busybee fluffy rambles

For the setup, I modified the modular attachment system (by welding the two parts together at print time, because it’s easier to just print multiple mounts than it is to deal with the magnetic attachment system) and made a clip for the Leap Motion itself by modifying the official developer mount. I will probably put my print files online at some point.

Software-wise, getting Leapify to work wasn’t too bad, although the configuration options were a little confusing. Fortunately the author was able to help me figure it out and I got it working about as well as it could.

But anyway, I gave this quite a few tries, and here are some of the issues I consistently ran into:

• The Leap Motion had a very hard time telling where my hands were with the guitar in the way
• The device takes an absolute crapton of power and bandwidth, so I had to run a separate USB cable alongside my headset cable since the BSB’s internal hub couldn’t cope
• VRChat sees the Leap Motion input as hand tracking, which is cool, except it kept on automatically activating gestures that I didn’t want, so when it did see my hands it’d end up deciding I was trying to move around or grab objects when I was just playing the guitar
• Also I was getting weird random audio glitches, probably also due to the enormous bandwidth requirements hecking up my USB (even though the Leap Motion was plugged into a port which should be totally separate from my audio interface’s USB, and also it was screwing with the hardware monitoring bus which shouldn’t even be possible)

Something that does occur to me is that since my performance audio setup is now completely separated from my headset, I could in theory use my Quest + Virtual Desktop for my head and hand tracking when performing, but that has other “fun” things to deal with, like having to fuse my body trackers' playspace (which is possible but annoying) and also that means a much worse VR experience while I have things set up for the Quest.

My best hope right now is that the EOZ gloves eventually come out and aren’t too expensive, and that the glove material doesn’t interfere with playing the guitar. I mean, really that’s probably the best future option for VR controllers in general. Which is also very funny to me because that’s how VR control was advertised way back in the 90s and it feels like things have come full circle. Everything old is new again.

But anyway, for now my avatar’s hands will just continue hang limply by my sides when I’m playing guitar in real life. C'est la vie.