Today we are introducing a new locomotion system that we call Telepath, designed to offer more engaging movement in VR. With it comes a significant expansion to Waltz of the Wizard — an entirely new area full of traps and supernatural guardians is now accessible from the main scene, developed to showcase some of the new sensations and possibilities that Telepath offers.
Check out the post on our development blog for an in-depth overview of Telepath and its design principles, along with more gifs of Telepath in action.
Introduction to Telepath
Telepath is a new approach to VR locomotion that combines elements of teleporting and linear movement. Our design goals were not to make conventional locomotion work in VR, but to devise an intuitive system that better emulates the experience of how we accomplish locomotion in reality and better preserves our freedom to move physically.
Telepath is a path-based system that lets users instantly define where to go and how to get there with an intuitive wave of the hand. It offers linear movement that’s comfortable and affords users more time to focus on being physically present in the world. In other words, it gets artificial locomotion out of the user’s way as much as possible to make room for physical engagement.
The controls do not require repeated and continuous button presses for movement like many conventional locomotion schemes. We wanted to avoid constantly keeping the user’s mind on the act of artificial movement. In real life we don’t consciously think about every single step we take — we intuitively decide to go somewhere and then our feet naturally carry us until we decide otherwise. This is a core experience that our solution aims to capture. Drawing a path becomes an act that’s easy to do frequently and effortlessly with precision — taking only a fraction of a second once you get the hang of it. This makes it easy to rapidly change where you’re going, affording greater sense of freedom and control.
Telepath lets us decide a destination and the way to get there in a single sweep, then automates movement in steps between waypoints where we get time to move physically (overall maintaining human walking speed). In other words, automation offers more mental freedom to concentrate on physical actions during the artificial movement process, while waypoints afford a better opportunity to perform them with confidence — dodging swords, picking up objects or taking a step to peek around a corner. Physical user action can also tie into Telepath’s controls and the implementation being releasing today includes swinging your arms in a running motion to move faster.
The end-result is an intuitive system that makes VR locomotion feel more natural. A linear locomotion approach that encourages greater physical engagement and simultaneously minimizes risk of discomfort.
Next Steps
What we’re releasing today is Telepath’s basic implementation, out of a number of additional options and variations under development. Our testing has shown that while Telepath may seem alien at first, it quickly becomes familiar and delivers an exceptionally liberating and natural experience. We look forward to sharing more about Telepath’s possibilities in the near future.
As we have for all these years, we encourage and welcome feedback from our fans and the VR community. Ultimately only you can answer how Telepath compares to other solutions already out there!
Thank you and happy Halloween!