by O’Fearghail, Colm, Chen, Yifan, Dingliana, John and Young, Gareth W.
Abstract:
The seamless transformation of cinema’s visual narrative, inherently designed for a two-dimensional screen, presents significant hurdles when applied to the unbounded spatiality of VR. Existing editing methodologies often lack the "invisibility" characteristic of screen-based cinematic experiences. Furthermore, locomotion in VR poses challenges; while teleportation is a prevalent technique for mitigating disorientation, it can detract from immersion by requiring the viewer to consciously select and target movement locations. This paper introduces a novel editing technique conceived through the integration of both cinematic and spatial cognitive frameworks. This approach aims to enable fluid viewer movement throughout the virtual environment while maintaining engagement with the narrative.
Reference:
Spatial Transitions for Locomotion in Cinematic Virtual Reality O’Fearghail, Colm, Chen, Yifan, Dingliana, John and Young, Gareth W., In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences, Association for Computing Machinery, 2026.
Bibtex Entry:
@inproceedings{10.1145/3788851.3815028,
author = {O’Fearghail, Colm and Chen, Yifan and Dingliana, John and Young, Gareth W.},
title = {Spatial Transitions for Locomotion in Cinematic Virtual Reality},
year = {2026},
isbn = {9798400724480},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3788851.3815028},
doi = {10.1145/3788851.3815028},
abstract = {The seamless transformation of cinema’s visual narrative, inherently designed for a two-dimensional screen, presents significant hurdles when applied to the unbounded spatiality of VR. Existing editing methodologies often lack the "invisibility" characteristic of screen-based cinematic experiences. Furthermore, locomotion in VR poses challenges; while teleportation is a prevalent technique for mitigating disorientation, it can detract from immersion by requiring the viewer to consciously select and target movement locations. This paper introduces a novel editing technique conceived through the integration of both cinematic and spatial cognitive frameworks. This approach aims to enable fluid viewer movement throughout the virtual environment while maintaining engagement with the narrative.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences},
pages = {474–478},
numpages = {5},
keywords = {Virtual Reality, Storytelling, Transitions, Mental Models, Cognition},
location = {Athlone, Ireland},
series = {IMX '26}
}