Experiencing High-Speed Slash Action in Virtual Reality Environment

Abstract

When a user uses a hand controller to swing a virtual sword in a virtual space, the sword movement seems slow if the its trajectory reflects the input directly. We hypothesize that this is because we are accustomed to seeing fast and instantaneous motion through movies or animations, and thus we perceive their motion as relatively slow. To address this issue, we propose a novel method of displaying exaggerated sword motions to allow a virtual reality user to enjoy a fast slash action. This method displays an arc-shaped motion blur effect along the predicted motion when the system detects the start of the slashing motion until the hand controller motion stops. Graphics of the sword are not displayed during this time. Therefore, the user is unaware of the actual trajectory of their input and how far it differs from the exaggerated motion blur effect.