A Framework for Telepresent Game-Play in Large Virtual Environments

In this paper we present a framework that provides a novel interface to avatar control in immersive computer games. The user’s motion is tracked and transferred to to the game environment. This motion data is used as control input for the avatar. The game graphics are rendered according to the avatar’s motion and presented to the user on a head-mounted display. As a result, the user immerses into the game environment and identifies with the avatar. However, without further processing of the motion data, the virtual environment would be limited to the size of the user’s real environment, which is not desirable. By using Motion Compression, the framework allows exploring an arbitrarily large virtual environment while the user is actually moving in an environment of limited size. Based on the proposed framework, two game applications were implemented, a modification of a commercially available game and a custom designed game. These two applications prove, that a telepresence system using Motion Compression is a highly intuitive interface to game control.