Improving group navigation for VR-based entertainment applications

Various aspects of shared virtual environments have been explored to improve communication, collaboration, and entertainment among users. However, one crucial element, group navigation, remains in its early stages of development. The research gap suggests investigating different approaches to achieve suitable group navigation approaches within virtual reality environments. The employment of customized avatars that provide gestures and voice chat communication, along with controlled transitions between individual and group navigations, has not yet been fully studied. In this regard, this paper proposes a new approach for examining the aforementioned unexplored features of group navigation along with other modifications to current techniques. Moreover, features such as animated paths, transparent materials, switching between first-person view and third-person distant view, and preview avatars were incorporated into this approach. As the locomotion technique of the proposed solution varies noticeably with existing ones, the solution was evaluated in a user study comparing with teleportation and steering methods in terms of human behavior and psychology from usability, immersion, efficiency, safety, attention-guiding mechanism, and entertainment perspectives. The findings revealed that our approach outperformed teleportation and steering, providing promising insights into developing more interactive, entertaining, and socially immersive group navigation techniques in VR.