Easy Input for Gear VR makes supporting input for the Gear VR and the new Gear VR Controller a breeze. Whether you want support for the headset, Bluetooth controllers or the brand new motion controller, everything that is unique about the platform is accessible in one easy to use API. Many common tasks even expose high level components to attach to your objects so you don’t need to write a single line of code. The versatility is left in though so if you do want to write custom code it is easy to do so.
With the product just released and very much in active development feel free to let me know what you want added to this product. Whether it’s another example scene, or a new precoded control for a mechanic you’ve seen in a game, or anything else you might find useful, don’t hesitate to let me know. This will continue growing for quite some time.
Love the product so far. Do you think we could get for the hand follow a prefab for the Gear VR controller similar to the one used in Oculus Home? The functionality of the tracking and laser pointer works great and for some of my games I’ll want to use something custom, but on other games I’d want to use one that actually looks like the controller.
This has now been submitted to Unity for review. PM or email me if you’d like this package before it gets through the review process. It should show up on the store in about a week.
I’m really enjoying this asset. I have a question about the VR Controller with Ray for the laser pointer affect. The follow object seems to be the origin of the laser. What is the HMD Follow Object?
In the Menu example, I see in your exampes the HMD Follow Object is a sphere off behind the menu but I wasn’t sure what that was for.
I have to agree with you that my current names are pretty horrible. In the next update which is almost finished I’ve actually broken it out into three separate components (laser pointer, gaze pointer, and combo pointer). The current Controlller with Ray is what is getting renamed to combo pointer. The main focus on this control was to mimic the functionality on the Oculus Home screen where it could be either a controller laser pointer or a gaze pointer depending on either what you had or which touchpad you hit last (either the controller’s touchpad or the touchpad on the HMD)
In the new combo pointer, I’ve renamed follow object to laser pointer and HMD Follow Object to HeadMountedDisplayReticle. When you are using the headset as a gaze pointer the laser is parallel with your vision so you can’t really see it, so all you usually see is the reticle either at a fixed distance if it hits nothing or right in front of what it hit if the raycast hits something. On either of the GUI examples if you tap the HMD touchpad you’ll see the laser pointer disappear and that object act as a reticle for what you’re aiming at. If you’ve always been using it in laser pointer mode then that’s why you haven’t seen the sphere move.
I’ve asked this of everyone so far but if there are additions you’d like to see just ask. Trying to get my growing list of controls fairly comprehensive in this product and also for a daydream product and a cross platform product that will be out shortly.
Thanks for such a quick reply. That was really informative. That makes more sense now. I have indeed only been using the laser pointer with the Gear Controller. My follow-up question is do you have a recommendation of where to put the Follow Object relative to the camera. In GuiNavigation example it seems that the Follow Object (cube) is at the same exact position as the Camera. However, I created a new scene and in mine, I had to move the Follow Object down a few units or else the origin of the laser pointer seem to be up above my head. Not sure if I am missing something?
I’m looking forward to the updates. I think this is a really great headstart for people that want to do VR. I’ll let you know if I have any ideas for additions.
I’ve made updates since then but I believe even in the original script there was a height offset parameter exposed in the inspector. In general it depends on what the object it’s a child to height is. In the UI examples, I didn’t bother using a “camera rig” which is what most native sdks call it. Basically, a hierarchy of transforms that represent things like head, body, hand, etc. In those examples you’ll see the height offset set to 0 and that the object for the laser pointer isn’t actually a child of the camera or another common object.
However, in the FPS example you’ll see the height offset set to 1. In that example there is a primitive rig, the capsule is the body, the camera is the head, and the laser pointer is the hand. Both the head and the hand are children of the body. The capsule is 2 meters tall but the transform for it is it’s midpoint (1 meter tall). When you look at the camera it’s locally 1 meter additional in height (so 2 meters off the ground). The laser pointer has a height offset of 1 in the inspector which gets it 1 meter off the ground or essentially hip high by default. If you set the offset to 0 it would be at foot level and if you set it to 2 it would be as high as the head. In real life everyone’s height and what “feels” right to them is different but for games you generally just approximate an average person’s height. For that example I have a feeling an offset of .75 - 1.25 would all feel ok but outside that range wouldn’t feel right (too low or too high). Now if your game character was a giant mech these settings would be different, but hopefully that gives you an idea on how it works.
The two UI examples it doesn’t matter much because you don’t move around and the objects aren’t parented to eachother so you could do it either in the offset or the initial y axis height of the objects, but when you start having a rig hierarchy it starts to matter what the offset is compared to what type of game you are going for. If you have humanoid characters you’d usually use actual typical measurments of where your head and hands are and offset accordingly.
Yes it supports unity UI elements (buttons, checkbox, dropdown, etc.). There is an example for Unity UI navigation as well. It uses the Gear VR controller as a laser pointer.
This asset seems great!!! Do you have any video tutorial on how to use it? Or plan on to do it? Its always great to have it, so we can easily evaluate it and learn it!
There are 7 example scenes included to take you through all the components. I certainly will make videos when things calm down a bit. Currently sales have been good and I’ve been trying to keep up with all the requests for new controls. Current controls requested to be in the next update are:
I’m nearly done with these and they are in beta with those who requested them. Once those are pushed I need to push a similar package for daydream and a cross platform package as well. After that I can get to the videos.
In the meantime don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have. I’m always looking for things to improve whether it’s the documentation or adding new components.
Thats Great!!! Teleport laser pointer and grab laser pointer are definitly awesome and needed update! And also to push it to daydream!!!
The videos will also be a great addition, cause it makes so much easy to understand things in a couple of minutes!!! But i definitly understand the priorities just dont forget to add them when you can!!!
Hope you like it. Any questions you have don’t hesitate to ask. If you are interested in being a beta tester for any of the upcoming features or unreleased products just send me an email to our support address on the asset store page.
All the current additions requested are submitted and currently going through Unity review. Any existing customer that wants the package early just send me a mail with your invoice to the support email address on the asset store page. Summary of changes:
-Added Editor Window and buttons to automatically use recommended settings
-Automatic include of SDK controller model via menu dropdown
-New Control: laser pointer
-New Control: gaze pointer
-New Control: combo pointer (laser and gaze all in one based on whether the controllers are connected)
-New Control: curved laser pointer (good for teleporting)
-New Control: look dpad (good for swivel chairs or architecture walkthroughs)
-New Control pointer receiver (good for highlighting on hover with a laser pointer and much more)
-New Control grab receiver (good for grabbing things with laser pointer)
-New Control teleport receiver (good with the curved laser pointer for teleporting navigation)
-New Example Pointer example (showcases all the new pointers and receivers)
-New Editor emulation motion controller (you now can simulate the motion controller in editor with the mouse)
-New Editor emulation HMD (you can now simulate HMD looking around in editor with the mouse)
Version 1.1 is now live on the store. Certainly let me know if there are further additions anyone would like to see. As stated before here is the summary of changes in this latest version:
-Added Editor Window and buttons to automatically use recommended settings
-Automatic include of SDK controller model via menu dropdown
-New Control: laser pointer
-New Control: gaze pointer
-New Control: combo pointer (laser and gaze all in one based on whether the controllers are connected)
-New Control: curved laser pointer (good for teleporting)
-New Control: look dpad (good for swivel chairs or architecture walkthroughs)
-New Control pointer receiver (good for highlighting on hover with a laser pointer and much more)
-New Control grab receiver (good for grabbing things with laser pointer)
-New Control teleport receiver (good with the curved laser pointer for teleporting navigation)
-New Example Pointer example (showcases all the new pointers and receivers)
-New Editor emulation motion controller (you now can simulate the motion controller in editor with the mouse)
-New Editor emulation HMD (you can now simulate HMD looking around in editor with the mouse)
just dont forget to add them when you can!!!