Effects of Character Guide in Immersive Virtual Reality Stories

Bringing cinematic experiences from traditional film screens into Virtual Reality (VR) has become increasingly popular in recent years. However, striking a balance between storytelling and user interaction can cause a big challenge for filmmakers. In this paper, we present a media review on the common strategies that constructed the existing framework of computer generated cinematic VR by evaluating over 80 real-time rendered interactive experiences across different media. We summarized the most-used methods, which creators applied to maintain a relative control when presenting a narrative experience in VR, that were associated with story-progression strategies and attention guidance techniques. We then approach the problem of guiding the audience through major events of a story in VR by using a virtual character as a travel guide providing assistance in directing viewers attention to the target. To assess the effectiveness of this technique, we performed a controlled experiment applying the method in three VR videos. The experiment compared three variations of the character guide: (1) no guide, (2) a guide with a matching art style to the video, and (3) a guide with a non-matching art style. The experiment results provided insights for future directors and designers into how to draw viewers attention to a target point within a narrative VE, such as what could be improved and what should be avoided.