Floating gloves on Oculus and a fix

[Barney "630" Garrison]

EDIT: I came up with a much better fix that works great. See imgur album how-to here: https://imgur.com/a/QrfrZ

I've been having the 'floating right glove' issue on Oculus a fair amount, especially when the fight gets intense. Long story short, I think I've found the cause and a fix.

In my case, the force of throwing punches actually seems to be compressing the spring in the battery compartment of the touch controller, causing momentary power losses/brownouts to the touch controller. This is because when the spring compresses, the positive terminal of the AA battery (the 'bump' side) stops making solid electrical contact with the controller terminal. Sometimes this just makes the tracking go weird for a moment, but in rare cases I've even had it cause the controller to completely lose sync until I pulled the battery out for several seconds and re-inserted it.

The way to fix it is that you need to shim the battery to create more compression in the spring. (Note that I take zero responsibility if you somehow mess this up and short out your controller--if you have no idea about how electronics work then maybe you shouldn't attempt this.)

Ok, disclaimer aside, all you need is a thin piece of something electrically conductive that you can insert between the spring and the negative (flat) side of the battery. For my test I used a piece of aluminum foil that I'd folded a number of times to give it some thickness. It should be very close to the same size and shape as the end of the battery. If it's too big, it'll create friction or bind inside the battery cutout of the controller and may make the problem worse.

The correct thickness should be just enough that you can still get the battery in and out without extreme force. This will create less room for free play of the battery and also provide more force from the spring since it is compressed further.

After testing this mod I've had zero floating glove issues and in general my right hand punches now track noticeably more consistently than in the past. It's gone from a frustrating experience to a much more enjoyable one.

There are probably better ways of implementing this fix than my folded tin foil experiment. An aluminum disc the same diameter as the end of the battery and about .030" thick would probably be ideal.

[Ian (Sealost)]

Holy cow, this is crazy. I never would have thought of this.

After some research, it seems photographers often have this sort of problem with some of the specialized batteries they use being slightly too short for normal AA compartments. I'm seeing the same fix suggested for them, too - stuff aluminum foil in there to tighten it up.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm going to pin this thread.

[Barney "630" Garrison]

No problem! When I gave it a little thought and saw how the battery was aligned relative to the axis of a punch, it seemed quite obvious in retrospect. Before, I thought it was a limitation of the Oculus tracking, but since fixing it I'm quite impressed at just how good the tracking is with fast punches.

Also, great work on this game, it is just excellent. I also own Knockout League, which is fun in its own way, but ToTF is a really intense and satisfying boxing experience that is great for working up a sweat and taking out your aggressions. It is difficult, but that's what keeps it so satisfying when you finally level your opponent with a perfect shot to the jaw!

[psycho_terrorism]

wow, i'm super impressed, i thought my batteries were just getting low when this happened!

thank you SO much, nothing worse than losing a glove in a tough fight!!!

edit: really thought i'd come back to share this here but guess not. i never actually used the aluminium shim, but instead placed a piece of some foam tape into the battery compartment to shim it from the side so i wouldn't have to mess with a piece of foil whenever changing batteries.

the tape is something similar to the tape in this link.[www.rapidonline.com] it's double sided, but i just left the protective film over the side facing the battery.

one word of warning if you try this, don't put the tape right into the bottom of the compartment as it'll prevent the cover from closing properly, as the cover itself has a rubber shim which is probably designed to prevent this very issue. my tape is on the side of the compartment with the top edge of the tape aligned with the edge of the opening on the front side of the controller.

[RickyRockFish]

I had the floating glove problem for a bit. then I remembered... I unplugged my rear sensor in my 3d playroom and forgot to plug it back in. because all i had was front facing sensors it would "float" when rear detection was needed. to resolve I suggest checking your rear sensors if you have any, and\or changing settings to fight with front facing sensors only.

[Barney "630" Garrison]

Yep, poor tracking will definitely cause it too. If you're 100% sure your sensors are setup correctly with complete coverage, and are still having your gloves 'float' only after especially quick punches, then the battery movement is likely the culprit!

[traden1976]

I have the same issue, it's not a tracking issue it's a physics issue. Any chance you can attach the gloves to the IK rig? Is your rigidbody mode set to continuous? Any chance if the velocity vector is going crazy that you can set the RB to kinematic and temp kill the collider? My gloves often end up outside the ring.

cheers.

[Ian (Sealost)]

Originally posted by traden1976:

I have the same issue, it's not a tracking issue it's a physics issue. Any chance you can attach the gloves to the IK rig? Is your rigidbody mode set to continuous? Any chance if the velocity vector is going crazy that you can set the RB to kinematic and temp kill the collider? My gloves often end up outside the ring.

cheers.

What is happening in your case that is suggesting it's a physics issue?

To debug, turn on the ghost controller outlines in the game's setting menu (they're on by default). When your gloves drift off, see if the controller outlines are drifting off with them or if they're staying in place where they should be.

The controller outlines are positioned directly from SteamVR (or by the Oculus SDK if you're in Oculus native mode). They are not attached to the gloves and do not have any interactions with the physics system.

Since they are placed directly by SteamVR, if the controller outline is also drifting off then it suggests there is either a problem with SteamVR, some sort of tracking interference, or a hardware malfunction. If the controller outline is staying where it should be, but the glove is drifting off alone, then that suggests a problem with TotF itself.

[traden1976]

So I've run a couple of tests and it's definitely a physics issue.

1) in the corner between rounds I swing with both controllers as fast as I can and don't lose any tracking fidelity.

2) I've been playing other games without issues (beat saber, boxing vr etc.)

3) The ghosted controller remains where it should, it' the glove that gets caught and goes flying when interacting with the other fighter.

Is there a way for me to increase the physics timestep to test?

[Ian (Sealost)]

Originally posted by traden1976:

So I've run a couple of tests and it's definitely a physics issue.

1) in the corner between rounds I swing with both controllers as fast as I can and don't lose any tracking fidelity.

2) I've been playing other games without issues (beat saber, boxing vr etc.)

3) The ghosted controller remains where it should, it' the glove that gets caught and goes flying when interacting with the other fighter.

Is there a way for me to increase the physics timestep to test?

Thanks for doing some more testing.

There's not a way for you to increase the physics timestep.

Is this something you can reliably replicate? Would you be able record a video clip of it happening for me to look at? If so, make sure the ghost controllers and third person camera are turned on when you record the clip. You'll want to use one of the gym venue fights since the auditorium third-person camera is at sort of a weird angle right now.

What CPU and GPU do you have?

[traden1976]

I'll try and grab a video over the weekend. Here are my system specs:

Intel i7-7700K 4.20GHz
16 GB Ram
Win 10 64-bit
GTX 1070 - 398.36

[traden1976]

We'll Im still having issues but the controller does seem to go flying now. I've tested it in other games waving my arms around like a crazy person without issue but it may as Barney said, it could be the angle of the punches I'm throwing are affecting the battery. I don't have a rear sensor and have it set to always facing front.

I'll keep testing.

[Peek]

I do get floating gloves occasionally and it's definitely not my sensor issue because other games track just fine. Thanks for sharing this.

[Ian (Sealost)]

Originally posted by traden1976:

We'll Im still having issues but the controller does seem to go flying now. I've tested it in other games waving my arms around like a crazy person without issue but it may as Barney said, it could be the angle of the punches I'm throwing are affecting the battery. I don't have a rear sensor and have it set to always facing front.

I'll keep testing.

A video is still very helpful, as we could see if there's any specific happening before each tracking loss. Maybe it's only happening for certain types of punches or when you're in a certain area of your space.

[Ian (Sealost)]

Originally posted by Peek:

I do get floating gloves occasionally and it's definitely not my sensor issue because other games track just fine. Thanks for sharing this.

TotF tends to stress your hardware more than most games and tends to put you in areas of your play space most games avoid. Blocking can cause a lot of occlusion as well.

The battery issue described in this thread could happen in any game, but not many have you throwing full force straight punches.

[Peek]

I get loss of tracking in games like The Thrill of the fight and BoxVR, usually on the right touch controller when I am trying to put some power into my right hook punch.

EDIT: The previous trick didn't work 100% of the time today and since I do not have "easy liner" like the OP suggested, I used caulking cord instead. I peeled a small piece about 1 inch long and stuck it horizontally on the inside compartment and then put my battery in. Will update if I get loss of tracking with it in the future.

Have to say, after this fix, I TKO every opponents available in game in one gaming session and that's with auto adjust enabled. My right hook used to float and miss 50% of the time but not anymore, felt good.