Navigational aid to points of interests outside the field of view in virtual environments

Advances in Virtual reality have brought opportunities for cinematic content to the users by allowing them to look around freely in any arbitrary direction and to interact as they please. This, however, imposes difficulties to the content creators as the freedom given to the audience results in less control over the user. The lack of control over what the audience is paying attention to could cause them to miss out on important points of interests and content creators can no longer rely on previous methods to draw and direct their attention. This study aims to find different means in how to direct and draw the attention of participants inside a 3-dimensional virtual environment without disrupting the virtual experience. This is achieved by comparing five different approaches in the virtual environment to navigate the participants. These approaches are Flicker, Dim, Auditory feedback, Haptic feedback and Tilt. A total of 15 participants participated in this study and were, post simulation, given a questionnaire to evaluate which approach was the least obvious, confusing and disturbing. One approach, flicker, had the best outcome in terms of guiding the participants in the virtual environment but was perceived to be the most disturbing one as well