Pervasive virtuality in digital entertainment applications and its quality requirements

Abstract

There is a growing trend of entertainment applications where players wear non-see-through HMD devices (i.e. they see only virtual contents) and move freely in a physical environment, being able to touch physical objects and walls, feel hot air stream on their faces, and interact with other real people, while fully immersed in the simulation. Current definitions of mixed reality situations cannot cope adequately with this new class of experience. In this paper we name this new situation as “pervasive virtuality”, which we define as being a virtual environment that is extended by incorporating physical elements as proxy objects, integrating contextual information, and resolving conflicts with the dominance of a particular sense (usually vision). This new mixed reality paradigm is not well understood by both industry and academia. Therefore, we propose an extension to the well-known Milgram and Colquhoun’s taxonomy to cope with this new mixed reality situation. Furthermore, we propose Pervasive Virtuality characteristics that represent quality requirements, which help us to understand and design this new type of virtual environment. This paper also presents a brief case study using these characteristics.