Whenever an environment is designed, be it inside a video game or virtual simulation, one of the major aspects of its development includes how the user will move about inside it and to what degree of interaction mechanics can be implemented within it. This is one of the major problems that has always baffled developers of virtual reality environments – what is the best way to track the user so that they can move about and interact with our environment?

Movement is an integral part of any virtual ecosystem. Without movement, a user is restricted to a confined space, which can greatly reduce the “immersion factor” of the environment that many developers consider to be a crucial element of their virtual environment. Let us look at the initial hardware offered by two major VR device manufacturers, and their takes on solving the virtual environment interaction problem. The earliest consumer...

Last week, to take a break from work, I decided to get into the world of VR gaming. Most of my gaming playtime was either on a PC or a console. So gaming in VR was a completely new domain for me (even though I was involved with their development, not owning a piece of VR headset limited my experience).

The game that I got into was Beat Saber. Well - actually the demo version. Beat Saber is a music-based and reflex-based “hack-and-slash”, where the player has to cut cubes in specific directions, and the cubes generally follow the beat and tempo of the song being played. I had seen videos of other people play it and it had always intrigued me. It had everything I look for inside a video game - unique gameplay mechanics, great sound design, and of course, lightsabers.

My initial couple of games were great. The game tests your reflexes as well as your concentration, because not only do...

The proposed idea is to develop a simulation of an experience that tries to shed light on the problems faced by people who suffer from dementia (a targeted approach for Alzheimer’s Disease can be taken up to develop as the focus of the simulation).

Dementia can be defined to be a collection of symptoms, whose primary cause can be attributed to disorders that affect the brain. It affects thinking processes, behavior, as well as the ability to perform simple daily tasks. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia that exists in humans – accounting for around 6-% to 80% of dementia cases.

Alzheimer’s disease can be defined as a progressive illness that is caused by damage to the brain that leads to the death of brain cells. Currently, the cause for it is yet to be determined, and can only be detected upon physical examination of the brain. However, it is known that the...

Scenario: Two divers go into a submerged submarine to retrieve a piece of code that is needed to open a bunker.

Elements involved: Locomotion in a virtual environment, interaction (translation, rotation, pushing pulling), puzzle-solving

The level is basically where the players are a deep-sea diver who must explore a sunken submarine. The level would include them doing tasks such as opening hatches (using a revolving hatch lock), cut holes into the body (squeeze triggers in real life), search for a hidden piece of paper that the player needs to open an on-land bunker, have a toolset that is connected to vibration motors (so when the player does a correct action, the vibration feedback tells them whether its correct or not), have a UV light to search for clues, etc. The player’s enemies are sharks, that they must fend off using a knife (basically a cardboard roll with a Vive tracker or...

Whenever an environment is designed, be it inside a video game or virtual simulation, one of the major aspects of its development includes how the user will move about inside it and to what degree of interaction mechanics can be implemented within it. This is one of the major problems that has always baffled developers of virtual reality environments – what is the best way to track the user so that they can move about and interact with our environment?

Movement is an integral part of any virtual ecosystem. Without movement, a user is restricted to a confined space, which can greatly reduce the “immersion factor” of the environment that many developers consider to be a crucial element of their virtual environment. Let us look at the initial hardware offered by two major VR device manufacturers, and their takes on solving the virtual environment interaction problem. The earliest consumer...

Virtual Reality – what exactly is it? As a Computer Graphics graduate student (and a technology enthusiast), this is a question that I have been put forth many times when I have met someone new. To be completely honest, I find myself asking the same questions whenever I see the big guns coming out with the latest cutting-edge technology in the field of Virtual Reality.

If we strictly follow the definition, Wikipedia quotes it as:

“Virtual reality is a simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.”

Now, that is a good definition, but not enticing enough. It does not encapsulate all the features that come with when we speak of “Virtual Reality”. How is it similar? How can it be different? Does it even involve the real world? So many questions pop up, that require further discussion. And it is here, where we lack the precise knowledge and...