Do Controllers Still Work When Using Leap Motion?

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5 comments, last by Scouting Ninja 6 years ago

I’m currently looking into implementing Leap Motion into a game I’m working on to allow players to interact using their hands. However, I also want the VR controllers (specifically HTC vive wands) to work. Would using Leap Motion interfere with input from the vive wands?

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I'm pretty sure the controllers will obscure Leap Motion's ability to determine where your fingers are. But you can always test this out - fire up one of the leap motion demos that show the finger positions, and try to use it while holding the controllers.

What are you actually trying to accomplish, though? The Vive controllers are going to provide reliably higher quality hand pose data than the Leap Motion would. The Leap Motion will in theory let you track individual fingers independently... but the overall quality of tracking leaves a lot to be desired.

Tristam MacDonald. Ex-BigTech Software Engineer. Future farmer. [https://trist.am]

8 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

I'm pretty sure the controllers will obscure Leap Motion's ability to determine where your fingers are. But you can always test this out - fire up one of the leap motion demos that show the finger positions, and try to use it while holding the controllers.

What are you actually trying to accomplish, though? The Vive controllers are going to provide reliably higher quality hand pose data than the Leap Motion would. The Leap Motion will in theory let you track individual fingers independently... but the overall quality of tracking leaves a lot to be desired.

Well, the idea I had was to create a game demo where a player would be able to press buttons with their individual fingers using Leap Motion, but then also allowing the player to use a gun, where the Vive controller’s trigger would allow them to shoot. However, I wasn’t sure if it’d be possible to use both simulataneously. 

Do you have both of these devices available to test? It shouldn't be hard to test to see if it works at all.

My guess is that it will not work at all, but I don't have Vive controllers handy to check that assumption.

Tristam MacDonald. Ex-BigTech Software Engineer. Future farmer. [https://trist.am]

3 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

Do you have both of these devices available to test? It shouldn't be hard to test to see if it works at all.

My guess is that it will not work at all, but I don't have Vive controllers handy to check that assumption.

I have the Vive controllers but I haven’t bought the Leap Motion equipment yet since I wasn’t sure if my idea would work or not. I’ll try contacting Leap Motion, and I’ll probably try to get my hands on their tech soon to test it out.

Leap Motion stops tracking a hand if something large obscures it, it will still track one hand if it isn't obscured. The good news is that once the hand is no longer obscured it tracks perfectly with no calibration needed.

You could have the player "holster" the controller when they need there hands. In game you can check if the Leap Motion controller sees the hands to know that the player "holstered" the weapon.

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