Robyns Janky VR Setup Guide

This is a guide on how to replicate the really janky setup I use to play VRChat.

Preface

When I started playing VRChat, I really wanted to be able to play with VR, however I did not have the money to shell out for a proper VR headset. Instead I made my own setup in order to play using what I had available to me, or at least what I could get at an affordable price. This works passably for playing social vr games like vrchat, but you may struggle to use this for other games largely because the positional/rotation tracking is not amazing compared to a proper vr setup.

I have had friends ask me to explain how my setup works and how to replicate it, and that is the purpose of this guide!

Note this guide is now 2 years old, I haven't used this setup ever since I got a proper headset a bit before I made this guide, so some UI in this is likely outdated by now, but the same general principles apply.

Requirements

You will need the following equipment in order to replicate my setup;

Hardware:

• Smart phone
  
• A google cardboard headset mount of some form
  
• Nintendo Switch Joycons
  
• Xbox 360 Kinect
  
• Xbox 360 Kinect power adapter
  
• A long cable to connect your phone to your PC (or a cable extender)

Software:

• ivry ($8)
  
• Driver4VR (around $18 currently)

All of the software needed for this have trial options, but you will need to purchase the full software to get a good experience. ivry goes to grayscale after 5 minutes when on trial, and Driver4VR disconnects after running for 30 minutes, requiring a restart to work again. I recommend using the trial versions of these in order to make sure this works for you.

HMD Setup

I use my phone as an HMD, I have an iPhone X and use the blizwolf google cardboard headset. I do not recommend buying the blitzwolf headset, but here is the link to the amazon listing anyways;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYSKTN2/

I don't recommend this headset because it isn't terribly comfortable and the FOV is quite bad. It does at least fit my glasses alright but I don't think it's worth it, I only got it because it was around $10.

Once you have a headset to use your phone in, you will need ivry in order to connect your phone to your PC. ivry is available on android and iOS, here are the store listings;
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ivry/id1210129937?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediator_software.ivry&hl=en_US

You will additionally need to download the ivry drivers for steamvr, but that will be covered later when we setup SteamVR.

Setting up SteamVR and ivry

You will need to download SteamVR from the steam store, along with the ivry drivers for SteamVR.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/250820/SteamVR/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/992490/iVRy_Driver_for_SteamVR/

Additionally you will later need to purchase the full version of ivry, I recommend purchasing it from the steam store. You can purchase the full version of ivry from either the app store on your phone or from steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1005972/iVRy_Driver_for_SteamVR_Mobile_Device_Premium_Edition/

If you are using ivry on iOS, you will need to have iTunes downloaded on your PC in order to connect your phone by cable. You can run ivry wirelessly over wifi however I really do not recommend it as the latency and framerate was quite bad when I tried to use it wirelessly.

After you have downloaded SteamVR, the ivry drivers for SteamVR, and iTunes if you are on iOS, connect your phone to your computer with a cable and launch ivry on your phone, and launch the ivry drivers from your steam library. You need to have ivry running on your phone when starting steamvr or else steamvr will fail to launch properly. You only need to launch the ivry drivers the first time in order to setup, after that you will launch steamvr when you want to start up VR.


You should now see a stereoscopic view on your phone, meaning your phone is connected properly. Congratulations! You now have a working HMD with rotational tracking. We will need to setup some other things in order to be able to fully use SteamVR.

However, before we continue, I highly recommend disabling steamvr home on launch, as it tends to lag a lot in my experience and slow down getting into VR applications. You can do so from the steamvr settings.

Setting up Driver4VR

In order to be able to have controllers and full arm and head tracking with this setup, we will need Driver4VR. This has a trial that you can try out, the only limitation is that Driver4VR disconnects after 30 minutes requiring you to restart. The full version is around $18 currently and is well worth the money.

You can download driver4vr from the website, you will need to create an account first;
https://www.driver4vr.com/

The download for the full version and the trial version are exactly the same, driver4vr uses a login system to verify that you purchased the full version.

However, currently there is a Driver4VR 5.0 beta build available on the driver4vr discord. The beta build massively improves kinect tracking and I highly recommend using it currently. It also adds gyro calibration for joycons in order to address joycon gyro drift.

Install driver4vr after downloading it, and then launch SteamVR again. This time driver4vr should boot along with steamvr. Upon Driver4VR launching you will be required to log into your driver4vr account. Driver4VR should now be setup initially, and we can move onto connecting our controllers and tracking.

Setting up the Joycons

In my setup I use Nintendo Switch Joycons as controllers, driver4vr emulates these as vive controllers in steamvr. In order to connect the joycons you will need bluetooth on your computer, if your computer doesn't have it you can get a bluetooth dongle online.

To connect your joycons, make sure driver4vr is not running first, then set them into pairing mode by holding the sync button until the lights on the side start scrolling left and right.


Now open up your bluetooth settings, which can be accessed from your toolbar.


Next click "Add Bluetooth or Other Device", then "Bluetooth"


Proceed to click on the joycon when it shows up in the list and it should connect.

If your joycon quickly disconnects, or is experiencing a lot of latency later on when we connect these to driver4vr, make sure that they are sufficiently charged when you are using them. I have also run into issues pairing joycons while I have had Driver4VR running, so as a safe practice I shut down driver4vr before connecting my joycons, and then relaunch it once they are connected.

Now that your joycons are connected, we can go into driver4vr and set them up. Launch steamvr again and driver4vr. Once driver4vr is launched, go into "Device Manager" in driver4vr, then navigate to the Joycon tab. Then set the joycon use option to "ON" in order for driver4vr to detect your joycons.



Next click on "Configuration" and change your settings to match the screenshot.


Close out of the configuration and click "update list of devices", you should see both of your joycons in the list. Don't click the preview button, as they won't show any input as long as driver4vr is not started and running.


Now in order to test that our joycons are working properly, close out of the device manager, and in the main window set Hand Controllers to Virtual Trackers.

Next go back into the device manager, and assign the left and right joycons to the corresponding driver4vr tracker.


Now we can finally start driver4vr, go back to the main window and hit "Start Driver4VR". Put on your headset and you should be able to see controllers moving when you rotate your arms. If you need to recenter the controllers, point them in the direction of your headset and press the plus or minus button. After ensuring the controllers are working, we can move on to setting up our tracking.

Setting up the Kinect

In order to track our arms and head position (and also legs if you wish to use full body) I use an xbox 360 kinect. You can use an xbox one kinect, however I opted for the 360 kinect as it was far cheaper along with the adapter (it cost me around $20 in total off of ebay). You will need the power adapter in order to connect the kinect to your PC, it will not work if the power adapter is not supplying power to your kinect.

In order to use the kinect you will need to download the 360 kinect sdk.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40278

After you have installed the kinect drivers, make sure your kinect is plugged into both your PC and a power outlet. In order to have good performance with the kinect, I recommend plugging it into a port on your pc that does not share a lot of other bandwidth with other devices, such as the front panel of your desktop, as the kinect uses a fair bit of USB bandwidth.

My kinect is currently sitting about 6 feet up and angled down to see my play space.

I will first show you how to setup for arm and head tracking only. In driver4vr, set hand controllers and head tracking to "kinect: skeleton"


Start driver4vr, and you will then need to calibrate the orientation of your headset in relation to your kinect. Open the "Kinect Settings" menu from the main window, and change the skeleton tracking mode from standing to seated, this will make the kinect only track your arms and your head.


Next, close out of the kinect settings window, and click the calibrate button next to head tracking. The way I usually calibrate usually is I walk out in front of my kinect with my headset on and holding my joycons, and press the home or screenshot button on my joycon to bring up the steamvr menu. From there I switch to the desktop menu, and click the calibrate button using my joycon while facing directly towards my kinect.



You arms should now be facing the right direction, and you should be good to go from here!

[Hidi]

you can use them by themselves, they'll just be stuck pivoting at the elbow and you wouldn't have head position

[Papacu]

Is the kinect neccessary or can i use joy cons by them selves?

[Dark Invincible]

okay thanks

[Hidi]

that could work, but you'd only be able to control one hand with it which wouldn't be ideal

[Dark Invincible]

Hello, I have a question:
I have switch pro controller with gyroscope, can it work?
please thanks

[Star Baker]

I knew it! Using the Joy-Cons WAS totally possible!

[rat]

got it, thank you!

[Hidi]

yes, though the experience will be quite frustrating depending on the game tbh. with vrchat it was passable because it's a social vr game, you might have trouble playing gorilla tag because of how many movements that requires

[rat]

so i can probably use this for vr games, gorilla tag for example, right?

[Hidi]

yep, you'll probably have a better experience with those anyways vs the switch controllers. joycons were just what I happened to have on hand when I was trying to desperately get into vr without buying a headset