In the world of virtual reality, users expect the on-display movements to sync up with real-life controls. When we raise our left hand, the avatar’s left hand should go up. In some cases, however, the exact opposite happens. This phenomenon is known as spatial desync. Such an experience is very unpleasant, and it will cause a disconnect between the player and the VR environment.
Spatial Desync Is A VR Mood Killer
Consumers often get frustrated if their electronic device does not execute their commands properly. A remote control may require multiple button presses to finally perform an action. Typing a text message on your phone can be extremely frustrating at times. Spatial desync in virtual reality falls into the same frustrating category, albeit it is not as common as most people think.
To be more specific, spatial desync will occur when the virtual avatar moves differently compared to one’s real life moments. This can be extremely frustrating when using motion controllers in VR. Swinging your weapon should result in a similar action in VR. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Motion controllers can benefit from more precision improvements along the way, that much is certain.
Moreover, the feedback provided by these controllers may need to be improved. To be more specific, performing a swinging motion and hitting a solid object should, in theory, halt the forward momentum of your arm. This will happen in VR quite often, but not so in real life. Our physical arm will continue to swing forward, which creates a spatial desync. It can easily pull players out of the immersive environment, which is not a good thing.
A bigger problem occurs when there is an empty space in VR despite there being a solid object in the real world. This can create spatial desync as well. It is a very annoying thing to deal with when moving around vividly while exploring a VR environment.Hitting a couch with your shin while the VR display tells you there is nothing but empty space is quite frustrating. Until VR and real world environments overlap in a precise manner, issues like these will continue to occur every so often.
If you liked this article make sure to follow us on twitter @thevrbase and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with the latest VR trends and news.
