Virtual Reality Locomotion Techniques and User Experience

Virtual reality (VR) locomotion techniques encompass a range of methods designed to enable users to traverse virtual environments, each with distinct implications for immersion, usability and comfort. Traditional real-walking maps physical steps directly into the virtual world, maximising presence but requiring ample physical space. Walking-in-place simulates gait through repetitive stationary movements, reducing spatial demand at the cost of potential discomfort or cognitive load. Controller-based methods, including joysticks and touchpads, offer precise control and familiarity but often diminish the sense of natural movement. Teleportation instantaneously relocates users to selected destinations, minimising cybersickness yet interrupting spatial continuity. Redirected walking subtly rotates or bends the virtual scene to keep users within limited tracking areas, balancing natural gait with practical constraints. Emerging solutions incorporate omnidirectional treadmills and gesture-based controls to combine physical activity with unlimited exploration. Across these modalities, user experience is shaped by factors such as simulator sickness, ease of learning, sense of agency and physical fatigue. Ongoing research seeks to optimise these trade-offs, with applications spanning gaming, training, rehabilitation and accessible design.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have probed the perceptual underpinnings of redirected walking, revealing that individual differences in visual dependency critically influence redirection detection thresholds. By assessing multisensory weighting through measures such as the rod-and-frame test and postural stability metrics, researchers demonstrated that participants with stronger visual reliance exhibit higher tolerance to scene manipulations before noticing curvature. This insight elucidates the “visual capture” of gait and guides the calibration of curvature gains to maintain immersion while maximising virtual traversal within constrained physical spaces.

Virtual Reality Locomotion Techniques and User Experience publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in virtual reality locomotion techniques and user experience across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Redirected walking: VR technique that subtly rotates or warps the virtual environment around the user to enable natural walking within a limited physical area.

Curvature gain: The ratio of virtual path curvature to real-world walking trajectory, determining the extent of spatial redirection.

Optical flow: The pattern of apparent motion in a visual scene induced by observer movement, used to reinforce the sensation of self-motion (vection).

Teleportation: Locomotion method allowing instantaneous relocation to a chosen point in the virtual world, reducing continuous movement and cybersickness.

Omnidirectional treadmill: A mechanical platform that enables untethered walking in any horizontal direction within a confined space, simulating infinite physical movement.

References

1. The New Era of Virtual Reality Locomotion: A Systematic Literature Review of Techniques and a Proposed Typology. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction (2017).
2. VR Locomotion in the New Era of Virtual Reality: An Empirical Comparison of Prevalent Techniques. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction (2019).
3. Visual capture of gait during redirected walking. Scientific Reports (2018).
4. Effect of optical flow and user VR familiarity on curvature gain thresholds for redirected walking. Virtual Reality (2024).
5. Controlling Teleportation-Based Locomotion in Virtual Reality with Hand Gestures: A Comparative Evaluation of Two-Handed and One-Handed Techniques. Electronics (2021).
6. Using virtual reality treadmill as a locomotion technique in a navigation task: Impact on user experience – case of the KatWalk. International Journal of Virtual Reality (2021).
7. Teleportation in Virtual Reality; A Mini-Review. Frontiers in Virtual Reality (2021).