Help - VR Gear

## Body gear

Full body tracking requires at least 3 trackers (feet and hip) including the HMD and controllers. Additional trackers are supported and recommend using two elbow trackers, which are nice to have but are not required (however having a couple extra trackers around can be useful for attaching props, or one as a head trackers when using the non-vr mocap mode, or even swap them for knee trackers if elbows are not as important for particular animations..).

Hip trackers in Luxor can be positioned either front, back or side of your waist, depending on your needs.

APS supports up to 11 (optional) points of tracking [head, hands, chest, hip, knees, feet]. Trackers may also be used in place of the HMD or controllers.

This is a SteamVR mocap suit I designed on a budget, consisting of hardware store foam elbow and knee pads to attach trackers via screws and washers, the hip tracker belt I made using elastic webbing material - however trackers can easily be attached to ordinary belts, the chest tracker is attached to a neoprene "posture-correction" device from Ebay.

### About using HMD tilted on the head

"I’m also planning on getting a 4th tracker to replace my hmd in the future to allow my face to be visible for face tracking."

You can definitely use a head tracker for facecap, however you may also try the "auto-tilt HMD on tpose" option and calibrate tpose while the HMD is placed on the forehead instead of over the player's face. The HMD would function as head tracking but while not covering the face - the avatar's eyes would still be still be aligned with the player.

## Accessory Tracker How-To

To enable an "Accessory" tracker you must first set the tracker's role as Camera or Keyboard (located in SteamVR’s Manage Trackers menu).

Then from within APS you should notice the upper triangular button on the tracker's model has turned light blue - which indicates it is an "Accessory" tracker and that you may press the triangular button while hovering over props to attach to them.

Important note: If you are using Vive trackers as body trackers then be sure to set their role as: “DISABLED”

## Accessory Camera

Here the "accessory/camera" tracker shown with wiring to the tracker's IO for controlling zooming and/or firearm actions when the tracker is connected directly to a prop or a VR camcorder.

The "accessory" tracker in this picture shows the tracker physically attached to a tripod but with a VR camcorder connected to the tracker (in APS) for creating tripod-mounted camera animations.

## Accessory Props

The "Accessory" tracker can also be used to connect to basic props such as swords, chairs or custom meshes.

And via IO can control firearm actions to function as a V-rifle for natural motion capture giving the impression of mass and physical dimension. This also allows the ability for the prop to be picked up, set down or swap hands intuitively.

The "accessory" tracker in this picture shows the tracker physically attached to a V-rifle and the m16 VR prop connected to the tracker (in APS). Vifle on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2053887 - by Cutlass

## Feet tracker mount setup

A simple yet rigid solution I found for attaching trackers to shoes is to drill holes in a plastic plate and weave the shoe laces into the plate so it can be pulled snug against your foot.

Be sure to use a countersink screw so the screw's head does not press into the top of your foot when laced tightly!. Looseness (and elastic straps) on the feet trackers may result in noticeable "wobble" in the final mocap.

It is tremendously recommended to have well secured feet trackers when creating walking, dancing, jumping animation, or just to achieve the best legs/feet mocap possible.

## Hand tracker mount setup

These are 3D printable hand tracker holders and provide a means of securely attaching trackers to a player's upper hand(s). These are intended for controller-less hand tracking in APS.

Ideal for livestreamers and artists who require full-body tracking while keeping their hands free for using a keyboard/mouse or other items.

Models and gcode for printing a pair of your own can be found here on my GitHub: https://github.com/guiglass/AnimationPrepStudio-ArduGlove/tree/master/3DPrinter

### Using hand trackers instead of controllers

If using hand-trackers instead of controllers they would calibrate to the player's hand offset rotation when tposing; for when using mocap gloves instead of controllers.

However when calibrating with controllers the targets will use symmetrical offset so both controllers feel aligned identically. However it should be possible in a future build to maybe add a toggle to allow calculating the hands offset rotation after tposing.

## Using Vive tracker instead of HMD

It is possible to assign a Vive tracker to be used in place of the HMD (for head tracking). When using head trackers it is recommended to enter a "eye height" value into the "Avatar Track" panel so the T-pose calibration can better scale the avatar's height.

Also it is possible to adjust offsets to the head tracker from the "Trackers Setup" panel and selecting the "offsets" button.

Locate the Trackers Setup panel and select the desired Vive tracker. Then assign it to "Head" from the dropdown menu. A T-pose calibration is needed to properly align the tracker to the avatar after assignment.

## Using Gamepad for Navigation

Its is possible to redirect navigation to a GamePad controller like Xbox controller. You need to make sure that support for Gamepad is enabled under VR Menu->Settings->Interface tab->Options area:

## Lighthouse tracking tips

It is important when using Steam VR and lighthouse tracking that reflective surfaces in the mocap environment be covered or removed.

I use masking tape to cover many of the reflective surfaces in the room. Masking off shiny switch/outlet covers and chrome plated doorknobs, etc.

Especially important is to mask off any shiny objects that are at high elevations, for example the chrome plated lighting fixture (2nd Image) that was located in the center of my playspace would sometimes cause noticeable tracking errors from the highly reflective surfaces.

Covering the polished surfaces with masking tape drastically improved the overall quality of the tracking.Glass surfaces are also extremely reflective and can cause trackers to appear to flip out or fly away randomly!

I fabricated these panels from wood strips and beach towel fabric (3rd Image) to create modular panels that I can place anywhere and block reflections from around the mocap environment as needed.

The panels are very portable and easily setup, blocking many reflections while also serving as acoustic dampeners great for recording audio (each costs only a few dollars a piece to fabricate).

### Tips

* Playspaces with polished wood or floor tiles should use area rugs to reduce stray reflections emanating from the surface of the floor!!!
* Use a flashlight (with a tightly focused beam) to locate reflective surfaces in and around the playspace, be sure to do this when the room is dark!

## Tracker Dongle(receiver) setup

**Image 1:** It is important that trackers and receivers have a clear line of sight. For this reason I have placed all RF radio dongles near the ceiling. This is the fixture I created using two strips of plastic and hot glued the dongle 'docks' to them.

**Image 2:** The 'antenna array' is located such that it is directly visible from all parts of the room and is away from any large metallic objects to avoid attenuating the signal.

Another consideration if using many multiple body trackers is to ensure no data throughput bottlenecks are caused by placing too many receiver dongles on a single USB controller.

**Image 3:** I use two USB 3.0 hubs connected to a dedicated USB3.0 PCIE card with proper USB3.0 cabling (eg. two Blackweb BWA17HO010 hubs).

**Image 4:** I use the Inateck 2-Port USB 3.0 PCI-Express Card (KTU3FR-2O2I) as recommended for use with the Vive: https://www.vive.com/us/support/vive-pro/category\_howto/headset-not-detected-due-to-usb-issue.html

### Tips

If you have any wifi routers or bluetooth devices in the same room consider disabling it while doing mocap or moving the devices away from the tracker radios to improve SNR on the 2.4ghz spectrum. If your wifi supports 5ghz (eg. Linksys wrt3200acm) it can be helpful to disable the 2.4ghz wifi altogether and just switch all wifi devices in the house to use 5ghz. Also for added radio silence you could switch things like cellphones into airplane mode or just make sure they are not sitting near the tracker radio equipment.

## Using 3D Mouse for motion capture

Use a 3d mouse to navigate and fly the Player around while creating motion capture (and for live productions). weightlessness effects, standing of the ceiling, align the avatar for climbing up a cliff.

Make sure that support for Gamepad is enabled under VR Menu->Settings->Interface tab->Options area:

## More than one Luxor instance

It's possible to run multiple instances of Luxor on a single PC by adding the "-vrmode none" argument to a shortcut. However only one of the instances would be able to access the HMD, so the second instance would have to be trackers only.

I think having two separate PCs running SteamVR and luxor would give the best results and least amount of work.

## More setup recommendations

We always use the Vive tracker with 11 to 12 points. It's not perfect, but let me share our experience with you. I hope this helps.

### First, the environment

Eliminate anything reflective from your environment. Glass, reflective doorknobs, etc. Eliminate any Bluetooth or wifi that uses 2.4ghz.

We do not recommend that the Base Station be placed on a floor stand. The floor picks up more vibration from your action than you can imagine. Install it in an environment that is isolated from ceiling and floor vibrations. We recommend that you use four base stations rather than more trackers.

### About the trackers

The dongle should be at least 20cm away from the PC, and the PC should be at least 40cm away from the dongle. That's right. This much is written in the manual.

In my studio, I have a unit very similar to the Grant, but with about 5 units in one, set up near the actors, away from the PC. Installing them on the ceiling is also a very good idea.

Currently, I have 11~12 units running at the same time, so I have another unit with 5 units in one. Those two are quite far apart.

For example, to the left and right of the actor. I don't have the logic, but I've had better results that way. All the dongles are connected to the PC with a usb2.0 boosted extension cable.

Finally, five dongles are grouped together in a usb3.0 HAB near the PC and connected to the PC via three lines. In our work, we don't use HMDs. The HMD is still suspended in the middle of the environment. Valve knuckles are working fine.

Current SteamVR setup is:

* Valve HMD
* Index Controllers (2)
* Vive 2.0 Trackers (12)
* 2.0 Base Stations (4)

## Turning your smartphone(android) into a tracker

owotrack:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ovrgyrotrackersync&hl=en\_US&gl=US

## Ancle tracker holder

Maybe a velcro ankle sleeve could be modified into a tracker holder? I found this on ebay and thought the design might allow placing a tracker mounting plate underneath one of the elastic straps holding it securely: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ankle-Brace-Support-Compression-Sleeve-Plantar-Fasciitis-Pain-Relief-Foot-Wrap/143656847888. And for $6 is not too bad

## Running SteamVR without an HMD

I've seen others enable the null driver to run steamvr without an HMD: https://sites.google.com/view/brown-vr-sw-review-2018/vr-hardware/hardware-emulators/null-driver-tutorial

"bh it sounds a little risky to mess with that code, even if it is just putting a small paragraph like that. I just wish there was a no-headset button."

if creating a backup of the text file before making edits and you should be okay. But I believe for users with trackers only this may be only option to allow steamvr to start. If there's already a steamvr hmd connected then i don't know if the null driver is needed. For performance, it is possible to start luxor with VR rendering disabled by appending the "**-vrmode none**" argument to the path when launching. Creating that shortcut should allow starting luxor in desktop only mode.