What fabrics can I use to block the sensors?

[jmlackeysn95]

I'm setting up 2 Vives side by side, in a large room in my house that nobody is using. That way we can play 2 player local co-op in games like Arizona Sunshine. Well as we all know, the sensors for each individual play area, can NOT overlap. That is, the sensors from each different area cannot be allowed to see each other. But, the room is completely empty. There is no dividing wall between the two play areas.

So you can see where I have a problem. Instead of going to Home Depot and buying 2x4's and sheetrock and constructing a wall to separate the two play areas, I was hoping to use some kind of curtain. But I do not know what type of material the curtain needs to be made out of, in order to ensure that 100% of the signal from the light houses is blocked. Does anyone here know the best way I could go about this? Is there some way I can just hang a curtain or some kind of material, to block the signals from overlapping? What would you suggest?

[The Maddog]

You're over complicating it.

Just use 2 sensors for both vives and mesure out the play area for each Vive within the grid. This thread goes into it in great detail.

http://community.viveport.com/t5/General-Vive-Discussion/2-htc-vive-in-same-place/td-p/6800

[Nordomus]

Originally posted by The Maddog:

You're over complicating it.

Just use 2 sensors for both vives and mesure out the play area for each Vive within the grid. This thread goes into it in great detail.

http://community.viveport.com/t5/General-Vive-Discussion/2-htc-vive-in-same-place/td-p/6800

He is not. Topic you provided is mostly about 2 Vives in the SAME chaperone.
Anyway Vive's basestations have even bigger coverage than HTC says so if you want 2 chaperone areas then it's impossible to eliminate problems without physicaly blocking lasers. Unless the room is HUGE and there can be about 4-5m space between max chaperone areas. As for the question- any physical barrier will do I think.

[The Maddog]

Originally posted by Nordomus:

Originally posted by The Maddog:

You're over complicating it.

Just use 2 sensors for both vives and mesure out the play area for each Vive within the grid. This thread goes into it in great detail.

http://community.viveport.com/t5/General-Vive-Discussion/2-htc-vive-in-same-place/td-p/6800

He is not. Topic you provided is mostly about 2 Vives in the SAME chaperone.
Anyway Vive's basestations have even bigger coverage than HTC says so if you want 2 chaperone areas then it's impossible to eliminate problems without physicaly blocking lasers. Unless the room is HUGE and there can be about 4-5m space between max chaperone areas. As for the question- any physical barrier will do I think.

What do you mean "he's not"? He clearly states it's a large room in his house. Unless it's a mansion he lives in he's gonna be fine with just 2 sensors. Set up the sensors accordingly and mark out 2 seperate play areas within the sensors range next to each other. Simple and easy. done it myself.

[Nordomus]

Originally posted by The Maddog:

Originally posted by Nordomus:

He is not. Topic you provided is mostly about 2 Vives in the SAME chaperone.
Anyway Vive's basestations have even bigger coverage than HTC says so if you want 2 chaperone areas then it's impossible to eliminate problems without physicaly blocking lasers. Unless the room is HUGE and there can be about 4-5m space between max chaperone areas. As for the question- any physical barrier will do I think.

What do you mean "he's not"? He clearly states it's a large room in his house. Unless it's a mansion he lives in he's gonna be fine with just 2 sensors. Set up the sensors accordingly and mark out 2 seperate play areas within the sensors range next to each other. Simple and easy. done it myself.

Well he might be living in the mansion, who knows :) Also if both areas would be used at the same time with only 2 basestations then there is pretty big risk of lasers being blocked by other person. Anyway I guess we need more info to discuss it further.

[The Maddog]

Originally posted by Nordomus:

Originally posted by The Maddog:

What do you mean "he's not"? He clearly states it's a large room in his house. Unless it's a mansion he lives in he's gonna be fine with just 2 sensors. Set up the sensors accordingly and mark out 2 seperate play areas within the sensors range next to each other. Simple and easy. done it myself.

Well he might be living in the mansion, who knows :) Also if both areas would be used at the same time with only 2 basestations then there is pretty big risk of lasers being blocked by other person. Anyway I guess we need more info to discuss it further.

Ops asking on r/vive. It seems he's aware he can use the 2 sensors like I described (someone else told him the same thing I posted) but he apparently will get a bigger play area using 4 sensors. I think he's been told every possible solution to his issue now so..yeah..that's that.

[jmlackeysn95]

Thanks all for the replies. No mansion but yes the room is large enough, that using 4 sensors instead of 2, would grant each player a significantly larger play area. The room is 30' by 25'. Therefor to use only 2 lighthouses would be to unnecessarily shrink each player's area. Why not take advantage of all that extra space to add to the immersion.

My question is more centered around which material to use, to separate the two play areas. If I'm not mistaken, you're not supposed to have overlap between play areas, if you are using more than 2 sensors. They will interfere with each other and you'll get problems such as tracking issues. Am I wrong about that? I had doubts as to whether just hanging up curtains or a blanket or some such, would be able to block the IR signal well enough.

[Mashee]

Hi jmlackeysn95,

I've played with x2 vives next to each other in a demo environment. We were only separated by black curtains. Both units performed flawlessly. The curtains were, as far as I could tell, nothing more than regular linen. (I could see minor details of the next "room" because it had a window on the opposite side, the linen was not completely opaque)

IR is extremely easy to block despite movie-thermal-imaging-through-walls-hocus-pocus-magic. A sheet of white paper will do the trick. You can test easily by placing the intended "curtain" material between your TV and your remote control, and testing if the remote control works or not. Almost all consumer TV remotes are IR, and as you know, have to be pointed mostly at the intended device. The same test/s can be done with a single vive unit and it's towers. The vive towers IR amplitude will most certainly be higher than a remote, but not by much, both are in the sub 12V range.

Regular bed sheets, or the cheapest rolls of material you can get will certainly do the trick. Anything that "leaks" through is rendered useless due to being so diffused anyway.

edit: I do need to point out white-paper-walls will separate the two rooms, but will cause massive reflective tracking problems in your independent play areas. Bed sheets FTW in this scenario. If you're wealthy, clear glass wall panels will work even better as you can see each other, but the IR can't penetrate.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by jmlackeysn95:

Thanks all for the replies. No mansion but yes the room is large enough, that using 4 sensors instead of 2, would grant each player a significantly larger play area. The room is 30' by 25'. Therefor to use only 2 lighthouses would be to unnecessarily shrink each player's area. Why not take advantage of all that extra space to add to the immersion.

My question is more centered around which material to use, to separate the two play areas. If I'm not mistaken, you're not supposed to have overlap between play areas, if you are using more than 2 sensors. They will interfere with each other and you'll get problems such as tracking issues. Am I wrong about that? I had doubts as to whether just hanging up curtains or a blanket or some such, would be able to block the IR signal well enough.

I recommend just take a blanket and test it

Anyhow you are correct 2 will bother each other internal Tracking 2.0 that will support more then 2 lighthouses in the same time