I think what I'm missing the most in every OR game/demo is..

[skyrimer]

A turn button. Almost all motion sickness in the games and demos I've played come from the moment you have to turn around, since you have to do it using the mouse or pad and it simply messes with your brain since most of the time the speed and direction of the turn are not exactly what your brain is expecting. I wish there was a button I could hold, and then when I look left or right with the OR, I started to turn in that direction until I stopped holding that button. Imho it would feel a lot more natural that using the mouse or gamepad, and probably with time it would become second nature to turn just by looking on any direction while holding that button.

[JoeReMi]

That's a pretty good idea! In real life, most changes of direction begin with the eyes, followed by the head adjusting to the same point, and the body orientation next. Even as an experiment, I wouldn't mind trying, for example, Hl2 with a button that caused my travel direction to line up with where I'm looking, even though by default the two are uncoupled.

[yoshithedog]

Good idea! Also walk by pressing trigger on a gamepad (like it was done in Heavy Rain) instead of pushing an analogue stick forward. Don't know why, but I think that would be more immersive and less nauseous.

[JoeReMi]

Good idea! Also walk by pressing trigger on a gamepad (like it was done in Heavy Rain) instead of pushing an analogue stick forward. Don't know why, but I think that would be more immersive and less nauseous.

I would love to try that in a demo. While it's still gamepads and not omnis controlling walking, left-stick movement, is making me feel very ill. Maybe for this intermediate stage of vr we need to try a few new ways of thinking. Could this be achieved on existing demos with something like xPadder?

[PatimPatam]

I think it's a good idea to try to combat motion sickness by mapping body movement to headtracking, but if we are talking about a scenario where you are sitting (or standing without turning), the problem of your approach is:

What happens when your virtual body turns and matches the direction of your virtual head, but in reality your torso is still facing forward and your head is facing left or right? That wouldn't fell very natural (especially if you're tracking your hands as well), and if you wanted to turn again in the same direction you would have to turn your head 180 degrees "the exorcist" style..

[WiredEarp]

@ JoeReMi:

I wouldn't mind trying, for example, Hl2 with a button that caused my travel direction to line up with where I'm looking, even though by default the two are uncoupled.

This actually makes a big difference - I'd really like to see more demos allow this movement mode.

The first thing people do is try to look at the destination and move towards it, so its the most intuitive option. Also, you can still run backwards and sideways using this technique...

[3dRat]

I like it, and you know why?
because finally I realise that definitely the day when people play standing instead of sitting are far far away (even with the consumer version already out in the stores). Gamers just love play sitting in the couch. Even with a very good tracking system for a gun and body still it will be a thing for a minor percent of people.
SO developers should face that fact. What you proposed is very fine, also I thought about using the d-pad of game controller as a fast turning device ,remember the fast 180º in Resident Evil 3?, something like that but with 90º to left and right too.

I realised that fast turning with mouse produce a lot less motion sickness than turning with left stick of controller (the faster the better).
and I should admit that initially I was a strong advocate to play standing when using the rift but I think we should face the facts, the sooner the better.

[stevetb]

I think what I'm missing the most in every OR game/demo is..

Oh snap, I guessed wrong. I thought this would be a discussion about my obvious concern which is CALIBRATION. But yes, the continual mouse to body rotation really does me in too. I like the "Hold Button to Rotate" idea.

-Steve

[JoeReMi]

I think it's a good idea to try to combat motion sickness by mapping body movement to headtracking, but if we are talking about a scenario where you are sitting (or standing without turning), the problem of your approach is:

What happens when your virtual body turns and matches the direction of your virtual head, but in reality your torso is still facing forward and your head is facing left or right? That wouldn't fell very natural (especially if you're tracking your hands as well), and if you wanted to turn again in the same direction you would have to turn your head 180 degrees "the exorcist" style..

I hadn't considered this, so I suppose it would only work standing and turning. You would have to turn your real body as well, but then it should feel quite natural. As we set movement sensitivity, there might be a 'line-up' speed setting that each player could customise as well?

[PatimPatam]

Hmm ok sorry i think i might have misunderstood the original post.. i assumed it worked like JoeReMi said; that when you press the button your virtual torso would align with your virtual head. As mentioned, that would only work on a standing and physically turning scenario.

Still not very clear on how you think it should work skyrimer, could you explain with a bit more detail your idea? For instance, let's assume your head and your torso are both facing forward (in VR and in RL), then you look to your right 90 degrees and see an exit door, so you want your virtual head and torso to face that direction. How would you do it?

Would you have to turn your head to the left looking forward again, then press the button, then turn your head to the right say about 30 degrees to start the motion, then wait until your virtual torso turns 90 degrees (and your virtual head is at 120 degrees), then stop pressing the button and finally turn your head to the left 30 degrees so your RL head and torso are aligned again? Is this correct? If it's like that it sounds a bit complicated, but maybe it could work with a bit of practice.. it could actually help with motion sickness since virtual rotational acceleration would always be mapped to rotation acceleration of your head in RL (but not rotational velocity, you would still rotate in VR while your real head is in fact still). Certainly i think it's worth a try.

Ufff I know, this kind of stuff is hard to explain only with words..

[3dRat]

i think at this stage is better keep head an torso as one single object, I mean for yawing

[angrybob]

Still not very clear on how you think it should work skyrimer, could you explain with a bit more detail your idea? For instance, let's assume your head and your torso are both facing forward (in VR and in RL), then you look to your right 90 degrees and see an exit door, so you want your virtual head and torso to face that direction. How would you do it?

I think the idea is that you'd turn your head, see the exit door, and then hold the button. Your VR body would turn to face the door, but your VR head rotation still maps to your RL head rotation, so to keep the door in view you'd have to turn your RL head back as your VR body turns.

I really like this idea. I also like the idea of mapping the turn button to one trigger and the walk button to the other. Great suggestions, guys.

[PatimPatam]

I think the idea is that you'd turn your head, see the exit door, and then hold the button. Your VR body would turn to face the door, but your VR head rotation still maps to your RL head rotation, so to keep the door in view you'd have to turn your RL head back as your VR body turns.

Yes this could work, but do you realize that in this case your head would turn in RL while your vision would show it's not moving inside VR? I'm not sure if this would help with VR sickness or if would be even worse than the standard gamepad solution.. would have to try!

[skyrimer]

OK, so I wasn't too clear with this.

What I meant was that you hold the turn button, and then if you move your head slightly, say 10 degrees to the right, you would start to turn slowly and constantly to the right, and you would stop turning the moment you didn't hold the button anymore. If you turn the head even more, say 20 degrees, you would turn faster, or basically make it gradually, the more you turn your head, the faster you turn. Doing this lets you control exactly the moment the turn starts, the moment the turn ends and the speed of the turn, helping to avoid motion sickness based on the brain not reading properly the turn movement.

As someone mentioned, I think this is quite a natural way to simulate turning since we first look to turn then walk straight.

As mentioned also, this would leave your head pointing to a direction while your body is facing forward, that's why I didn't mean the turn to be 1:1 on the head, just a small turn on your head to activate a constant turn on the proper direction while while the button is hold. It's not a perfect solution, however this already happens with the OR, since Tuscany and many other demos and games let you walk in the direction you're looking at, this would only help to make bigger turns without using the mouse or pad, which I find extremely disorienting. In any case, you could hold the turn button, move your head right 20 degrees for a fast constant turn, and then slowly center your view to slow the turn until you halt the movement at the exact position you want and keep your view centered.

I'm sorry since I'm Spanish, so i have issues expressing ideas in English.

[PatimPatam]

Ok thanks, it's clear now, i think fairly close to my 2nd guess.. i believe it could work with a bit of tweaking.

Your english is pretty good btw, feel free to share more ideas!

[TheHolyChicken]

OK, so I wasn't too clear with this.

What I meant was that you hold the turn button, and then if you move your head slightly, say 10 degrees to the right, you would start to turn slowly and constantly to the right, and you would stop turning the moment you didn't hold the button anymore. If you turn the head even more, say 20 degrees, you would turn faster, or basically make it gradually, the more you turn your head, the faster you turn. Doing this lets you control exactly the moment the turn starts, the moment the turn ends and the speed of the turn, helping to avoid motion sickness based on the brain not reading properly the turn movement.

As someone mentioned, I think this is quite a natural way to simulate turning since we first look to turn then walk straight.

As mentioned also, this would leave your head pointing to a direction while your body is facing forward, that's why I didn't mean the turn to be 1:1 on the head, just a small turn on your head to activate a constant turn on the proper direction while while the button is hold. It's not a perfect solution, however this already happens with the OR, since Tuscany and many other demos and games let you walk in the direction you're looking at, this would only help to make bigger turns without using the mouse or pad, which I find extremely disorienting. In any case, you could hold the turn button, move your head right 20 degrees for a fast constant turn, and then slowly center your view to slow the turn until you halt the movement at the exact position you want and keep your view centered.

I'm sorry since I'm Spanish, so i have issues expressing ideas in English.

This essentially sounds to me like converting your head into an enormous analogue stick while a button is pressed. I'm not convinced this is going to help at all. What happens if the player looks up/down during this period, or tilts their head; would the headtracking for those movements continue as normal? Or would they be frozen? Either you must freeze all conventional headtracking during this time, or tilt & pitch is permitted, but yaw is not. The former is definitely not ideal, but the latter sounds really unpleasant to me.

I believe the best option is for us to stand up for first-person games, using wireless controllers like the STEM. I do, however, understand that some people want to sit down, and those guys are just going to have to accept that by sitting down their virtual head orientation MUST be manipulated somehow. I don't know if this can ever be pleasant - I don't think the blame rests in the method of manipulating your head orientation, but simply the fact that head orientation is messed with in the first place. If we are going to mess with the player's head orientation, the player is going to want precise and reliable control over exactly how and when head orientation is manipulated.

[PatimPatam]

Pitch and roll don't need to be frozen, yaw would not be frozen either, but it would behave a bit differently: it would affect the speed of your turn instead of the direction you're looking at. I think having direct control over yaw while you're turning is not that important (and could be actually one of the main reasons of VR sickness, since VR and RL don't match).

I believe this could be a precise and reliable control method over exactly how and when head orientation is manipulated, but of course there's only one way to find out

[yoshithedog]

What I meant was that you hold the turn button, and then if you move your head slightly, say 10 degrees to the right, you would start to turn slowly and constantly to the right, and you would stop turning the moment you didn't hold the button anymore. If you turn the head even more, say 20 degrees, you would turn faster, or basically make it gradually, the more you turn your head, the faster you turn.

With this approach it would take (theoretically) an infinite amount of time to turn to an object while constantly looking at it (the difference between body and head would get smaller and smaller, thus the rotation would get slower and slower).
So I think maybe a good solution would be to make your character turn to the point you were looking at in the moment of pressing a button, so you had to counter the rotation with your head.
And make it faster the more you want to turn, so for example it would take 0.5 second for a 20 degree turn and 0.8 (instead of 3) second for a 120 degree turn.

EDIT: Or, even better! Use skyrimers approach, but with the speed constant as long as you are holding a button (so that rotation speed would be set in the moment of pressing it, based on your head azimuth).
Or maybe that is what you meant?

[TheHolyChicken]

yaw would not be frozen either, but it would behave a bit differently: it would affect the speed of your turn instead of the direction you're looking at.

Exactly - yaw movements no longer trigger headtracking, but instead do EXACTLY what pushing left or right on an analogue stick does. I don't see how this is really any different, or better, than just using an analogue stick.

[TheHolyChicken]

I think this video is very relevant and might get the ideas flowing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkATuxo2c8

It is a video discussing the various control schemes available to Hydra users through the Sixense MotionCreator. As you will see from watching the video, many of the control schemes and ideas can also be applied to the Rift's headtracking.

[PatimPatam]

yaw would not be frozen either, but it would behave a bit differently: it would affect the speed of your turn instead of the direction you're looking at.

Exactly - yaw movements no longer trigger headtracking, but instead do EXACTLY what pushing left or right on an analogue stick does. I don't see how this is really any different, or better, than just using an analogue stick.

The key difference (as i explained in my 2nd post of this thread) is that with this method yaw acceleration of your head in RL would always match with yaw acceleration of your view inside VR. Not exactly 1:1, but at least it would match direction and timing.

I believe one of the main reasons for VR sickness is acceleration disparities with RL, not velocity disparities (that's why games with constant speeds like "Shiny" don't usually induce VR sickness to people).

[TheHolyChicken]

Exactly - yaw movements no longer trigger headtracking, but instead do EXACTLY what pushing left or right on an analogue stick does. I don't see how this is really any different, or better, than just using an analogue stick.

The key difference (as i explained in my 2nd post of this thread) is that with this method yaw acceleration of your head in RL would always match with yaw acceleration of your view inside VR.

No it wouldn't. I don't really know what else to say than to simply flat out refute it. Acceleration would not match at all.

Imagine if your head is stationary at 0°. Its velocity and acceleration are zero. You turn your head to 45° and then stop again. During that period your head acceleration spiked initially, reaching a certain angular velocity, and then decelerated very swiftly at the end, so that acceleration and velocity are both zero.

The method suggested would mean that the virtual head's rate of rotation would increase very gradually during this motion, from nothing initially up to its maximum, and then maintains its velocity indefinitely; there is no deceleration (acceleration returns to zero, but never reverses direction). The real head and virtual head's initial accelerations are very different too. This would probably be easier to visualise with graphs, but you really don't want to see my paint skills.

I believe one of the main reasons for VR sickness is acceleration disparities with RL, not velocity disparities (that's why games with constant speeds like "Shiny" don't usually induce VR sickness to people).

How would you have acceleration disparities without velocity disparities? The two are intrinsically linked. It is impossible to have a discrepancy in one and not the other.

I just had a look at 'Shiny'. In that demo the player entity moves forward at a constant velocity the entire time. The player's headtracking is never interfered with, and is always 1:1. It might be a great example of a game that is unlikely to provoke v-sickness, but it does not help answer the question of how a seated player might comfortably look at what is behind him.

[PatimPatam]

Imagine if your head is stationary at 0°. Its velocity and acceleration are zero. You turn your head to 45° and then stop again. During that period your head acceleration spiked initially, reaching a certain angular velocity, and then decelerated very swiftly at the end, so that acceleration and velocity are both zero.

Ok you're correct, the deceleration wouldn't match, but the initial acceleration would (i know, not 1:1). I still think that could help reduce motion sickness over the standard gamepad method, but i would have to try.

How would you have acceleration disparities without velocity disparities?

I didn't say that, you did. But you can have velocity disparities without acceleration disparities.

The two are intrinsically linked. It is impossible to have a discrepancy in one and not the other.

Yes it is possible. Shiny is a perfect example: there's a big discrepancy in velocity between seating in front of your computer and travelling hundreds of miles per hour through some sort of funky galactic black hole. But there are no acceleration discrepancies, that's why you don't get VR sick.

[TheHolyChicken]

Imagine if your head is stationary at 0°. Its velocity and acceleration are zero. You turn your head to 45° and then stop again. During that period your head acceleration spiked initially, reaching a certain angular velocity, and then decelerated very swiftly at the end, so that acceleration and velocity are both zero.

Ok you're correct, the deceleration wouldn't match, but the initial acceleration would (i know, not 1:1).

It might be accelerating in the same direction, but the magnitude of that acceleration would be incredibly, incredibly different. If the user's head turns quickly, his head's angular acceleration would spike extremely high, yet the virtual head would barely be rotating yet.

The two are intrinsically linked. It is impossible to have a discrepancy in one and not the other.

Yes it is possible. Shiny is a perfect example: there's a big discrepancy in velocity between seating in front of your computer and travelling hundreds of miles per hour through some sort of funky galactic black hole. But there are no acceleration discrepancies, that's why you don't get VR sick.

I am talking about headtracking - you are not. This whole discussion was supposed to be about a control scheme for seated play that might permit the user to comfortably rotate an avatar to look behind him. 'Shiny' has 1:1 headtracking at all times, with no utility for helping a player look behind him, and so is not relevant to this discussion.

[PatimPatam]

I am talking about headtracking - you are not. This whole discussion was supposed to be about a control scheme for seated play that might permit the user to comfortably rotate an avatar to look behind him. 'Shiny' has 1:1 headtracking at all times, with no utility for helping a player look behind him, and so is not relevant to this discussion.

It was an analogy, even without taking headtracking into account, simple forward acceleration will make people sick in VR, forward speed will not. I think the same applies to rotational acceleration and velocity and i think it's very relevant; if you don't see it that way then fair enough.

It might be accelerating in the same direction, but the magnitude of that acceleration would be incredibly, incredibly different. If the user's head turns quickly, his head's angular acceleration would spike extremely high, yet the virtual head would barely be rotating yet.

Well i think this could be tweaked quite easily to obtain a good enough approximation. I believe the brain could be quite forgiving in regards to the magnitude of the acceleration as long as there is one. Also even without the benefit of matching acceleration the simple fact that yaw headtracking is much more precise than a gamepad thumbstick could be a huge bonus, as you could control the exact pace of your turn.

I really don't understand why you seem so reluctant to people even giving this a try. If someone doesn't do it before me, i plan to build a quick prototype to test it myself, and maybe share it if i think it's worth it. If it doesn't work then i will come back here and tell you how right you were.

Btw i think if we want VR to be successful this time, we better find the best way to let people play while seated.

[TheHolyChicken]

I am talking about headtracking - you are not. This whole discussion was supposed to be about a control scheme for seated play that might permit the user to comfortably rotate an avatar to look behind him. 'Shiny' has 1:1 headtracking at all times, with no utility for helping a player look behind him, and so is not relevant to this discussion.

It was an analogy, even without taking headtracking into account, simple forward acceleration will make people sick in VR, forward speed will not. I think the same applies to rotational acceleration and velocity and i think it's very relevant; if you don't see it that way then fair enough.

I simply do not understand how the same concept might be applied to headtracking, that's all. Shiny "cheats" in that the acceleration/deceleration of the player's entity is never witnessed. You cannot hide a manipulation of headtracking (or CAN you.... perhaps it might work to instantly spin the player in 90° increments to the left/right upon a button press, instead of trying to do it gradually).

It might be accelerating in the same direction, but the magnitude of that acceleration would be incredibly, incredibly different. If the user's head turns quickly, his head's angular acceleration would spike extremely high, yet the virtual head would barely be rotating yet.

Well i think this could be tweaked quite easily to obtain a good enough approximation. I believe the brain could be quite forgiving in regards to the magnitude of the acceleration as long as there is one. Also even without the benefit of matching acceleration the simple fact that yaw headtracking is much more precise than a gamepad thumbstick could be a huge bonus, as you could control the exact pace of your turn.

I really don't understand why you seem so reluctant to people even giving this a try.

I'm absolutely not discouraging people to experiment - the more experimentation the better. If you believe in something you should absolutely try it out and see how it pans out in practice. I was simply pointing out that the scheme, mechanically, sounds exactly like converting your head into an analogue stick, with the caveat that removing/interfering with the user's yaw headtracking might be uncomfortable. Perhaps the extra rotation could be COMBINED with the yaw headtracking, so that there is not such a jarring difference in the head orientation?

[brantlew]

The great thing about control schemes is that they are really easy to experiment with - even for novice coders. Grab the source to Tuscany, add a couple dozen lines of code, and you can test out any of these ideas.

[PatimPatam]

I simply do not understand how the same concept might be applied to headtracking, that's all. Shiny "cheats" in that the acceleration/deceleration of the player's entity is never witnessed. You cannot hide a manipulation of headtracking (or CAN you.... perhaps it might work to instantly spin the player in 90° increments to the left/right upon a button press, instead of trying to do it gradually).

With this method, after the initial head acceleration/deceleration, you are tricking your brain in a similar way to "Shiny": constant velocity turn in VR vs no velocity at all in RL. The tricky part and the one that affects VR sickness is the acceleration bit, not the velocity. That's all i was trying to imply.

I was simply pointing out that the scheme, mechanically, sounds exactly like converting your head into an analogue stick, with the caveat that removing/interfering with the user's yaw headtracking might be uncomfortable. Perhaps the extra rotation could be COMBINED with the yaw headtracking, so that there is not such a jarring difference in the head orientation?

Ok, maybe i didn't explain myself well enough before when i said: "it would affect the speed of your turn instead of the direction you're looking at".

I meant that you wouldn't be able to turn right and look to your left at the same time for instance, but that doesn't mean that your head and torso would be "locked". Your head yaw would still be consistent in respect to your virtual body, so i really don't think that it would be that jarring.

The great thing about control schemes is that they are really easy to experiment with - even for novice coders. Grab the source to Tuscany, add a couple dozen lines of code, and you can test out any of these ideas.

Very true. I plan to!

[angrybob]

I believe the best option is for us to stand up for first-person games, using wireless controllers like the STEM. I do, however, understand that some people want to sit down, and those guys are just going to have to accept that by sitting down their virtual head orientation MUST be manipulated somehow

Tell that to my swivel chair

But seriously, while I agree that having a 1:1 RL head to VR head mapping would be optimal, it seems like the Rift will probably be wired for the immediate future, even if the controllers are wireless. I'd love to see a practical setup that allows unlimited head rotation with a wired Rift, but I'm not gonna hold out for one.

[3dRat]

Hey PatimPatam (or any one else ) if you build a demo to try your idea (even could it be a hack to the tuscany) could you please try what I suggestted too? It seems to be very different aproach of what I originally understood of thread's author idea... I could draw some pictures if you want me to explain it better... but the RE3 example I think is clear would be a fast turn but not instant turn, and after a turn the torso always will be aligned with head.

[PatimPatam]

Hey PatimPatam (or any one else ) if you build a demo to try your idea (even could it be a hack to the tuscany) could you please try what I suggestted too? It seems to be very different aproach of what I originally understood of thread's author idea... I could draw some pictures if you want me to explain it better... but the RE3 example I think is clear would be a fast turn but not instant turn, and after a turn the torso always will be aligned with head.

Yep your suggestion seems fairly simple to implement, can't promise anything but will give it a try when i find the time.

[Kamus]

A turn button. Almost all motion sickness in the games and demos I've played come from the moment you have to turn around, since you have to do it using the mouse or pad and it simply messes with your brain since most of the time the speed and direction of the turn are not exactly what your brain is expecting. I wish there was a button I could hold, and then when I look left or right with the OR, I started to turn in that direction until I stopped holding that button. Imho it would feel a lot more natural that using the mouse or gamepad, and probably with time it would become second nature to turn just by looking on any direction while holding that button.

That wouldn't solve it IMHO.

I do believe that this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be addressed for sickness free VR. (and the fact that it breaks the immersion a lot)

However, i think there is only one proper way to solve this. And that's by turning and walking yourself.

[3dRat]

That wouldn't solve it IMHO.

I do believe that this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be addressed for sickness free VR. (and the fact that it breaks the immersion a lot)

However, i think there is only one proper way to solve this. And that's by turning and walking yourself.

sadly.. because if there is no feasible alternative then vr will never wiill take off

[xhonzi]

I am in the "look one way and walk another" party. Looking to what I think is my left only to find my feet have turned beneath me seems odd.

However, I have found in, in The Gallery demo for example, that what I think is forward (my head squarely over my shoulders) isn't what my virtual body thinks forward is. The only solution to this is to rotate your actual body to match the virtual one. However, I think it's obvious that a button that says "point my body in the direction I am now looking" would solve that for me and mine as well as those in the "walk the direction I am looking" party. I assume this button will be standard once these software products get out of "demo" and "alpha" phases.

And it will be made obsolete once there's a sensor on the body and that guess work goes out of it.

[yoshithedog]

That wouldn't solve it IMHO.

I do believe that this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be addressed for sickness free VR. (and the fact that it breaks the immersion a lot)

However, i think there is only one proper way to solve this. And that's by turning and walking yourself.

sadly.. because if there is no feasible alternative then vr will never wiill take off

I think that twisting your torso to turn (basically using it like right analog stick) would be good. Needs a sensor strapped to your chest or some Kinect though. It would work when seated.

[WiredEarp]

I've tried that actually yoshithedog. Its better, but still not perfect. I was using a track IR mounted onto a hat brim that I had attached to the back of my hips. A wiimote or similar could do a similar job, but id use the optical portion if you are using the turning as a stick, to avoid drift.

[serrarens]

Turning in a game certainly is an cause of sickness if it is not matched to the actual head movements.

I am working on Inverse Kinematics solutions for the hand using the Razer Hydra.

This weekend I came to the conclusion that the Y rotation (which is the upward axis in Unity) of the hands is almost always matching the direction of the body. What would happen if I took the average direction of the two hands and turned the virtual body in that direction? It solves the motion sickness!
For this to work you have to stand up and turn your body (which is detected by the hands) to turn your virtual body. Head movements are completely driven by the Rift. Apart from the occasional strangling with the wires it works beautiful: walking around without a hint of sickness.

For the sitting down scenario I think the best solution is to us a real-life solution for this: an electrical wheelchair. Your virtual me could drive around in a way many real persons are very used to. I haven't tried it out yet, but I think it should work. Don't know whether every gamers feels comfortable in a wheelchair .

Pascal.

[WiredEarp]

At a recent electronic entertainment expo in NZ, there was a Unity Rift demo done by some university students that used a real wheelchair to get around, avoiding the hassles we are having with realistic walking. They did it by simply mounting an existing wheelchair to small wheels (to allow the main wheelchair wheels to turn), and used mice to read the rotations of the wheelchair wheels.

[TheHolyChicken]

This weekend I came to the conclusion that the Y rotation (which is the upward axis in Unity) of the hands is almost always matching the direction of the body. What would happen if I took the average direction of the two hands and turned the virtual body in that direction? It solves the motion sickness!
For this to work you have to stand up and turn your body (which is detected by the hands) to turn your virtual body. Head movements are completely driven by the Rift. Apart from the occasional strangling with the wires it works beautiful: walking around without a hint of sickness.

Sounds interesting, though do you have any thoughts on when users want to interact with the world, eg shoot guns in different directions? I'd imagine the move direction might start to get erratic!

[serrarens]

Walking forward and shooting both hands to the right won't work, because that will make the body turn right too. Besides that, you head will (probably) also look to the right. So we don't have any sensor information (hydra, rift) telling we want to walk straight ahead, therefore the system will conclude you are walking to the right.

Apart from using one hydra sensor for the body (which I do not want to do, as I want to have two hands), I do not have a solution to this yet. For me, this is no problem, because usually the hands are not doing much during walking (in a realistic everyday situation).

Pascal.