All content in this course uses:

2.3 - Near-Far and Ray Interactors

In this lesson, you will learn how to implement Direct Interactors and how to switch between interactors on the same controller. By the end of this lesson, the user will be able to grab things directly with their hands, and then toggle a ray to point at things when they need to. 

Right now, you can pick up everything with your teleport ray, which doesn’t feel natural. You should only be able to teleport with your ray and pick up GameObjects with your hand directly.

Add a new “Raycasts” layer in the first available empty box.

2.  Prevent your ray from interacting with your grabbable GameObjects:

Make sure your grabbable GameObjects don’t share the 

3.  Make sure your ray can interact with teleport GameObjects:

4.  Prevent your hand model from disappearing when you teleport:

Your ray interactor should no longer be able to pick up GameObjects, but should be usable for teleporting.

Prevent ray from picking up GameObjects

 to grab far GameObjects separately. Introduced in 

 combines both of these functions into a single component, allowing you to seamlessly interact with GameObjects both up close (near) and at a distance (far).

1.  Create the Near-Far Interactor setup:

 GameObject as a child GameObject of the 

window, notice the components that were added to the new 

: Combines direct and ray interaction modes so you can grab and interact with GameObjects both near and far.

: Defines how a GameObject attaches to your hand or controller when grabbed, controlling its offset and rotation.

: Casts a sphere-shaped volume to detect nearby GameObjects for interaction.

: Projects a curved ray for far interactions.

 component, use the foldout (triangle) to expand the 

, and make sure the checkbox is disabled to hide the hand when grabbing.

 the box to show the hand when releasing.

 GameObject to interact with the hats you created. If you created additional layers for other GameObjects, make sure to add them as well.

 GameObject, then select and inspect the 

 child GameObject. This GameObject contains all of the components that create the ray for the 

Experiment with the settings to find a look that you like. For example, you can set the 

 to make it retract back to your hand when no interactable GameObjects are detected.

You’ll now be able to pick up GameObjects close to you or at a distance with the 

Add a near far interactor for each hand

Just like you did for the ray interactor, you should add the same haptic and audio feedback for hovering over and selecting GameObjects.

You can add haptic on hover enter and select enter to provide physical feedback to the player’s hands.

 for development on devices like the HTC Vive or Valve index, this feature might not work. 

1.  Add a Haptic Impulse Player component:

components assigned, so you don't have to repeat that step, but you still need to assign a 

component to your new interactors to activate the haptics on them.

 property value to a very low value (for example, 

Add haptics and audio to the NearFar Interactor

 rays overlap on each hand, which can make the user experience confusing. In this step, you'll adjust the setup so that the teleport ray only activates when a specific button is pressed. 

1.  Add the ability to toggle the left ray:

 component. This is a custom script we created that will disable a GameObject specified by the user.

2.  Add the ability to detect if a button is pressed:

: Different controllers have different buttons, triggers, and pads on them. If you’re not using a Meta Quest, you’ll likely have to choose a different binding path that works with your device. For example, check out the OpenXRI controller profiles for the

4.  Activate the ray when the button is pressed:

5.  Deactivate the ray when the button is released:

The teleport ray on the left hand should now only appear while the primary button is pressed and disappear when the button is released.

Switch Between Teleport Near Far Interactor rays

One controller is working with one button. You can give the user more options of buttons to push depending on their preference, and then apply this functionality to the other hand.

1.  Add an additional binding that detects the thumbstick: 

) button to add an additional binding to this action.

Follow the same instructions as the previous step to select a binding, but select 

: Different controllers have different buttons, triggers, and pads on them. If you’re not using a Meta Quest, you’ll likely have to choose a different binding path that works with your device. For example, check out the OpenXRI controller profiles for the 

2.  Add this same ray toggling functionality for your right hand:

Repeat all of the instructions from the previous step, but for your 

The rays on both hands should now only appear while the primary button or thumbstick are touched.

Add an additional binding and repeat for other hand

Toggle Near-Far Interactors on/off with button

Recap

If you want to further develop your skills, explore new concepts, and improve your project, check out some of the optional extension activities below. 

Each one is tagged as [Easy], [Medium], [Difficult], or [Expert] and will also include a [Requires Programming] tag if some coding is required. 

1.  Customize the ray interactor lines [Easy]

Edit the ray interactor line and transparency colors, including gradients and transparency:

It looks good to make the start of the ray transparent so it doesn’t overlap with your hands.

To customize the colors of the rays, look in the 

 window, use the markers below the color bar to edit the color and the markers above the color bar to edit the transparency (Alpha) value. 

2.  Add a functional watering can [Medium]

Add a watering can that generates a water particle when you tilt it:

 script to also add a splashing sound when you shake the watering can.

 Add a separate audio source for splashing sound to not interfere with the pouring sound.

Allow the user to open cabinet doors or chest lids using Unity’s physics hinges:

 component to the door, and customize its angular limits.

 component to the handle and may want to add a 

Make sure your door’s colliders don’t overlap any other colliders, which could cause it to get stuck.

: Joints are very tricky and can be frustrating.

Extension Activities

Comp-L2-Prog.VRp: Beginner VR Development

Beginner VR Development

Aaron Sharp

2.3.ext - watering can.mp4

2.3.ext - ray gradients.mp4

2.3.ext - cabinet hinges.mp4

2_3_recap_v1.mp4

2.3.1.mp4

2.3.2.mp4

2.3.3.mp4

2.3.4.mp4

2.3.5.mp4

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Implement direct interactors on a controller in order to allow a user to pick things directly with their hands.

Understand the need for a variety of interactor types in VR in order to allow the user to interact with the environment in different ways.

Toggle between multiple types of interactors on one controller in order to expand the range of actions a user can do with a single hand (e.g. switch between a ray and direct interactor). 

Games

Film

Automotive

Skill-L2-Prog.VRp-2: Develop a VR app that demonstrates common interactions using Unity's XR interaction toolkit.

Unity Version 6.2