Hands Module

Developer: Leap Motion
Created: May 27, 2016
Requires: Windows, Oculus Rift/HTC Vive

This virtual reality app requires the use of an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, a mounted Leap Motion Controller (using the VR Developer Mount or unofficial alternative), and the Leap Motion Orion software. It has not been tested on the latest V4 beta.

Unlock new possibilities in your Orion project with Add-on Modules – powerful extensions built on top of our beta release of the Unity Core Assets for Orion. Learn more in our post Unity Core Assets 101: How to Start Building Your VR Project.

The Hands Module contains a small collection of example Leap Hand prefabs, including new low polygon rigged mesh hands and improved scripts for driving rigged meshes. Demo scenes are included that also demonstrate the Unity Core Assets’ new multiple hand group functionality.

In the Hands Viewer Demo scene, use Left Arrow and Right Arrow to switch between hands, or press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to toggle on multiple pairs of hands. Try combinations, like 4&7, and 4&8 together!

Autorigging

Creating new 3D hand assets for your Leap Motion projects can be a real challenge. That’s why Hands Module 2.0 features a massively automated and streamlined pipeline for connecting 3D models to our Core Assets – so what used to take hours only takes a minute or two. This means you now have the ability to autorig a wide array of FBX hand assets with one or two button presses. Read more in our blog post.

Further Resources

Unity Core Assets download and setup
Unity Core Assets 101
Unity documentation
Introducing the Hands Module (Part 1, Part 2)

Please note: the Orion Add-on Modules are dependent on our beta Unity Core Assets for Orion and will not function properly without them.

Hamann

How can one add and change the texture (shader) of the hands in Unity package ?
- leapmotion
  
  This blog post will help: http://blog.leapmotion.com/hands-module-2-0-bring-your-hand-designs-to-life-in-two-minutes-or-less/
  - Hamann
    
    Thanks but it talked about creating a hand from scratch . . . I just wanna change the texture of the default hand in the scene . . . right now the shader is disabled . . . how can I enable that or any other quick way to change the texture?
    - Barrett Fox
      
      So for the CapsuleHand prefab’s, these meshes are generated procedurally and without UV’s. So you can assign a material to them as usual, though the texture will be ignored.
      
      If you’d like to assign a material with a textures, we’d recommend the LoPoly_Rigged_Hand prefab’s instead. These hand models have a UV layout.
      
      Cheers
      Barrett
spkim921

I can’t run the Hands+Vierwer_Demo. What I did is import core assets and import hand module. And do play however in Game scene the hand disappear and nothing happen. What I am missing here?
- leapmotion
  
  What versions of the Leap Motion software and Unity Core Assets are you using?
  - spkim921
    
    I solved problem. So I need to put things under same Assets folder.
Maxim

Hi! Maybe I have stupid question, but I still want to ask. Recently X-Plane developers introduced native VR support. So now you can actually play inside the cockpit plane, using steamVR platform. Last week Word of Tanks introduced first VR demo. That means a lot of players will want to interact with switches and knobs inside their tanks. Currently, Oculus/Vive touch controllera are used. But it is much more natural to touch and twist knobs and switches with your bare hand. And here is my question: Why there are no well-developed driver for SteamVR platform for Leap Controller? All we have is alpha driver on github that doesn’t work sufficiently good for playng. I am wondering, the next few years there will be more and more players with this specific demand for being able to control switches and knobs. Is is matter of legal issues or financial difficulties to develop well-written driver? I am have leap controller myself, but unfortunately, have to use oculus touch in my X-Plane.
- Leap Motion
  
  The problem isn’t a legal or financial one, but rather one related to user experience design. There is no direct mapping between a handheld controller with binary buttons, and a fully embodied and articulated hand. The alpha driver takes a shot at this, but ultimately having different hand actions represent different button presses is going to be a poor user experience. Leap Motion support has to be added by the developer in order to be handled appropriately.
  
  For comparison, look at the Mouse Keys function in Windows. (We’ll preface this by acknowledging that this feature is critically important for many people with accessibility issues.) Mouse Keys lets you replicate the functionality of a mouse using a keyboard. Using the arrow keys and a couple of buttons to represent right and left clicks can work… but it will always be a bad user experience for the vast majority. Trying to map one input onto another rarely works well.
Arcel

Are the semi-realistic PepperCut hand models still included in the Hands Module? Under Prefabs I’m only seeing a “HandModelsNonhuman” folder. It’s still included in the Hands Module Demo build.
Thanks!

Hands Module

Unlock different rigged hands or create your own

Hands Module

Autorigging

Further Resources

AltspaceVR

Force-Directed Graph

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