Development of a Directed Teleport Function for Immersive Training in Virtual Reality

Recent advances in Virtual Reality (VR) technology have contributed to the development of immersive applications for training and simulation. VR serious games can be utilized to support and supplement traditional training. In VR-based training environments, the player can make mistakes without serious consequences to gather experiences which help them to make better decisions in the future. However, it is difficult to guide the players attention throughout the VR game, since the player has the freedom to look anywhere anytime. Thus, many game designers create linear and restrictive experiences. In this paper, we develop a dynamic story and guide the players attention to the specific game elements. To this end, we propose a novel directed teleport function to show points of interest to the player. We evaluate the effect of the proposed function by conducting a user study among two groups of 20 participants: one group can use only the common teleport function, whereas the other group can additionally use the directed teleport function. The results of our study indicate that the directed teleport function is very effective, has a positive effect on the orientation, and is very easy to use. In particular, the directed teleport function not only helps the player to navigate through the virtual world but also reveals interesting points