turning in VR. I like that the DecaMove has started these sorts of conversations. I tried using the app on my phone for hip tracking shortly after it came out, but my brain is already used to moving in the direction of my head so I'll have to take the time to relearn moving with my hip.
I also didn't have much motion sickness when I first got into VR (except for getting used to smooth turning). We are very lucky. Some people would kill for our luck in this regard. And ya, another person who mentioned they used primarily head based loco said it's been hard for them to transition too! I kinda wanna get a survey going on people's experiences.
@@SadlyItsBradley Hell yeah, I should try using it again. I didn't know the recenter gesture when I initially tried so I was always strafing slightly. I think at the end of the day, since I don't have issues with motion sickness with head based locomotion, I'll probably just stick to that because it is less to setup. I am always happy for more accessibility features to be added to VR especially when it will be free for most users.
Thanks Decitronic! The views to subscriber ratio is definitely due to the fact I took a 2-year hiatus. But now I am working as hard as I can to regain an audience ^_^
As a developer, I’ve been thinking about and observing this a lot. You helped me realize how good joy stick / slide locomotion is, and how long it’ll probably be here for. Just make your game 120 hz compatible, put some vignette on, and players should be comfortable.
Arm swinger locomotion is best locomotion. It's just enough physical movement to convince the lizard brain that movement is happening, but not so much movement that you'd run into walls and stuff.
@@SadlyItsBradley yep, it's not the part of the brain that doesn't use logic and reasoning, but uses the basic senses and emotions. perfectly adequate for out innawoods hunting for the next meal, but very much not suited for our future technology.
I've only ever used artificial locomotion where it's available and have never had issues with motion sickness, but that's a product of how well my brains been trained over the years to distinguish between my physical state and my perceived surroundings. It's easy for me to draw a line between sight and sound vs touch and feeling, allowing my to stay easily grounded IRL. This comes at the detriment that I hardly ever feel truly immersed in any VR content. In any case I agree that it's not an easy dilemma to solve, perhaps in between now and BCI's, a motorized treadmill solution that might help with the mentioned "slipperiness" could be a good stepping stone.
There is research in eye saccade tracking/induction as a way to trick players into walking in circles or avoiding local objects while not interrupting their perception of a vr world. You should look into it; as eye tracking gets more popular you're going to start seeing some very cool new locomotion options coming up.
Why no mention of Natural Locomotion? It's probably the best solution for somewhat realistic motion that doesn't make you sick & can be used by new & experienced alike.
Really interesting point of view and content, just found your channel. You were so on point with the weirdness that you get sometimes with the head orientation while moving forward, specially if you're strafing and move your head to change the orientation... it sometimes feels like you're floating towards that direction or sliding... idk how to describe it .. feels ghost-like .. never seen the actual need for the Deca Move, until you explained it makes more sense for the brain thinking that you move forward depending on your hip direction ... literally mind=blown moment .. don't even know why I didn't think about that before lol, saw it more like an inconvenient hip movement rather than anything else... prob getting one to test it out. btw liked and sub
Thank you for the great feedback! I really appreciate it. It's really hard to put a lot of things about feeling and even emotions about concepts in VR. Yet, I really try to do so. I appreciate the sub. And hope I don't disappoint you in my future content 🙏
Until we get full dive, I see full body suspension and force feedback exo skeletons as the ultimate solution. With proper hardware and software it could make you feel like you are actually walking around, and on any surface
We just go to the local park and play multiplayer in 500ft wide playspaces. The freedom to not only walk but make very complex but natural moves with your body like dash to the right, start running and then literally jump up and slash down with a sword against friends feels amazing. Over the last couple of years, I expected to find more people doing the same but I guess most gamers prefer the low friction of chilling at home or arent friends with anyone close by with a headset? I'm not sure. You have to keep in mind a walking treadmill (or treadmill shoes) are possible right now but the ability to freely run and jump at anything isn't going to be mechanically possible with a treadmill for many years. Most of us have parks or other open spaces within 10 minutes of our houses. Curious to hear why, despite VR being wireless for a couple of years now, most people prefer not to go out and just do World-scale VR for real. Thoughts?
Great discussion here. I think a lot of VR newcomers would benefit from watching this video. It provides a concise overview of VR locomotion techniques and their impact on how VR content is experienced. I agree that we are still quite far off from the next big innovation in this domain. In the near term, I'm mostly looking forward to improvements in immersion for seated VR experiences at the consumer level. Perhaps an overview of motion-sim chairs is warranted.
Thanks! I've been actually wanting to do a video on motion chairs at some point. But haven't found the exact resources yet to get something like that together.
One of the issues with vr locomotion that I think is pushing away from accessability, is actually the efficiency of each movement type in the medium. In HL:A when your getting shot at out in the open, once you.. get past the original panic, it's better to actually engage the telport to get to cover because it's just.. faster The big one that hits me, although I own a kat walk c, any big pavlov firefight will make me gravitate to the sticks to strafe because humans can't move that way that smoothly. it's almost to the point where if you want a new locomotion menthod to thrive, it has to be the only thing available AND better
Just wanted cardio and a full body feeling. So, i use climbing harness on a swivel mount. And run Natural Locomotion, thought ive tried it with other walk in place solutions and it works fine. The harness lets you lean into your walk like in real life which really helps. Other than that, its kinda like a leg driven vehicle that you quickly get used to, which is fine for immersion and getting some cardo. Its not a simulation of walking and running, but its still fun, immersive, and gets you around the virtual environment. You bring up a point about omni slide mills. There are "stomp" instead of "slide" treadmills. Silvercord does both. From experience i can tell you stomp is effortless to learn. The only drawback is your neglecting your shins and hamstrings compared to walking in real life or a unidirectional treadmill. Slidemills, or at least pushing a wall on a slippery surface seems to not have that problem, and the extra effort is probably good for your legs. Or at least your balance.
Holy frick. I'm gonna need to look into everything you said. This is what I love about VR and VR enthusiasts. You always find something new to "wow" about. Thank you!
I personally think that Infinite Walking will be the future of locomotion. It's where you walk around in your play space, then turn around at a wall. You turn the camera to face the same direction in-game, and walk in the opposite direction irl to walk further in-game. I think that better, smoother AI solutions for turning automatically, and general things you can do irl will improve to a point that it feels natural to move like this. This may be for entrance level immersive locomotion, but I think that for consumers with no issue of money may have a VR dedicated room. With a large omni-treadmill that keeps you centered without straps to keep the natural walking gait intact.
I get that smooth locomotion does not work for everyone but. Honestly playing Half-Life: Alyx some points were I had to teleport especially going through the door near the end kinda really took me out of the experience. Especially when combined with the loading screen.
@@SadlyItsBradley Teleport was like a cheat in Half-Life Alyx. I think it would have been so much harder without that ability. I wish they would add a sprint.
From what you've researched so far, do you see a race for bci integration with the major manufacturers actively funding this? OR Is it quite slow moving and the VR OEMs are waiting to see who to buy out?
Honestly, it's kinda both right now. Valve and Facebook are both funding BCI tech companies actively right now, but at the same time: companies with new concepts or ideas about BCIs are being bought out too. It's pretty fast moving actually, but an expensive endeavor no matter who you are.
@@SadlyItsBradley Motor neurons are the loudest and easiest to read the signal of with cheap non invasive BCI. I think we would see it pop up pretty soon from developers using the new BCI for valve index
I'm looking at this months later and the demand of better locomotion in vr stronger now that before, but also I can't share this with normal people without them telling me "this guy looks like he owns a body pillow"
Hi, I'm new. My first VR rig won't even be online for a couple more days. I'm excited. I won't have them right away, but the cyberShoes look pretty interesting to me. Thanks for the videos! o/
Great video, and a good reminder of how far we have come (even though it's still early days for VR)! While I do agree things could always be better and improved upon, it's easy to forget that it's not just VR games that require "getting used to." The entire FPS genre on PC requires the player to be able to use WASD + mouselook. This is obvious for us, as we play games a lot, but if you get someone who never plays any kind of game to use WASD + mouselook, you'll find they are a mess, looking at the floor and/or ceiling constantly, and often also getting nauseous. Admittedly the barrier to entry is still quite high, and getting used to VR needs a bit more work than getting used to WASD + mouselook. Hopefully as the tech matures that barrier can become much lower. Like you, I'm also excited to see how / if BCI can solve the issue completely, or at least significantly reduce it. P.S: Thank you Bradley! Your very first videos of videos of VR convinced me VR was the future. Now I'm a VR dev (COMPOUND). You definitely deserve more attention and subscribers.
Wow! This comment was one I had to go sit down at a computer to focus/reply to. Haha. This is absolutely true what you say about locomotion in the FPS genre, and I kinda wish I thought about this when I was recording this video! I have always talked about how some things such as hand tracked controllers were always more accessible than flat games to people who are not normally gamers. The natural connection to grabbing something with your hand compared to "CLICK A/HOLD A to throw" is incredibly more intuitive. And especially seniors trying VR, tend to catch up to the naturalness of it fast! This is a huge benefit to VR already as hand tracking becomes more and more standard! Which goes on to prove our points even more! What if locomotion in VR was just as natural as it is to grab and throw things. The accessibility in gaming is one thing, but computers are also pretty inaccessible for a lot of people still. People have been telling me recently that they feel VR gaming isn't what is going to make VR mainstream, but until we solve simple problems like the issues with VR locomotion, I don't see VR as leaving the gaming space in terms of attention. I hope BCIs solve this. Especially without being too invasive. FINALLY: to end this all, I have to comment on your last sentence. Reading this made my day. And I am absolutely honored/ecstatic to find out a successful VR game was made thanks to some crappy videos I put together years ago. Hahaha. Congrats on the success on Compound! I'm almost embarrassed I haven't played it yet. It looks REALLY good!
@@SadlyItsBradley The "intuitive" nature of VR is a good point; I never thought of that. I suppose as "gamers," having to get used to it isn't a deal breaker, but having locomotion be instantly natural and nausea free for anyone immediately would really open up VR to more applications than just games, and also allow non gaming people to get into gaming. It's clear you've really been thinking about this a lot. Thank you very much for the food for thought! p.s. I sent you an email; please let me know if it got through to you :)
I use teleportation on every game that supports it. I can not play very long with normal locomotion. I tried to build a tolerance for it, but it´s not working for me. I tried using a fan blowing air on me during playing which helped a bit, but didn´t fix the problem of getting sick. Eating some ginger helped as well, but not for long. Swinging my arms or moving my legs during normal locomotion didn´t work either for me. So I pass every great game which does not offer teleportation, and play the games who are motion-sick safe. Hopefully someday, there will be a solution for this problem, because VR is great and fun.
I've been using VR since the DK1 and I still use snap turning. Moving forward and back or side to side is not an issue whatsoever. But I don't think I'll ever be able to tolerate smooth turning.
If games would let me use my hand for the reference direction and set the joystick to act as basically a 4 or 8-way dpad with a big deadzone, I'd be happy. The most comfortable artificial locomotion I've used was a Doom 3 VR mod that let me use a joystick to move forward or backward in the direction my controller was facing. If the joystick input is used raw, the disconnect between not quite moving straight in the direction I want to is just too much, and it's significantly worse if my head is the reference point because I want to be able to move easily *while looking around,* and the doom 3 mod let me do just that. Very little motion sickness compared to any other artificial locomotion game I owned at the time. When I eventually get back into VR (since I moved across the world without it), then I will pick up a decamove or similar for sure so I have that decoupled look/move everywhere.
Yes I did enjoy this video :) you didn't actually say much that I did not already know but still informative and gave some food for thought. Also, about joysticks, that's one thing that really annoys me about the vive pro 2. They haven't changed them at all, I've heard they didn't bother designing new handcontrollers because they felt they couldn't make something that would beat the knuckles, but for crying out loud... they could at least have exchanged the trackpad for a joystick, I hate those trackpads, and it seems almost universal that the click in them breaks, especially up and right click.
Wasn't there some device at CES that is supposed to move your body a little to combat the motion sickness? Something like that could be cool if it was small enough, but I seem to remember it looked like a piece of gym equipment.
Grow your VR legs!!! It’s worth it. I’ve brought 4 friends into VR (and now PCVR) and I’ve helped them grow VR legs. Tips: drink lots of cold water while playing and turn on any fans to have moving air in the room where you’re playing.
This video is hysterical. :D Standing up and going through the actual motions will always be the closest thing to it feeling authentic. But there are just times when you want to vege out to some entertainment, so there will always be a market for pancake style games where you are in the environment, using traditional pancake controls. I play Skyrim vr both ways, standing up and really swinging my weapons around with full motions, and kicking back on the couch with adjusted height setting, my wrists resting at my sides, swinging my weapons around with simple wrist movements.
LMAO, I hope people don't understand this video is a hitpiece on artificial locomotion. It's more of a retrospective look on VR locomotion in general. Because I dream of the days its as accessible as learning how to grab and throw things in VR is.
I get what you were saying, it wasn't some kind of judgement, more of an overview of various locomotion schemes. The more the better. I just kind of feel bad when some people will completely skip a great VR experience, simply because it doesn't use their preferred method. Like all those people who won't play GTA V or Alien Isolation or Subnautica because they make you use a regular game pad.
I argued with Chet Falisek about this years ago when he was effectively blocking devs from including it in their games. Stubborn doesn't even begin to describe him, glad he doesn't work with Valve any longer.
Heh, while I do value his work when he was at Valve. I definitely had his name plastered in my mind when I was talking about dev pushback toward artificial locomotion in this video.
@@SadlyItsBradley I love what he did with Portal etc but he was literally arguing with devs on twitter that it was impossible to have any non teleportation movement in VR without sickness. Just absurd, if Onward hadn't done it we'd probably be year's behind.
Great video! VR locomotion in definitely under discussed and its cool the see the history moving so quickly, seems to mirror the early days of console when we added analog sticks to the playstation controllers. Regarding joystick movement I find it interesting that using a joystick in VR can be more complex than using it in flatscreen due to body positioning. I almost always use smooth locomotion and smooth turning with head relative motion, and its taken me a while to learn that when I turn my head to look in one direction while moving I have to steer the joystick in the opposite direction to keep walking in a straight line. Funnily enough I've been testing out the decagear mobile app and out of habit keep making that adjustment which results in me walking in big S curves like a drunk person
I am really glad you found it fascinating! I had a great time talking about it. I wondered if people would have trouble getting used to hip based loco after primarily using head based. I personally always used hand when the option was available so the learning curve wasn't as rough for me. What I noticed more about decamove usage is that it actually made me wanna turn my body IRL more often. Which helped add to the immersion. It seems I got very lazy over the years, haha.
I am still kinda new to vr and play with locomotion I mainly play games with higher frame rate/non indie games as they make me motion sick very fast. I also play vr chat as you can walk and then stand still for a long time again. I did notice that I slowly get less and less sick tho.
I feel that some thought should be given to natural locomotion thing. Having a tracker on your feet and where you move forward by actually moving your feet seems to help people to trick your brain. I also recall studies that added small vibration motors to the ears and thus "trick" the users when they moved forward to echo footsteps and how that greatly helped reduce motion sickness too. The issue with threadmills is that containing a moving human in one spot in any direction is non-trivial task that requires powerful materials that can withstand the forces involved. The problem with the joystick is that people are used to it, from gamepads they already play with. Teleportation restricts the game design just too much and less immersive. Roomscale was a stupid idea as a solution to locomtion.
I love artifical locomotion. It's intuitive, precise and responsive. Same as the smooth turning. I just don't like thumbsticks. It just doesn't come close to the speed and precision of a mouse. Mouse and keyboard was just a great invention. For VR I don't see a breakthrough invention like that yet. Virtual interactable UIs with gloves might be the way to for example implement large amounts of skillbindings for example. Gesture control takes a lot of speed out of games when you have complex gestures. I'm not sure if it's not better to just play those things on desktop with a large curved high-end 3d monitor or something. So far the current standards in VR inputs don't work for all scenarios.
I enjoy VR for movies and videos, but not even that. I hate that just the basic idea of drinking and eating while watching a movie becomes a daunting task whereas when I just throw up something on a TV/Computer I can just do whatever I want while listening/watching.
The future will have to be omnidirectional treadmill systems built into your sub-floor. Eventually people will have entire rooms dedicated to VR; padded walls for safety. The solution will come sooner than will think and Bradley is right; it will come from research being done in HCI / BCI. Meta is doing some great research on this and that combined with omnidirectional treadmills will solve the problem.
I play Halflife Alyx with smooth motion movement and it doesnt make me sick, but turning smoothly makes me motion sick, I use smooth turning at 90 degrees and its the perfect balance for me.
locomotion smooth turn all the way. ordered a decamove and am still waiting for it, tried it with my phone, i get the idea, its great, but the phone just doesnt cut it. hehe
I prefer snap turning and articial locomotion. I just use snap turning to turn faster but I mostly turn in real life by habbit. Smooth turning makes me uncomfortable and I've been using vr since carboard first came out.
ive got motion sick after my first 30 minutes, ive had a short break and after 1 hour i was motion sick again after that i repeat the cycle and after 2 days i dont get motionsick anymore. i think the brain can learn to not get motion sick proved for my self
i'm used to teleporting in H-L alyx now but i feel it gives me an unfair advantage in combat, dodging enemies is just too easy. i keep trying the joystick thing but instant motion sick.
Personally a big fan of room scale and joystick locomotion. Unfortunately don't have the room for proper room scale with a ~0.7mx0.7m play space but whatever. Never had VR sickness or even plain old motion sickness so that's not a problem for me. Not a fan of smooth turning though since I want to turn quickly and I can't physically turn without the risk of hitting something like a wall or my desk.
I freaking love Room Scale. It alone sold me on the Vive years back instead of the Rift. And I defended it ACTIVELY back then. But unfortunately its kinda impossible to really design games around it. Which would have been the big benefit of the technology.
Headphones exist that virbrate your inner ear in such a way that tricks your brain into feeling motion. I believe it was samsung who demonstrated those by showing a man a video of a rollercoaster and the headphones made him feel like he was on the rollercoaster. Such headphones would be able to solve the ear/eye motion disagreement that causes motion sickness. There is an article about it on roadtovr from 2016.
When I play VRChat, I use the artificial locomotion (I hate teleport locomotion) and smooth turning. I think smooth turning still makes me sick, even after 120+ (I know, I'm a pleb) hours in VRChat.
You are right on point, Bradley. And, in my opinion, every one of these vr companies is focused on trying to sell us eye and face tracking and all these wonderful accesories and are forgetting that motion and field of view and how the brain percieves them IS CRITICAL TO THE EXPERIENCE.. using joy sticks in vr is a double edge sword. On one hand they are great because they allow Halo style movement, especially important for running, turning, jumping, etc,... How ever, that also means that vr controllers act as regular gamepads split in half and hamper true fluid vr motion. Room scale is basically nigated in 90% of games and experiences because you don't really use true vr motion with current vr controllers. Now, having said that, i love how Oculus and Valve have implemented their control schemes and the lack of true vr motion doesn't really bother me personally BUT i do see why others would be... That's my 2¢... REAL VR MOTION WILL HAPPEN WHEN WE GET FULL BODY SCANS SO THE HEADSET KNOWS HOW YOU ARE ORIENTED AND THE CONTROLLERS WILL BE SLIM FITTED GLOVES WITH HAPTIC FEEDBACK FOR TOUCHING GRABBING THROWING AND FEELING AROUND. EVERYTHING WILL BE INSIDE OUT TRACKING WITH HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERAS AND FULL COLOR PASS THROUGH, NOT TO MENTION TRUE 180° FOV WITHOUT CHEATING BINOCULAR OVERLAP....that was my other 2¢ LOL
Infinadeck would be the best option but not viable for consumers yet. We probably will have good BCI solving locomotion before contraptions like Infinadeck become a thing in the consumer space.
I think treadmills in VR are the future, not the slippery treadmills but instead, fast acting VR treadmills like from ready player one. There are already prototypes in the works. Another thing is exosuits. They suspend you in the air and simulate pretty much all physical forces in VR. You can feel the force of gravity pushing you towards the ground, or in contrast, think of something like echo VR. The LACK of gravitational pull. That would be next level imo.
I never get sick in VR and I play a bunch of different games, always with all comfort options off. Smooth locotion with sticks is the way, I don't see anyone finding a "better" solution any time soon. I just want all games to transition to full smooth locomotion in the future, so we don't get stupid experiences where there are people teleporting around in multiplayer, it completely ruins the immersion...
Yeah I don't use turning on the joysticks at all I turn with my real life body. I only use my left joystick for movement forward back Side to side. Even the most skilled VR player can get motion sick turning in smooth motion with the joysticks.
After years I still can't really do smooth turning without nausea building up, possibly because it's actually not that smooth. But I'm not doing teleport blinking. Games just need more feedback. If there's not loud footsteps then devs messed up. There's actually a medical device where people with Meniere's Disease(spontaneous vertigo) wear it on their *tongue* and with training can compensate for lack of proper vestibular function. To advance locomotion we need a replacement that is better than a stick. I don't think getting people to run is the answer, and it's too limiting anyway since you're not always a human in VR. The wrist straps Facebook is working on are the most promising tech in this regard imo.
I'm worried about BCI locomotion still not being a solution. Considering all the nausea is basically caused by the disconnection of what your brain is thinking it's doing and what the body is actually doing, I can see BCI locomotion still having a problem where your brain sees and thinks the locomotion, but has the disconnection of your legs not moving and your body not having and positional movement. This is just a guess though. But honestly, it really feels like a dead end at this point. How do we trick our body to believe it's moving when it's not?
I think its definitely possibly BCIs won't work. I think it's fascinating we can visualize ourselves walking in our minds without getting sick. So either it's a dead end or not. Curious if actively imagining ourselves walking while also having actual visuals match that will do anything. I hope it's not a dead end though. It's crazy to think VR locomotion will be tied forever to what locomotion in flat screen titles have been for literally decades.
Strange thing is the Echo games never make me feel sick even though I'm flying at high speeds. I play Echo VR seated and it's much better for me than games like Contractors where you walk. I think Echo game like 0g locomotion should be a default
It takes practice. I can max out speed in H3VR to WTFbro. I can sprint at full speed to outrun a cannibal in the forest and jump of a 200-foot cliff. I can drift down mountains in Assetto, dog fight in Elite, stunt fly in MSFS. The day I got my Vive, I got sick as a night with tequila. It took me a few months to get used to smooth motion and abandon teleporting unless it is tactical. Trust you can do it.
What speed do you use for turning? I usid to insist on snap turning like BrandonJLa actually also used to pernosally. But I read a tweet of his that mentioned faster turning speed being less nauseating then a slow turning speed, I eventually never went back. Games with slow turning speed are still horrendous. 🤢🤢🤢
Smooth turning with a high enough sensitivity, for me at least, is more like a controllable snap turn. I can accurately turn to face an enemy and stop on a dime with smooth turning set to my preferred degrees per second (around 260). I'd argue that games with joystick locomotion are borderline unplayable for me now if they don't have a smooth turning option. Sorry Until You Fall. x) I'm really curious to see what it's going to be like in the future when new standards are adopted. I swear by using a wired headset, and refuse to use wireless until battery life can last almost a full day. That and I'm just so accustomed to moving with smooth loco and smooth turning. I've tried playing wireless and physically turning, and yeah... I completely sucked at it. 🤣 My biggest hope is that even after these problems are solved, legacy options for smooth locomotion will continued to be supported. I want VR to be accessible to as many people as possible, both price and comfort wise.
I am in a very similar situation about wired. I hate batteries. And will use the Index more than anything else. But recently been using the Vive Pro Eye for the social stuff, and with it: the wireless adapter. Even though I hate charging the thing. And this isn't my first time going back to using Vive Wireless adapter: Its actually really crazy how hard it is to go back into physically turning/not expecting a cable to slow you down. It really is hard! But ya, I agree with your last sentence. Whenever we do find the next big thing for locomotion, I think it would still be great to have legacy options. Because us early adopters are training our brains to the point we are becoming unchangeable XD
@@SadlyItsBradley We've embraced the stop gap solutions to long term problems a little bit too well! 😅 But yeah. Charging anything is really my least favorite part of wireless technology. I don't mind charging AA's for my Quest 2 controllers since they last for about a month at a time. Even my Mod Mic can last a day or two worth of social VR. Sadly, headsets just require such a massive amount of power that the best we can hope for is a few hours unless the user is okay with adding a large battery pack.
my opinion is that brain-computer interfaces should be used for something surreal, like casting spells, lifting off the ground, mind-controlling npcs/enemies, making objects float, etc. Locomotion is the basic necessity that should just work... In real life, there is a big difference between thinking about moving and actually moving... and i'm afraid that thinking of moving thing will be much more uncontrollable at first, and as a result feel a lot more nauseating than the joystick-controlled one.
I think a "walking in place" still has potential, but not translated to the inaccurate joystick movement like Kat Loco S does today. Why a single step upward in real life cannot be traslated to a single "step" in VR, with proper lenght and animation natural to the VR body and stops. Left-right steps in sequence would be traslated to a "combo" - walking step by step forward, and high frequency stepping to a running - again with speed and step lenght appropriate to a VR body and in the same pace as in RL. If the sensors would support also positional tracking then lean slightly backward and walking in RL would do steps backwards, side step straffing, etc. I'm probably ignorant and naive as I'm new to the topic, but why this would not be technically feasible?
I agree. Walking in place like NaLo (natural locomotion) or kat loco will be the best solution if done correctly. Currently both (kat and nalo) are doing it wrong, they use steep frequency to push a joystick. What’s needed is a direct tracking of your feet, like your hands. Each step needs to cause simultaneously a step sound, you need to see your feet moving and your position needs to move. Small steps lead to sneaking, big, fast steps to running. For example in switch ring fit running in place is the only was to move forward and it works pretty good. Advantage over joysticks: no „sliding“ feeling, precise control of your movement, much more immersive, your thumbs are free for other actions, works without controllers ( hand tracking) is much more intuitive. It might be done with outside cameras or lidar instead of feet sensors.
As time goes on, Facebook has been putting their branding more and more on oculus. So people believe some day the oculus branding may disappear when VR isn't just for gaming.
@@SadlyItsBradley i just did not really like how much you criticized walking and i think it’s great but that’s my opinion. also walking might be worse for you because of motion sickness, i don’t know if you have it but that might be why you don’t really like it. hope u under stand
3:02 yea i dont see the problem, teleportation is what would make me sick if i didn't had 15 years of pure raw gamer moments in my blood.... even then took me 3 month to simply play vr for more then 20-40 minutes a sessiion whitout taking 5-10 minute pause. Even then i wasn't sick. Just physicly drained heck i dont go outside. i'm a gamer.
The comments section in this video have been super useful in giving locomotion experiment games for me to try. A follow up video is definitely necessary.
I mean how do you commercialize a new technology that isn't just cathing up. It seems to me more like a marketing problem than a technical problem now..
It's funny i seemed like the most motion sick succeptible kid, but vr the only title that makes me ill is boneworks (everything seems jiggly, jiggly stuff makes me sick irl).
Your channel is severely underrated.
thank you, I really appreciate that!
I agree and I feel that your recent content has gotten more enjoyable.
@@LordLiquidBaconII I feel like I finally nailed down what kinda content I wanna do. So the enthusiasm transcends into my videos a bit more, haha.
I've had a vive for almost a week now, it's my first vr headset, but i don't have wands, so like a maniac i just used my keyboard and mouse to move around while standing up, no motion sickness, looks like I'm the chosen one
YOU ABSOLUTE MAD LAD
I can imagine how weird that looks
I get it now. Neo was the only person in the Matrix that could handle aimbot noclip hacker powers without getting severe motion sickness.
@@Favmir no wonder the soldiers are so disposable
I was pretty new for VR trying to get into Vivecraft, and because I didn't feel like setting up the SteamVR controls, I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna play with keyboard and mouse. I set the sideways rotation to mouse. Well... it works but it was pretty intense for being just mineraft.
A little more recently I got Overload, a zero-g space shooter with free turning and rolling in all axis. It has either controller stick turning or mouse with (forced) smoothing and it's fine. A little intense but completely playable and fun.
Nowadays I just use max movement and rotations, I like using fast smooth turn for nice flick turns, it's the best way to do VR for me now. Joystick locomotion for sure is not even close to real walking, but currently it's the best compromise VR can do. It's not simulation, it's a replacement. It's about your ability to adapt to the replacement. In a good setting like Boneworks you can forget about the unrealism and get immersed in the experience. I feel Boneworks' body physics help.
Me who prefer walking with joysticks instead of teleporting like a maniac :**pikachu surprised face**
Most people prefer joysticks so it's not surprising at all
Basically this video goes on to say: both suck. Lmao
@@SadlyItsBradley based
@@SadlyItsBradley I mean, yeah...
But we can't all have a giant hall to run around in as a playspace.
At least smooth loco has a basis in physical movement.
Unfortunately it does have its downsides.
The only way to get past them is training, unfortunately.
We really could do with more training aids for people new to VR
@@TheBaldrickk Absolutely, we can't. I mostly wanted to make this video to educate people about progression. And see what people's ideas about the future will bring ^_^
Might seem like a another ordinary episode But I believe this is a time capsule , we'll look back on this and marvel at how advanced we have become. Thanks Again !
Glad to leave my mark! -MAY 19, 2021-
I have vr for about 3 years, and artificial locomotion is a deal breaker for me. I get sick, there is not pushing through and enjoying, because you feel the need to immediately remove the headset and lay down.
I only play vr games with teleport and room scale options. That I can handle for hours at a time, and is what I feel comfortable to hand over to my friends for them to experience VR.
exactly . I can only enjoy the games which needs no full body translation . like i enjoy Beatsaber can't play any car racing games for more than 5 min. I think I found the way to solve the Locomotion problem unlike anything before. will update soon
Im curious; do you get horrible sea sickness on small or even big boats and never got sea legs? I think its obviously related and probably genetic when it REALLY bad for some people. Almost ALL people will get sea sickness, but even the same amount of people can build "sea legs" and or couple that with Dramamine and tricks like "keep your eyes on the horizon" lol. But a small number of people can NEVER build sea legs, and even drugs don't help.
@@WigganNuG funny enough.. never been sea sick. I've been in ferries a few times. Both to just cross a river (no cars inside) and also cruise size to cross between countries.
You have the most level-headed perspective of any VR content creator. Love the channel!
Thanks Rob. I really appreciate it!
I'm around in VR since late 2016 when Oculus still had no dedicated controllers and the Vive was the best (and most expensive) thing to buy.
Outside of Pavlov's and Onward's default settings for movement which listen to hand movement rather than head movement, I have never gotten motion sick myself... with exception for Minecraft on the Lenovo Explorer perhaps, this one still feels odd and I can't tell why.
My buddie's usually get used to VR fast as well and experience no issues.
What may help drastically however is a wider adoption of making the entire human FoV display (so far that's only a PiMax thing, really) as well as developers adding a little nose to their first person games, so less people get actually motion sick.
One part is done already, Facebook introducing 120Hz on the Quest2 for everyone to enjoy.
Why I mention the virtual nose is simply because I have read a year or so ago that a gamedev did that to one of his PSVR games.
It's something not really visible to us when playing games but as the brain uses the nose to balance out things in conjunction with noise, this might really be it.
I have no problem with artificial locomotion, but omg smooth turning fucks me up. Maybe I haven’t given it a chance to get used to it, but snap turning is enough for me (because I rarely use it anyway I just turn with my body). Also you’re spot on about VR newbies, I was also surprised to learn CV1 didn’t have touch controllers, and I also thought teleportation was a ‘lesser’ way to move in game, only added as an accessibility/comfort option or something. Had no idea that was the ONLY option at one point. Wow.
Ya, smooth turning was something that took me a VERY long time to get used to. And I only got used to it because people complained about footage with snap turning in it.
I got into VR about 2 and a half years ago and even at the start I did not experience much motion sickness and feel very lucky that I've only had it a small number of times. One of the problems I find myself ruining into with teleportation is reaching forward to interact with something and realizing I'm near the edge of my play space. I still have the same thing happen with smooth locomotion, but it can be fixed much easier by walking backwards while moving forward in game. I could also adjust my game view 180 degrees in both situations, but I generally don't use any kind of artificial turning in VR. I like that the DecaMove has started these sorts of conversations. I tried using the app on my phone for hip tracking shortly after it came out, but my brain is already used to moving in the direction of my head so I'll have to take the time to relearn moving with my hip.
I also didn't have much motion sickness when I first got into VR (except for getting used to smooth turning). We are very lucky. Some people would kill for our luck in this regard.
And ya, another person who mentioned they used primarily head based loco said it's been hard for them to transition too! I kinda wanna get a survey going on people's experiences.
@@SadlyItsBradley Hell yeah, I should try using it again. I didn't know the recenter gesture when I initially tried so I was always strafing slightly. I think at the end of the day, since I don't have issues with motion sickness with head based locomotion, I'll probably just stick to that because it is less to setup. I am always happy for more accessibility features to be added to VR especially when it will be free for most users.
The views to subs on this channel make no sense. You're by far one of the best VR youtubers. Thanks for your hard work!
Thanks Decitronic! The views to subscriber ratio is definitely due to the fact I took a 2-year hiatus. But now I am working as hard as I can to regain an audience ^_^
As a developer, I’ve been thinking about and observing this a lot. You helped me realize how good joy stick / slide locomotion is, and how long it’ll probably be here for. Just make your game 120 hz compatible, put some vignette on, and players should be comfortable.
Arm swinger locomotion is best locomotion. It's just enough physical movement to convince the lizard brain that movement is happening, but not so much movement that you'd run into walls and stuff.
L-lizard brain? 😱
@@SadlyItsBradley yep, it's not the part of the brain that doesn't use logic and reasoning, but uses the basic senses and emotions. perfectly adequate for out innawoods hunting for the next meal, but very much not suited for our future technology.
I've only ever used artificial locomotion where it's available and have never had issues with motion sickness, but that's a product of how well my brains been trained over the years to distinguish between my physical state and my perceived surroundings. It's easy for me to draw a line between sight and sound vs touch and feeling, allowing my to stay easily grounded IRL. This comes at the detriment that I hardly ever feel truly immersed in any VR content. In any case I agree that it's not an easy dilemma to solve, perhaps in between now and BCI's, a motorized treadmill solution that might help with the mentioned "slipperiness" could be a good stepping stone.
There is research in eye saccade tracking/induction as a way to trick players into walking in circles or avoiding local objects while not interrupting their perception of a vr world. You should look into it; as eye tracking gets more popular you're going to start seeing some very cool new locomotion options coming up.
Why no mention of Natural Locomotion? It's probably the best solution for somewhat realistic motion that doesn't make you sick & can be used by new & experienced alike.
Really interesting point of view and content, just found your channel.
You were so on point with the weirdness that you get sometimes with the head orientation while moving forward, specially if you're strafing and move your head to change the orientation... it sometimes feels like you're floating towards that direction or sliding... idk how to describe it .. feels ghost-like .. never seen the actual need for the Deca Move, until you explained it makes more sense for the brain thinking that you move forward depending on your hip direction ... literally mind=blown moment .. don't even know why I didn't think about that before lol, saw it more like an inconvenient hip movement rather than anything else... prob getting one to test it out.
btw liked and sub
Thank you for the great feedback! I really appreciate it. It's really hard to put a lot of things about feeling and even emotions about concepts in VR. Yet, I really try to do so.
I appreciate the sub. And hope I don't disappoint you in my future content 🙏
Should do a update on the stuff we have now I feel like this is still a problem 😂
Until we get full dive, I see full body suspension and force feedback exo skeletons as the ultimate solution. With proper hardware and software it could make you feel like you are actually walking around, and on any surface
We just go to the local park and play multiplayer in 500ft wide playspaces. The freedom to not only walk but make very complex but natural moves with your body like dash to the right, start running and then literally jump up and slash down with a sword against friends feels amazing. Over the last couple of years, I expected to find more people doing the same but I guess most gamers prefer the low friction of chilling at home or arent friends with anyone close by with a headset? I'm not sure. You have to keep in mind a walking treadmill (or treadmill shoes) are possible right now but the ability to freely run and jump at anything isn't going to be mechanically possible with a treadmill for many years. Most of us have parks or other open spaces within 10 minutes of our houses. Curious to hear why, despite VR being wireless for a couple of years now, most people prefer not to go out and just do World-scale VR for real. Thoughts?
Great discussion here. I think a lot of VR newcomers would benefit from watching this video. It provides a concise overview of VR locomotion techniques and their impact on how VR content is experienced. I agree that we are still quite far off from the next big innovation in this domain. In the near term, I'm mostly looking forward to improvements in immersion for seated VR experiences at the consumer level. Perhaps an overview of motion-sim chairs is warranted.
Thanks! I've been actually wanting to do a video on motion chairs at some point. But haven't found the exact resources yet to get something like that together.
One of the issues with vr locomotion that I think is pushing away from accessability, is actually the efficiency of each movement type in the medium.
In HL:A when your getting shot at out in the open, once you.. get past the original panic, it's better to actually engage the telport to get to cover because it's just.. faster
The big one that hits me, although I own a kat walk c, any big pavlov firefight will make me gravitate to the sticks to strafe because humans can't move that way that smoothly.
it's almost to the point where if you want a new locomotion menthod to thrive, it has to be the only thing available AND better
This is a very great point. I really appreciate the time you put into writing this!
Once a small company produces a device that tracks locomotion through the brain, everything will go from 0 to 100 in VR
Agreed!
Neuralink or bust
Just wanted cardio and a full body feeling. So, i use climbing harness on a swivel mount. And run Natural Locomotion, thought ive tried it with other walk in place solutions and it works fine. The harness lets you lean into your walk like in real life which really helps. Other than that, its kinda like a leg driven vehicle that you quickly get used to, which is fine for immersion and getting some cardo. Its not a simulation of walking and running, but its still fun, immersive, and gets you around the virtual environment.
You bring up a point about omni slide mills. There are "stomp" instead of "slide" treadmills. Silvercord does both. From experience i can tell you stomp is effortless to learn. The only drawback is your neglecting your shins and hamstrings compared to walking in real life or a unidirectional treadmill. Slidemills, or at least pushing a wall on a slippery surface seems to not have that problem, and the extra effort is probably good for your legs. Or at least your balance.
Holy frick. I'm gonna need to look into everything you said. This is what I love about VR and VR enthusiasts. You always find something new to "wow" about. Thank you!
I personally think that Infinite Walking will be the future of locomotion. It's where you walk around in your play space, then turn around at a wall. You turn the camera to face the same direction in-game, and walk in the opposite direction irl to walk further in-game.
I think that better, smoother AI solutions for turning automatically, and general things you can do irl will improve to a point that it feels natural to move like this.
This may be for entrance level immersive locomotion, but I think that for consumers with no issue of money may have a VR dedicated room. With a large omni-treadmill that keeps you centered without straps to keep the natural walking gait intact.
I get that smooth locomotion does not work for everyone but. Honestly playing Half-Life: Alyx some points were I had to teleport especially going through the door near the end kinda really took me out of the experience. Especially when combined with the loading screen.
I am definitely not saying that teleporting is a better system. It is very much not. Exactly for the reason you say! Haha.
@@SadlyItsBradley Teleport was like a cheat in Half-Life Alyx. I think it would have been so much harder without that ability. I wish they would add a sprint.
From what you've researched so far, do you see a race for bci integration with the major manufacturers actively funding this?
OR
Is it quite slow moving and the VR OEMs are waiting to see who to buy out?
Honestly, it's kinda both right now. Valve and Facebook are both funding BCI tech companies actively right now, but at the same time: companies with new concepts or ideas about BCIs are being bought out too. It's pretty fast moving actually, but an expensive endeavor no matter who you are.
@@SadlyItsBradley Motor neurons are the loudest and easiest to read the signal of with cheap non invasive BCI. I think we would see it pop up pretty soon from developers using the new BCI for valve index
I'm looking at this months later and the demand of better locomotion in vr stronger now that before, but also I can't share this with normal people without them telling me "this guy looks like he owns a body pillow"
Hi, I'm new. My first VR rig won't even be online for a couple more days. I'm excited. I won't have them right away, but the cyberShoes look pretty interesting to me. Thanks for the videos! o/
Welcome aboard!
walking in the same place with shoes and changing direction with the decamove
Great video, and a good reminder of how far we have come (even though it's still early days for VR)!
While I do agree things could always be better and improved upon, it's easy to forget that it's not just VR games that require "getting used to." The entire FPS genre on PC requires the player to be able to use WASD + mouselook.
This is obvious for us, as we play games a lot, but if you get someone who never plays any kind of game to use WASD + mouselook, you'll find they are a mess, looking at the floor and/or ceiling constantly, and often also getting nauseous.
Admittedly the barrier to entry is still quite high, and getting used to VR needs a bit more work than getting used to WASD + mouselook. Hopefully as the tech matures that barrier can become much lower. Like you, I'm also excited to see how / if BCI can solve the issue completely, or at least significantly reduce it.
P.S: Thank you Bradley! Your very first videos of videos of VR convinced me VR was the future. Now I'm a VR dev (COMPOUND). You definitely deserve more attention and subscribers.
Wow! This comment was one I had to go sit down at a computer to focus/reply to. Haha.
This is absolutely true what you say about locomotion in the FPS genre, and I kinda wish I thought about this when I was recording this video! I have always talked about how some things such as hand tracked controllers were always more accessible than flat games to people who are not normally gamers. The natural connection to grabbing something with your hand compared to "CLICK A/HOLD A to throw" is incredibly more intuitive. And especially seniors trying VR, tend to catch up to the naturalness of it fast! This is a huge benefit to VR already as hand tracking becomes more and more standard!
Which goes on to prove our points even more! What if locomotion in VR was just as natural as it is to grab and throw things. The accessibility in gaming is one thing, but computers are also pretty inaccessible for a lot of people still. People have been telling me recently that they feel VR gaming isn't what is going to make VR mainstream, but until we solve simple problems like the issues with VR locomotion, I don't see VR as leaving the gaming space in terms of attention. I hope BCIs solve this. Especially without being too invasive.
FINALLY: to end this all, I have to comment on your last sentence. Reading this made my day. And I am absolutely honored/ecstatic to find out a successful VR game was made thanks to some crappy videos I put together years ago. Hahaha. Congrats on the success on Compound! I'm almost embarrassed I haven't played it yet. It looks REALLY good!
@@SadlyItsBradley The "intuitive" nature of VR is a good point; I never thought of that. I suppose as "gamers," having to get used to it isn't a deal breaker, but having locomotion be instantly natural and nausea free for anyone immediately would really open up VR to more applications than just games, and also allow non gaming people to get into gaming. It's clear you've really been thinking about this a lot. Thank you very much for the food for thought! p.s. I sent you an email; please let me know if it got through to you :)
Compound is awesome
9:55 good point! never saw it like that!
I use teleportation on every game that supports it. I can not play very long with normal locomotion. I tried to build a tolerance for it, but it´s not working for me.
I tried using a fan blowing air on me during playing which helped a bit, but didn´t fix the problem of getting sick.
Eating some ginger helped as well, but not for long.
Swinging my arms or moving my legs during normal locomotion didn´t work either for me.
So I pass every great game which does not offer teleportation, and play the games who are motion-sick safe.
Hopefully someday, there will be a solution for this problem, because VR is great and fun.
I've been using VR since the DK1 and I still use snap turning. Moving forward and back or side to side is not an issue whatsoever. But I don't think I'll ever be able to tolerate smooth turning.
If games would let me use my hand for the reference direction and set the joystick to act as basically a 4 or 8-way dpad with a big deadzone, I'd be happy.
The most comfortable artificial locomotion I've used was a Doom 3 VR mod that let me use a joystick to move forward or backward in the direction my controller was facing.
If the joystick input is used raw, the disconnect between not quite moving straight in the direction I want to is just too much, and it's significantly worse if my head is the reference point because I want to be able to move easily *while looking around,* and the doom 3 mod let me do just that. Very little motion sickness compared to any other artificial locomotion game I owned at the time.
When I eventually get back into VR (since I moved across the world without it), then I will pick up a decamove or similar for sure so I have that decoupled look/move everywhere.
Yes I did enjoy this video :) you didn't actually say much that I did not already know but still informative and gave some food for thought. Also, about joysticks, that's one thing that really annoys me about the vive pro 2. They haven't changed them at all, I've heard they didn't bother designing new handcontrollers because they felt they couldn't make something that would beat the knuckles, but for crying out loud... they could at least have exchanged the trackpad for a joystick, I hate those trackpads, and it seems almost universal that the click in them breaks, especially up and right click.
Dude, you are literally Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti from Silicon Valley. Great video btw.
Wasn't there some device at CES that is supposed to move your body a little to combat the motion sickness? Something like that could be cool if it was small enough, but I seem to remember it looked like a piece of gym equipment.
It's going to take tech at the boston dynamics level to get really good locomotion.
Grow your VR legs!!! It’s worth it. I’ve brought 4 friends into VR (and now PCVR) and I’ve helped them grow VR legs. Tips: drink lots of cold water while playing and turn on any fans to have moving air in the room where you’re playing.
Nothing like a 3 day long headache to get your "VR legs".
@@awwtergirl7040 what's more important is the VR experience frequency not the length. it's like learning to swim or bike
This video is hysterical. :D Standing up and going through the actual motions will always be the closest thing to it feeling authentic. But there are just times when you want to vege out to some entertainment, so there will always be a market for pancake style games where you are in the environment, using traditional pancake controls. I play Skyrim vr both ways, standing up and really swinging my weapons around with full motions, and kicking back on the couch with adjusted height setting, my wrists resting at my sides, swinging my weapons around with simple wrist movements.
LMAO, I hope people don't understand this video is a hitpiece on artificial locomotion. It's more of a retrospective look on VR locomotion in general. Because I dream of the days its as accessible as learning how to grab and throw things in VR is.
I get what you were saying, it wasn't some kind of judgement, more of an overview of various locomotion schemes.
The more the better. I just kind of feel bad when some people will completely skip a great VR experience, simply because it doesn't use their preferred method.
Like all those people who won't play GTA V or Alien Isolation or Subnautica because they make you use a regular game pad.
I argued with Chet Falisek about this years ago when he was effectively blocking devs from including it in their games. Stubborn doesn't even begin to describe him, glad he doesn't work with Valve any longer.
Heh, while I do value his work when he was at Valve. I definitely had his name plastered in my mind when I was talking about dev pushback toward artificial locomotion in this video.
@@SadlyItsBradley I love what he did with Portal etc but he was literally arguing with devs on twitter that it was impossible to have any non teleportation movement in VR without sickness. Just absurd, if Onward hadn't done it we'd probably be year's behind.
I just ordered WalkOvr MoCap (5 sensors) - hoping it will be a good solution as artificial locomotion is not something I find comfortable (nausea)
Great video! VR locomotion in definitely under discussed and its cool the see the history moving so quickly, seems to mirror the early days of console when we added analog sticks to the playstation controllers. Regarding joystick movement I find it interesting that using a joystick in VR can be more complex than using it in flatscreen due to body positioning.
I almost always use smooth locomotion and smooth turning with head relative motion, and its taken me a while to learn that when I turn my head to look in one direction while moving I have to steer the joystick in the opposite direction to keep walking in a straight line. Funnily enough I've been testing out the decagear mobile app and out of habit keep making that adjustment which results in me walking in big S curves like a drunk person
I am really glad you found it fascinating! I had a great time talking about it.
I wondered if people would have trouble getting used to hip based loco after primarily using head based. I personally always used hand when the option was available so the learning curve wasn't as rough for me. What I noticed more about decamove usage is that it actually made me wanna turn my body IRL more often. Which helped add to the immersion. It seems I got very lazy over the years, haha.
I am still kinda new to vr and play with locomotion I mainly play games with higher frame rate/non indie games as they make me motion sick very fast. I also play vr chat as you can walk and then stand still for a long time again. I did notice that I slowly get less and less sick tho.
I don't tend to have locomotion sickness. My brain seems to be okay with artificial locomotion.
That's good! Even I don't get sick from it anymore. But I still find it fun to talk about the accessibility of vr using ArtLoco
I feel that some thought should be given to natural locomotion thing. Having a tracker on your feet and where you move forward by actually moving your feet seems to help people to trick your brain.
I also recall studies that added small vibration motors to the ears and thus "trick" the users when they moved forward to echo footsteps and how that greatly helped reduce motion sickness too.
The issue with threadmills is that containing a moving human in one spot in any direction is non-trivial task that requires powerful materials that can withstand the forces involved.
The problem with the joystick is that people are used to it, from gamepads they already play with. Teleportation restricts the game design just too much and less immersive. Roomscale was a stupid idea as a solution to locomtion.
I love artifical locomotion. It's intuitive, precise and responsive. Same as the smooth turning.
I just don't like thumbsticks. It just doesn't come close to the speed and precision of a mouse.
Mouse and keyboard was just a great invention. For VR I don't see a breakthrough invention like that yet.
Virtual interactable UIs with gloves might be the way to for example implement large amounts of skillbindings for example.
Gesture control takes a lot of speed out of games when you have complex gestures.
I'm not sure if it's not better to just play those things on desktop with a large curved high-end 3d monitor or something.
So far the current standards in VR inputs don't work for all scenarios.
I'd like to have a joystick in the left controller for movement and a Steam controller-esque track pad on the right for more precise turning.
I enjoy VR for movies and videos, but not even that. I hate that just the basic idea of drinking and eating while watching a movie becomes a daunting task whereas when I just throw up something on a TV/Computer I can just do whatever I want while listening/watching.
Nice video!
Glad you enjoyed it
The future will have to be omnidirectional treadmill systems built into your sub-floor. Eventually people will have entire rooms dedicated to VR; padded walls for safety. The solution will come sooner than will think and Bradley is right; it will come from research being done in HCI / BCI. Meta is doing some great research on this and that combined with omnidirectional treadmills will solve the problem.
my reason for choosing smooth turning is that if i accidentally move the joystick my face won't go flying.
I developed some tolerance from playing no man sky and vr chat which don't have that good frame rates on my pc most of the time
I play Halflife Alyx with smooth motion movement and it doesnt make me sick, but turning smoothly makes me motion sick, I use smooth turning at 90 degrees and its the perfect balance for me.
locomotion smooth turn all the way. ordered a decamove and am still waiting for it, tried it with my phone, i get the idea, its great, but the phone just doesnt cut it. hehe
The middle finger at the end. lol!
I prefer snap turning and articial locomotion. I just use snap turning to turn faster but I mostly turn in real life by habbit. Smooth turning makes me uncomfortable and I've been using vr since carboard first came out.
ive got motion sick after my first 30 minutes, ive had a short break and after 1 hour i was motion sick again after that i repeat the cycle and after 2 days i dont get motionsick anymore. i think the brain can learn to not get motion sick proved for my self
i'm used to teleporting in H-L alyx now but i feel it gives me an unfair advantage in combat, dodging enemies is just too easy. i keep trying the joystick thing but instant motion sick.
Wonder if there is some form of redirected walking that could help
Personally a big fan of room scale and joystick locomotion. Unfortunately don't have the room for proper room scale with a ~0.7mx0.7m play space but whatever. Never had VR sickness or even plain old motion sickness so that's not a problem for me. Not a fan of smooth turning though since I want to turn quickly and I can't physically turn without the risk of hitting something like a wall or my desk.
I freaking love Room Scale. It alone sold me on the Vive years back instead of the Rift. And I defended it ACTIVELY back then. But unfortunately its kinda impossible to really design games around it. Which would have been the big benefit of the technology.
Headphones exist that virbrate your inner ear in such a way that tricks your brain into feeling motion. I believe it was samsung who demonstrated those by showing a man a video of a rollercoaster and the headphones made him feel like he was on the rollercoaster. Such headphones would be able to solve the ear/eye motion disagreement that causes motion sickness. There is an article about it on roadtovr from 2016.
How are those headphones not a VR product yet???
When I play VRChat, I use the artificial locomotion (I hate teleport locomotion) and smooth turning. I think smooth turning still makes me sick, even after 120+ (I know, I'm a pleb) hours in VRChat.
You are right on point, Bradley. And, in my opinion, every one of these vr companies is focused on trying to sell us eye and face tracking and all these wonderful accesories and are forgetting that motion and field of view and how the brain percieves them IS CRITICAL TO THE EXPERIENCE.. using joy sticks in vr is a double edge sword. On one hand they are great because they allow Halo style movement, especially important for running, turning, jumping, etc,... How ever, that also means that vr controllers act as regular gamepads split in half and hamper true fluid vr motion. Room scale is basically nigated in 90% of games and experiences because you don't really use true vr motion with current vr controllers. Now, having said that, i love how Oculus and Valve have implemented their control schemes and the lack of true vr motion doesn't really bother me personally BUT i do see why others would be... That's my 2¢...
REAL VR MOTION WILL HAPPEN WHEN WE GET FULL BODY SCANS SO THE HEADSET KNOWS HOW YOU ARE ORIENTED AND THE CONTROLLERS WILL BE SLIM FITTED GLOVES WITH HAPTIC FEEDBACK FOR TOUCHING GRABBING THROWING AND FEELING AROUND. EVERYTHING WILL BE INSIDE OUT TRACKING WITH HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERAS AND FULL COLOR PASS THROUGH, NOT TO MENTION TRUE 180° FOV WITHOUT CHEATING BINOCULAR OVERLAP....that was my other 2¢
LOL
And great vid ! Love the deep talk 😁
Thank you!
You forgot to mention newer/experimental locomotion methods from popular titles like Echo Arena, Gorilla Tag, and Gorn.
Infinadeck would be the best option but not viable for consumers yet. We probably will have good BCI solving locomotion before contraptions like Infinadeck become a thing in the consumer space.
I think treadmills in VR are the future, not the slippery treadmills but instead, fast acting VR treadmills like from ready player one. There are already prototypes in the works. Another thing is exosuits. They suspend you in the air and simulate pretty much all physical forces in VR. You can feel the force of gravity pushing you towards the ground, or in contrast, think of something like echo VR. The LACK of gravitational pull. That would be next level imo.
This might actually be true! I don't see them getting affordable soon though. :(
@@SadlyItsBradley I'll have to pour my life savings into it then😅
I never get sick in VR and I play a bunch of different games, always with all comfort options off. Smooth locotion with sticks is the way, I don't see anyone finding a "better" solution any time soon. I just want all games to transition to full smooth locomotion in the future, so we don't get stupid experiences where there are people teleporting around in multiplayer, it completely ruins the immersion...
Yeah I don't use turning on the joysticks at all I turn with my real life body. I only use my left joystick for movement forward back Side to side. Even the most skilled VR player can get motion sick turning in smooth motion with the joysticks.
After years I still can't really do smooth turning without nausea building up, possibly because it's actually not that smooth. But I'm not doing teleport blinking. Games just need more feedback. If there's not loud footsteps then devs messed up. There's actually a medical device where people with Meniere's Disease(spontaneous vertigo) wear it on their *tongue* and with training can compensate for lack of proper vestibular function.
To advance locomotion we need a replacement that is better than a stick. I don't think getting people to run is the answer, and it's too limiting anyway since you're not always a human in VR. The wrist straps Facebook is working on are the most promising tech in this regard imo.
Hey Brad, 1 year later have you heard of any new solutions to locomotion? Would love to see a follow up video but I think I already know the answer :/
I got the Leaf motion back with the DK2, it was pretty stunning back the. Then came CV1 😍 And it all began 😁
I'm worried about BCI locomotion still not being a solution. Considering all the nausea is basically caused by the disconnection of what your brain is thinking it's doing and what the body is actually doing, I can see BCI locomotion still having a problem where your brain sees and thinks the locomotion, but has the disconnection of your legs not moving and your body not having and positional movement. This is just a guess though. But honestly, it really feels like a dead end at this point. How do we trick our body to believe it's moving when it's not?
I think its definitely possibly BCIs won't work. I think it's fascinating we can visualize ourselves walking in our minds without getting sick. So either it's a dead end or not. Curious if actively imagining ourselves walking while also having actual visuals match that will do anything.
I hope it's not a dead end though. It's crazy to think VR locomotion will be tied forever to what locomotion in flat screen titles have been for literally decades.
you're not wrong with what u said. what got me away from tel and helped me get my "VR legs" was boneworks
Strange thing is the Echo games never make me feel sick even though I'm flying at high speeds. I play Echo VR seated and it's much better for me than games like Contractors where you walk. I think Echo game like 0g locomotion should be a default
It takes practice. I can max out speed in H3VR to WTFbro. I can sprint at full speed to outrun a cannibal in the forest and jump of a 200-foot cliff. I can drift down mountains in Assetto, dog fight in Elite, stunt fly in MSFS. The day I got my Vive, I got sick as a night with tequila. It took me a few months to get used to smooth motion and abandon teleporting unless it is tactical. Trust you can do it.
Once you get it down, you will feel superhuman.
Another great episode!
Honestly glad smooth turning is the new norm! Snap turning is so immersion breaking, Same with teleporting.
snap turning is disgusting and headache inducing, even on day 1 smooth turn was much better
@@zeekeLT snap turning is better for vr shooters, you can turn really fast with a few flicks of the stick while smooth turning is really slow.
brad only has one shirt. he threw away his gamer one.
I am washed up. I no longer can wear gamer shirt
It may be expensive but I'll just get a manual treadmill for VR lol
I paid so much money so I could close my eyes and stick out my tongue in VR. So this doesn't sound too crazy to me 😅
smooth turning makes me sick 🤢🤢🤢
It took me a REALLY long time to get used to it. And I only got used to it because people complained about it in RUclips videos.
What speed do you use for turning?
I usid to insist on snap turning like BrandonJLa actually also used to pernosally. But I read a tweet of his that mentioned faster turning speed being less nauseating then a slow turning speed, I eventually never went back.
Games with slow turning speed are still horrendous. 🤢🤢🤢
@@HellSpawnRulerOfHell huh I've never tried higher speeds.
Take a shot every time he says “well”
I'm not responsible for any alcohol poisonings from this comment
@@SadlyItsBradley Loved the video man!
@@edvard9037 thank you!
Smooth turning with a high enough sensitivity, for me at least, is more like a controllable snap turn. I can accurately turn to face an enemy and stop on a dime with smooth turning set to my preferred degrees per second (around 260). I'd argue that games with joystick locomotion are borderline unplayable for me now if they don't have a smooth turning option. Sorry Until You Fall. x)
I'm really curious to see what it's going to be like in the future when new standards are adopted. I swear by using a wired headset, and refuse to use wireless until battery life can last almost a full day. That and I'm just so accustomed to moving with smooth loco and smooth turning. I've tried playing wireless and physically turning, and yeah... I completely sucked at it. 🤣
My biggest hope is that even after these problems are solved, legacy options for smooth locomotion will continued to be supported. I want VR to be accessible to as many people as possible, both price and comfort wise.
I am in a very similar situation about wired. I hate batteries. And will use the Index more than anything else. But recently been using the Vive Pro Eye for the social stuff, and with it: the wireless adapter. Even though I hate charging the thing. And this isn't my first time going back to using Vive Wireless adapter: Its actually really crazy how hard it is to go back into physically turning/not expecting a cable to slow you down. It really is hard!
But ya, I agree with your last sentence. Whenever we do find the next big thing for locomotion, I think it would still be great to have legacy options. Because us early adopters are training our brains to the point we are becoming unchangeable XD
@@SadlyItsBradley We've embraced the stop gap solutions to long term problems a little bit too well! 😅 But yeah. Charging anything is really my least favorite part of wireless technology. I don't mind charging AA's for my Quest 2 controllers since they last for about a month at a time. Even my Mod Mic can last a day or two worth of social VR.
Sadly, headsets just require such a massive amount of power that the best we can hope for is a few hours unless the user is okay with adding a large battery pack.
my opinion is that brain-computer interfaces should be used for something surreal, like casting spells, lifting off the ground, mind-controlling npcs/enemies, making objects float, etc. Locomotion is the basic necessity that should just work... In real life, there is a big difference between thinking about moving and actually moving... and i'm afraid that thinking of moving thing will be much more uncontrollable at first, and as a result feel a lot more nauseating than the joystick-controlled one.
This is a very valid opinion and I definitely agree with a lot of it the more I think about it.
Finally somebody brought it up. It might be historical never been recommended your channel till now
Welcome! Glad you agree with me ^^7
I think a "walking in place" still has potential, but not translated to the inaccurate joystick movement like Kat Loco S does today.
Why a single step upward in real life cannot be traslated to a single "step" in VR, with proper lenght and animation natural to the VR body and stops. Left-right steps in sequence would be traslated to a "combo" - walking step by step forward, and high frequency stepping to a running - again with speed and step lenght appropriate to a VR body and in the same pace as in RL.
If the sensors would support also positional tracking then lean slightly backward and walking in RL would do steps backwards, side step straffing, etc.
I'm probably ignorant and naive as I'm new to the topic, but why this would not be technically feasible?
I agree. Walking in place like NaLo (natural locomotion) or kat loco will be the best solution if done correctly. Currently both (kat and nalo) are doing it wrong, they use steep frequency to push a joystick. What’s needed is a direct tracking of your feet, like your hands. Each step needs to cause simultaneously a step sound, you need to see your feet moving and your position needs to move. Small steps lead to sneaking, big, fast steps to running. For example in switch ring fit running in place is the only was to move forward and it works pretty good. Advantage over joysticks: no „sliding“ feeling, precise control of your movement, much more immersive, your thumbs are free for other actions, works without controllers ( hand tracking) is much more intuitive. It might be done with outside cameras or lidar instead of feet sensors.
Infinadeck consumer version is expected for late 2022
I will look into it when it comes out, but I doubt the price will be very consumer, haha.
@@SadlyItsBradley probably not lol. But imagine a bci connected to one of those things. Sounds like the holy grail to me
I never get sick with joystick locomotion unless it's got a very low frame rate. If the game starts stuttering then yeah I'll get sick.
1:44 Facebook didn't put their branding on it because Facebook didn't own Oculus. Oculus was a startup that Facebook BOUGHT.
Three years with vr... And I get motion sickness every time. I am trying with 25mg of ginger... But even then I can't past an hour of playing time :(
BCI is not that far away, i think next valve headset is going to have it
Walking forwards is fine, walking backwards ... now that messes with my head.
Oh man, I don't even try to do that either, hahaha.
Omnidirectional running mill seems the number one answer but it's still too expensive
Flip the thread mill and put it under the feet?
People think of oculus more like Facebook than it's own thing? I think of oculus more as oculus than facebook.
As time goes on, Facebook has been putting their branding more and more on oculus. So people believe some day the oculus branding may disappear when VR isn't just for gaming.
i don’t really agree with you *buuuuuut* at least you said that this is you opinion and that it varies. (I am a oc qst 2 user)
Hi! Which part didn't you agree with? Just wondering ^_^
@@SadlyItsBradley i just did not really like how much you criticized walking and i think it’s great but that’s my opinion. also walking might be worse for you because of motion sickness, i don’t know if you have it but that might be why you don’t really like it. hope u under stand
3:02 yea i dont see the problem, teleportation is what would make me sick if i didn't had 15 years of pure raw gamer moments in my blood.... even then took me 3 month to simply play vr for more then 20-40 minutes a sessiion whitout taking 5-10 minute pause. Even then i wasn't sick. Just physicly drained heck i dont go outside. i'm a gamer.
I think tea for god should have a honorary mention for locomotion
The comments section in this video have been super useful in giving locomotion experiment games for me to try.
A follow up video is definitely necessary.
That intro, that's my stuff right there
I mean how do you commercialize a new technology that isn't just cathing up. It seems to me more like a marketing problem than a technical problem now..
It's funny i seemed like the most motion sick succeptible kid, but vr the only title that makes me ill is boneworks (everything seems jiggly, jiggly stuff makes me sick irl).