Positional haptics via head-mounted peripheral

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for activating a plurality of haptic sensors of a physical headset of a user playing a video game. The method includes detecting a sound component associated with an audio object in a scene of the video game, the audio object having a three-dimensional (3D) location in the scene. The method includes identifying position and orientation of a character of the user in the scene in relation to the 3D location of the audio object. The character of the user being controlled by the user playing the video game. The method includes associating a virtual headset to a head of the character, the virtual headset moving as the position and orientation of the character moves in the scene. The virtual headset including a plurality of virtual haptic sensors. The method includes applying a magnitude to each of the plurality of haptic sensors of the physical headset based on a directional distance of each of the virtual haptic sensors of the virtual headset to the audio object in the scene. In one example, in addition to magnitude, frequency and audio data related to the audio object is usable as inputs for controlling each of the plurality of haptic sensors.