Valve posted a new video in which developers Half-Life: Alyx Jason Mitchell, Luke Nalker, Greg Kumer and the Roland Show talked about how the player’s movement system was created in a VR shooter.
At the exit, the game received three modes of movement: teleport, teleport with offset and smooth glide. The authors began development with teleporters, as they were already used in The lab, another Valve VR game.
The destination indicator was replaced on its feet, and later virtual tracks were added, which became a representation of the path search system. It determines where the player can teleport, but takes into account not only the destination, but also the obstacles to him.
One bug was connected with this, when some testers hit their low hanging pipes with their virtual heads. Only after some time, the developers realized that the bug occurred among high players.
Initially, the path finding system required to crouch in order to overcome some obstacles, but many gamers did not understand this, as they concentrated on the final position. As a result, the authors introduced the standard minimum size of the virtual body for the intermediate parts of the path.
Half-Life: Alyx also wanted players to trust the mobility system. For this, priority was made to move along the floor, so that during battles, when the indication of the destination becomes inaccurate, the system meets the expectations of gamers.
In addition, the trust is facilitated by a partial movement, which is triggered when the player’s final position is not visible from the initial position. As a result, gamers teleport to the edge of a cliff or to a place to jump down, rather than fall into a hole.
Finally, the developers did not forget about the sounds that describe the player’s movement after the teleport, hand movement to get ammunition, squats, turns and much more.
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