VRChat's Mirrors Help Enhance the World's Crucial First-Person Only Perspective (Comment of the Week)

Very good point by Adeon on the importance of mirrors in VRChat, jumping off from Strasz's video, where he notes, "While vision is key, where that vision emanates from [in VRChat] is even more important. We need to believe that it comes from our own eyes, and that the body parts we see are in a place that makes sense."

A longtime explorer and creator in VRChat and before that Second Life, Adeon notes how important the first-person-only perspective is for VRChat, and how mirrors help enforce and enhance that design choice:

When someone decides to check out VRChat for the first time, they usually won't have VR. One of the first questions they ask is, "How do I enter third person view?"

Of course, the second question they ask is "Ok... so why doesn't this game have a third person view?"

And to VRChat's credit, they know exactly what they're doing. Forcing first person is absolutely critical to everything that's special about VRChat. Mirrors are the one way, the natural way, to get everything you lose by not looking at yourself in third person -- without everything that you lose from having third person.

The devs understand that even the personal option for third person would take away that mutual understanding of shared space and connection.

This sounds exactly right; VRChat is one of the rare virtual worlds/MMOs without a 3rd person POV option; unsurprisingly, regular VRChat users report a strong and deep association with their avatar, probably much moreso that worlds with a 3rd person option.

Speaking of which, other readers wonder why Second Life (where the default is 3rd person) doesn't have an easy-to-use mirror option, and Adeon replies with this video:

"I continue to get emails about this video weekly, for years. Yes, mirrors were wanted [in SL]. Badly. It’s a shame VRChat jumped ahead in that department."

And if you're curious yourself, Adeon to the rescue with this how-to on hacking a mirror effect in Second Life:

More about it here.

Comments

[Osiris Godd]

it explains portals, but not mirrors