A locomotion system left out of this lecture's list: Arm swinging

The “jogger” movement con was that it has poor detection, which is true due to the way the movement is calculated. Essentially, it uses the erratic up and down movement of the headset to assume that you’re jogging in place, and that you want to move forward. The limitations are that the overall control is very imprecise.

However, arm swinging locomotion accomplishes movement that gives you the same degree of control over speed and precision that you would get from swiping to scroll around on your phone or tablet. You’re swinging your arms in real life and in VR, so the fact that you’re moving makes sense. Combined with inverse kinematics applied to an in-game model, you can also get walking that matches the rate at which you swing your arms, so if you look down, even though your real legs aren’t moving, it still “makes sense.” The vestibular sense is ignored, as you aren’t actually moving, but I think the effectiveness of the illusion on both the visual and proprioceptive senses eclipses that.

The main limitation becomes the fact that because your arms are being used for locomotion, you can’t move while doing two-handed activities; at most, you could swing one arm to move while the other interacts with the game. I think that is a fairly straightforward design challenge, though.

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