Comfortable locomotion in VR: Teleportation is not a complete solution

Abstract

We compared two common techniques of controller-based locomotion (teleportation and steering locomotion) in virtual reality (VR) in terms of the cybersickness they produce. Participants had to continuously navigate a commercial VR application for 16 minutes using each technique, while standing and seated. While teleportation produced less cybersickness than steering locomotion on average, a number of participants reported teleportation to be more sickening. These 'telesick' participants were found to have greater medio/lateral positional variability in their spontaneous postural sway than 'steersick' participants prior to VR exposure. We conclude that different individuals may require unique techniques to comfortably locomote in VR.