Simulating a Gear VR Controller with Touch

The Unity package provided with this blog post contains code that emulates a Gear VR Controller using a Touch controller. This functionality will allow you to iterate faster by previewing basic Gear VR Controller functionality directly in the Unity Editor without having to wait for a full mobile build.

The Gear VR Controllers position is determined by an IK system. The source code for this system is included in the Oculus Native Mobile SDK. Code relevant to determining the Gear VR Controllers position can be found in the following folder:

   <sdk root>/VrSamples/Native/VrController/Src

This folder contains all of the code that is used to position the Gear VR Controller. The scripts contained in the bundle provided with this post port the functionality of OVR_Skeleton and OVR_ArmModel to C#. This allows the code to simulate the position and orientation of a Gear VR Controller given only the orientation of a Touch Controller, in C#.

The thumb stick of the Touch controller maps to the touch pad of the Gear VR Controller. Resting your finger on the thumb stick is the same as touching the touch pad without pressing it. Pressing the thumb stick is the same as pressing the touch pad. The coordinates of the simulated touch are mapped to the thumb stick as well.

The Touch trigger maps to the Gear VR Controller trigger. The Y or B button of the Touch controller maps to the back button of the Gear VR Controller. Which button is used depends on the handedness of the controller being simulated.

There are three scripts provided:

OVRTrackedController.cs contains a static class you can write input code against. When running on a Rift with Touch Controllers this class will simulate the position and orientation of a Gear VR controller. When running on a Gear VR this class just wraps the Controller functionality. Because the OVRTrackedController class works on both platforms, you only need to write input code against this class.

The OVRTrackedController class has an Update method, this method must be called once every frame. The Update method is responsible for calculating the simulated position of the controller and dispatching callback methods.

This class contains the following public accessors which can be used to query the state of the current controller:

The TrackedController also exposes several callback events your code can register to. The handler functions for these events should return nothing and take no arguments, except for the OnTouch event which should take a Vector2 as an argument:

The OVRTrackedControllerRig.cs script is meant to be attached to an instance of the OVRCameraRig prefab (included with our Utilities for Unity package). When connected to a Rift, this script will override the transform of the Left or Right hand Anchor in a way that simulates the transform of a Gear VR Controller.

The script has two properties that need to be set in the editor. The first property Simulate Controller should be set to L Tracked Remote or R Tracked Remote. The value of this drop down menu determines which Touch Controller is used to simulate a left or right handed Gear VR Controller. The second property, Update Tracked Controller will call Update on OVRTrackedController if set to true. If you manually update the tracked controller elsewhere, uncheck this box.