Scripting, space design and user movement in room-scale VR: Storytelling strategies to direct gesture and gaze

Abstract

This text draws on the experience of developing and exhibiting two room-scale VR artworks in order to discuss the relationship between scripting, virtual space design, and interactive design with the audience's movements and expected position in the VR and physical space. Different design and scripting strategies allow or impede to anticipate the specific position of the audience at any given time, and this anticipation is key to articulate the virtual elements in a way that responds to not just the gaze but also the overall movement of the person wearing the headset. Both artworks present different approaches from this point of view. In comparing them, two main design choices are shown to particularly affect this possibility of anticipation: simplicity vs. complexity of visual and interactive elements, and sequencing vs. simultaneity. While none of the design strategies is more desirable than the other per se, these conclusions shed some light on how to script and design for VR experiences in terms of deciding how much the artist wants to control, or anticipate, the body movements of their audience when experiencing their piece.