Effectiveness of virtual reality in gamers versus non-gamers

In 2013, a new generation of consumer virtual reality systems began to be developed and marketed towards people with experience playing 3D video games. Since then, the consumer virtual reality market has increased dramatically with many virtual reality devices and pieces of software being available on the market today with garners still being a focus of much of the market. While a lot of research has gone into virtual reality over the years, little of it has focused on whether or not garners experience virtual reality in a different way than people without experience playing video games. This paper explores research that has been conducted on virtual reality through this lens and asserts that more experimental research should be conducted with virtual reality's effectiveness with garners and non-garners as this may dramatically influence the direction of virtual reality hardware and software in the coming years.Honors CollegeThesis (B.?

Urban Games: Convergence of physical and virtual

Redefining the city as interactive media can reveal new possibilities for architects and designers. Today, designers must augment architecture and urbanism by incorporating new aspects of virtual habitation. This paper investigates contemporary attitudes toward digital public spaces, from media facades, augmented reality games, and mobile apps to guerrilla-like techniques such as tactical media, activist gaming, and electronic civil disobedience. It looks at these notions as renewed forms of public participation that build upon the past analog models. It touches on the relationship between ownership and authorship of the public realm, and the role design, art, and technology play in this balance. Ubiquitous technologies, democratization of access to and means of creative production, and virtualization of physicality allow for broader participation in cultural authorship and ownership, an opportunity that may not be fully realized if not embraced effectively. In this redefined image of the city, online and mobile games become important contributor to genius loci and emerging social networks. Furthermore, this paper discusses the mutually-informing relationship between the imaginary (virtual) and the real (physical). It presents the city as a virtual construct modulated by pervasive and ubiquitous computing, social networking, and (geo)location-based participatory events such as augmented reality (AR) gaming. In the perceptual dimension, video games, such as Grand Auto Theft, Mirror's Edge, or Assassins' Creed, are becoming potent advocates or adversaries of traditional image (notion) of the city. The combination of purely virtual reality (VR) game cities and augmented reality (AR), information-laced and geo-located environments transforms our expectations towards urban landscapes. This paper investigates the following aspects of augmented urbanisms: the virtual city of computer games and movie narratives, the physical city overlaid with virtual information accessible via augmented reality browsers and electronic social networks. It also looks into how these new electronic agents facilitate an unconventional use of the city

First Person and Third Person Perspective in Virtual Reality: Analysis of Cybersickness Symptoms

Advances in technology makes it easier to gain access to the virtual world. This has led to more and more application and games being targeted towards the virtual world. But with the growing popularity of the virtual world, cybersickness has grown in popularity as well. This study aims to evaluate the factors affecting cybersickness in the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. There are few factors causing the effect of cybersickness in VR like duration, field of view, speed, habituation, and susceptibility of said user. Those factors affect differently in first person perspective(1pp) and third person perspective(3pp). To measure the cybersickness, a Virtual Reality Questionnaire (VRSQ) measurement index is utilized. The experiment was conducted with the following settings. The participants consisted of 20 males and 4 females who never used VR before. They performed task using short games. It consisted in total of 4 tasks (2 types of game (action and adventure) x 2 perspective (1pp and 3pp) = 4 tasks). The Latin Square design was used to minimize the effect of order. Then, a questionnaire was conducted after each treatment. Paired Dependent T-Tests was performed to check if there are differences in oculomotor, disorientation and VRSQ total score. There was a significant difference in 1pp and 3pp in both games. It is recommended to use third person perspective to reduce the cybersickness in VR environment

The Effectiveness of Computer-Assisted Learning, 3D Simulations, Video Games, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality Technology as Learning Tools in Construction Education

Construction education, like many current educational programs, primarily relies upon teaching methods based on traditional lectures delivered “live” or “face-to-face” by a professor, who may also provide lists of notes about the subject taught. This traditional method, however, can be rather lackluster and unengaging, especially for contemporary students who are used to rapid visual stimulation such as that found on the internet, social media, and in gaming environments. While the construction industry is now adopting advanced virtual reality and augmented reality programs as tools for work, these same technologies have great potential as educational tools that can revolutionize learning methods. This study will analyze current literature about the use of video games in education, computer-based learning methods, and 3D simulations and virtual reality, and augmented reality in education. The objective of this paper is to answer the following questions. First, what is the mean distribution of using computer-assisted learning, 3D Simulations, virtual reality, video games, and augmented reality as educational learning tools have a statistically significant increase in the learning achievement of students? Second, what is the mean distribution of using computer-assisted learning, 3D Simulations, virtual reality, video games, and augmented reality as educational learning tools have a statistically significant increase of student’s attitude towards learning objectives

Exploring English as an Additional Language Students’ Perceived Engagement in and Experience of Content Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention Through Immersive Virtual Reality Games

This thesis aimed to explore whether headset-mounted display virtual reality (HMD VR) games could serve as an innovative approach to enhance content vocabulary learning and foster subject content knowledge of Years 7 and 8 Middle Eastern students. Specifically, it aimed to measure these students’ content specific vocabulary acquisition and retention, examine their perceptions of and attitudes towards VR game-based learning, and offer best practices for educational institutions that support culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) learners

A data-driven approach towards a realistic and generic crowd simulation framework

Jacob Sinclair studied and developed a data-driven approach towards a realistic and generic crowd simulation framework. He found that by using virtual reality and questionnaires, we can gather all types of real world data. He also found that an AI framework developed using all types of data can produce similar results to the real world. This AI framework has the potential to be used to improve areas such as emergency management and response, traffic control, building design, video games, etc

More than buttons on controllers: engaging social interactions in narrative VR games through social attitudes detection

People can understand how human interaction unfolds and can pinpoint social attitudes such as showing interest or social engagement with a conversational partner. However, summarising this with a set of rules is difficult, as our judgement is sometimes subtle and subconscious. Hence, it is challenging to program agents or non-player characters (NPCs) to react towards social signals appropriately, which is important for immersive narrative games in Virtual Reality (VR). We present a collaborative work between two game studios (Maze Theory and Dream Reality Interactive) and academia to develop an immersive machine learning (ML) pipeline for detecting social engagement. Here we introduce the motivation and the methodology of the immersive ML pipeline, then we cover the motivation for the industry-academia collaboration, how it progressed, the implications of joined work on the industry and reflective insights on the collaboration. Overall, we highlight the industry-academia collaborative work on an immersive ML pipeline for detecting social engagement. We demonstrate how creatives could use ML and VR to expand their ability to design more engaging commercial games

Facilitating Keyboard Use While Wearing a Head-Mounted Display

Virtual reality (VR) headsets are becoming more common and will require evolving input mechanisms to support a growing range of applications. Because VR devices require users to wear head-mounted displays, there are accomodations that must be made in order to support specific input devices. One such device, a keyboard, serves as a useful tool for text entry. Many users will require assistance towards using a keyboard when wearing a head-mounted display. Developers have explored new mechanisms to overcome the challenges of text-entry for virtual reality. Several games have toyed with the idea of using motion controllers to provide a text entry mechanism, however few investigations have made on how to assist users in using a physical keyboard while wearing a head-mounted display. As an alternative to controller based text input, I propose that a software tool could facilitate the use of a physical keyboard in virtual reality. Using computer vision, a user€™s hands could be projected into the virtual world. With the ability to see the location of their hands relative to the keyboard, users will be able to type despite the obstruction caused by the head-mounted display (HMD). The viability of this approach was tested and the tool released as a plugin for the Unity development platform. The potential uses for the plugin go beyond text entry, and the project can be expanded to include many physical input devices