Hi guys,
I´m a master student at University for Applied Science in Heilbronn, Germany and currently I´m writing my thesis with the cooperation from Robert Bosch GmbH. My topic is about simulation sickness and more specific reducing the sickness while using a Virtual reality driving simulator. I´m using Oculus Rift DK2 and Logitech driving wheel and pedals, but the chair is a normal office chair without any extras. The app is a driving simulation in real environment using BMW 7.
My thesis´s goal is to find out how to reduce to minimum or completely eliminate the side effect called simulation sickness. For that purpose I would like to invite you to fill in my quick questionnaire, use the link below.
That is interesting question. My project also uses Rift. I think it depens on the actual quality of the graphics and how steady the frame rate is. As long as it does not look to realistic, there is not danger of simulator thickness. Can you show screenshots of your simulator?
Hey! This topic interests me so I thought I would throw in my 2 cents. I’m not the kind of person to get motion sickness period. Not in airplanes, not in cars, but once on a cruise ship I felt somewhat seasick but just masked it with alcohol. When it comes to motion sickness using a HMD in VR, for me this comes down to how VR is implemented into the simulation/game. Not necessarily the HMD or VR by itself. Some VR applications I can spend hours in, some I can only spend minutes. Once I feel nauseous I have to take a couple hour break before going back or it gets worse.
Things that I have noticed that bring on motion sickness in VR:
Bad scaling. Objects don’t appear realistic and or viewing position is not realistic because scale is wrong. If I’m running an application that is from a first person perspective and it appears I’m 10 feet tall that will bring on nausea. If I’m running a VR application where objects are not scaled properly or positioned properly and my brain thinks they are colliding with part of my body than that could also bring on some nausea.
Poor optimization. If the application is poorly optimized and I notice a drop in framerate under 60+ FPS that can sometimes cause nausea. This is why I bought a 980 ti recently.
Non-seated experiences and moving. First person shooters are pretty hard for me to stay in for very long in VR. If I’m sitting in my chair, but in VR I’m using a controller to run around. This feels very weird and if optimization and scaling are also wrong this will definitely cause nausea. Also the speed of walking is usually much faster than walking in real life.
First person perspective and no body. This maybe just me, but I find it very weird to be floating around in space with no connection to a body or the floor. This can make me feel nauseous but sometimes I can overcome it quickly if other things like scaling and performance are ok.
3rd person / birds eye view. I do have a fear of heights so again, this may just be me but being very high up gives me nausea.
Now in the case of driving simulators. Specifically Live for Speed and or iRacing (these are the 2 simulators I’ve run in VR) I get no nausea. I can spend hours driving cars in VR. Our current HMDs are definitely more friendly to seated experiences especially in the case of driving simulators where the actor in the simulator is in the exact same position as your body. When you turn the steering wheel you see the feedback of the wheel turning in the VR simulation, so this is very pleasing to the brain. I can get very immersed in driving simulators for these reasons. I also have the same experience with space simulators like Elite Dangerous. Although the fast moving and turning can cause nausea but that’s probably something that could happen in real life too.
So sorry if that isn’t helpful to you at all, but just to iterate it again, the sickness for me comes mostly from the VR implementation rather than just VR itself.
