Jason Mitchell, a developer at Valve, discusses the development of the player movement system in Half-Life: Alyx, a VR game. The team implemented three types of locomotion: blink teleport, shift teleport, and continuous locomotion. They experimented with various visualization techniques, including showing the player's feet at the target location, to help players understand their movement and orientation. The team used a pathing system to ensure the player's movement was viable and valid, taking into account the player's height and body size. To build trust in the teleport system, they prioritized movement along the floor and implemented partial movement in certain situations. The team also used audio cues to provide a sense of presence and weight in the virtual world. The game's locomotion system allows players to move confidently through complex environments, and the implementation of multiple locomotion systems allowed them to borrow ideas from each other and create a stronger overall system.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. Jason Mitchell is a developer at Valve.
2. The presentation is about the player movement in Half-Life: Alyx.
3. Half-Life: Alyx supports three different types of player locomotion: blink teleport, shift teleport, and continuous locomotion.
4. Continuous locomotion is the most similar to traditional WASD mouse and keyboard controls.
5. In blink teleport mode, the screen turns black, the player is moved to the target location, and the screen fades back up from black.
6. Shift teleport mode is similar to blink teleport, but the screen doesn't go black.
7. The game uses a pathing system to visualize the player's movement and ensure that the end player position is a valid place for the player's body.
8. The pathing system initially used a navmesh system, but it proved to be too rigid.
9. The game later used an A* system to build routes, but it was too computationally intensive.
10. The game uses a standard minimum body size to validate the middle portions of the teleport path.
11. The game preserves the player's real-world height in the virtual environment, which affects the way paths are computed.
12. The game uses audio cues to describe the player's locomotion after teleporting.
13. The game provides sound effects for various body movements, such as moving the arm to grab ammo, crouching, turning, and twisting.
14. The game adjusts the footstep volume and timing based on the distance traveled.
15. The game provides a louder, heavier sound effect when the player teleports from a high to a low area.
16. The game has multiple locomotion systems, including continuous locomotion, blink teleport, and shift teleport.
17. The game allows players to select the locomotion system that is most comfortable for them.