The Library: A Non-Intrusive Gaze Directed Virtual Reality Animation

Abstract

In recent years, Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) has emerged as a unique form of VR storytelling. While narrative strategies for this new medium are still being explored, one often discussed issue is in guiding the viewer to look where the filmmaker intended. Conventional cinematic techniques such as sound and visual cues have been adopted to direct the viewer's attention. However, this dispersed viewer's attention might suggest an unexplored territory for storytelling in VR and immersive media in general. My current creative practice-led research explores how dispersed viewer's attention could be used to navigate a branching and spatial narrative structure. The Library is a work in progress, an animated VR experience that reimagines Jorge Luis Borges' Library of Babel. The story progresses according to how the viewer's gaze reacts to the narrative events that are organised both temporally and spatially, all the while without the viewer being aware of the gaze interaction mechanism. This paper presents some of the strategies that have emerged in the production of the creative work, which could lead to further explorations of a non-intrusive gaze directed interactive immersive cinema.