If you build a VR game or experience, there’s a good chance you’ll end up needing some menus.  There are a lot of great ways to build VR menus, ranging from basic laser pointers to some amazing interaction based systems.  Since laser pointers are one of the simplest and most common systems, this guide will focus on how to create them.  We’ll discuss how to use the SteamVR Laser Pointer system ( SteamVR_Laserpointer.cs ).  And we’ll make your standard Unity UGUI (4.6 UI) interface work with the laser pointers.

SteamVR Laser Pointer (steamvr_laserpointer.cs)

The SteamVR Laserpointer is included in the SteamVR asset pack.  Once you’ve imported the asset pack, you can see the script located in the SteamVR/Extras folder.

CameraRig & Setup

For this example, we’ll use the included [CameraRig] prefab and make a few minor modifications.

Create a new scene.

Delete the “MainCamera” from the scene.

Add the [CameraRig] prefab to the scene.

The CameraRig prefab is located in the SteamVR/Prefabs folder.

Select both the Controller (left) and Controller (right) children of the [CameraRig]

Remove the SteamVR TrackedObject component.

Add the SteamVR_TrackedController component

Add the SteamVR_LaserPointer component

Select a color for your pointers.  I’ve chosen RED for mine…

VRUIInput.cs

Because the laserpointer script doesn’t handle input itself, we’ll need to add a new script to tell our UI when we want to interact with it.

Create a new c# script.

Name it VRUIInput

Replace the contents with this.

Attach the VRUIInput component to both the Controller (left) and Controller (right).

UpdatePoses

Update: this is fixed and not needed as of SteamVR 1.2.2, this fix is no-longer needed.  Upgrade to 1.2.2 and skip this section! 🙂

Before your controllers will track, you’ll need to add the SteamVR_Update poses script to the camera.  This is a known bug in the latest SteamVR asset pack.

Select the Camera (eye) child of the [CameraRig]

Add the SteamVR_UpdatePoses component to it.

Half way there!

If you press play now, you’ll see laser pointers beaming out of your controllers.  They won’t do much yet, but go ahead and check them out to make sure they’re visible.

The UI

It’s time to create a UI that we can interact with.

Canvas

Create a new Canvas.

Set the RenderMode to “World Space”

Set the transform values to match these.

Scale x = 0.01
Scale y = 0.01
Scale z = 0.01
Width = 500
Height = 500
Position x = 0.0
Position y = 0.0
Position z = 8.0

Panel & Button

Under the Canvas, create a Panel.

Under the Panel, create a Button.

VRUIItem.cs

For our button to interact with the laser pointer, we need it to have a collider.

That colliders size & shape need to match our button.  We could do this manually, but to avoid having to resize the collider whenever the button changes, you can use this simple script.

Create a new c# Script.

Name it “VRUIItem”

Replace the contents with this.

Attach the VRUIItem component to the button.

You should see a BoxCollider added automatically and scaled to the proper size.

Select the Button Component.

Change the Highlight color to something more obvious.. like green..

Add an event handler that changes the Text component to say something different (so we can tell if the click worked).

Conclusions

Here, I’ve duplicated the button 12 times and resized it a bit to show a bit more action.  Go ahead and try that yourself, or build a real menu for your game now. 🙂

The SteamVR Laser Pointer component, combined with a couple simple scripts, can get you up and running in minutes.  From here, you can simply replace the OnClick events with any normal Unity UI click events you’d use in a non-vr game.

While I’m a big fan of unique and interesting menu systems for VR, laser pointers are definitely an easy to use and intuitive method for input.  And for some games or apps, they’re definitely the preferred choice.

VRTK

It’s worth noting that another great way to setup UI interactions is via VRTK (VR Tool Kit).  VRTK is something I’ve used in the past and love.  It’s pretty easy to get started with and adds a ton of functionality beyond just laser pointers.  You can read more about VRTK here.

Oculus Haptic Feedback

Why you need it and how to get started quickly

Vive & Oculus Haptic feedback systems are extremely important and often overlooked…  On a pretty usual basis, they get overlooked or added in last second (I’m guilty of that myself).

Adding just a little haptic feedback in the right places gives a huge boost to immersion, and leaving it out gives the feeling that something just isn’t quite right.

Why’s it hard?

SteamVR haptics on touch controllers don’t work at all…. (at least at the time of this writing)

Recently, Oculus changed their haptic system, breaking my old code when I upgraded the SDK….

So I’ve written a wrapper.  It handles haptics for either system, and makes it extremely easy.

For this post, I won’t dig into the entire cross platform wrapper, but will instead give you the basics to get started with Oculus haptics in a quick and easy way.

Prerequisites (Oculus)

For this to work, you’ll need the oculus utilities for Unity in your project.

https://developer3.oculus.com/downloads/game-engines/1.11.0/Oculus_Utilities_for_Unity_5/

Shared Code

In the more complete version of my projects, I have quite a bit of shared code and swap between implementations with #defines.

For this simplified sample though, we still have one piece of shared code.  That code is an enum which specifies how strong the feedback vibration effect should be.

The Code (Oculus)

The Oculus code is designed to bypass the need for custom audioclips.  While the clip system is pretty cool and could do quite a bit, it’s not cross platform, and much harder to get started with in my opinion.

In the code, we generate 3 OVRHapticsClips named clipLight, clipMedium, & clipHard..  As you may have guessed, these correspond to our enum values.

Use (Oculus)

To use the haptics code, add the script to your controller object.

Assign the controller mask as L Touch or R Touch (whichever matches the controller it’s attached to).

Then call the Vibrate method when you want it to shake.

Demo (Oculus)

If you’re not quite sure how you’d use the code, here’s a real quick sample.  Ideally, you’d have something per controller, managing events for the controller, like a generic VR Controller script that ties these all together and works cross platform.

But to get you started quickly, here’s a simple sample that will vibrate the controllers when you press space.  (just remember to assign the 2 controllers)

What about the Vive?

I’ll cover Vive haptics soon, likely with a more generic implementation that you can use across both platforms.

If you’re really interested in Vive development though, I’m working on a quick weekend long guide that covers everything you need to know to get started, including haptics.  Just sign up (at the top of this post) and I’ll get you the info as soon as it’s ready.