Question Weird haptic event on trigger/grip button press

I updated to Unity 2020.3 from 2019.4, and updated to the latest version of XR Interaction Toolkit plus switched over to OpenXR. Now whenever I press the trigger and grip buttons on my controllers, without even interacting with any objects, I get slight haptic events. Haven't been able to figure out how to fix it. The haptic events on the XR interactors aren't enabled, so I have no idea what's going on. Does anyone know how to fix this?

 

I'm not sure I understand your question. It's my own game scene, not a demo scene, if that's what you mean.

 

So as far as you're aware then, this isn't some default setting with OpenXR or XR Interaction Toolkit? I've done a search of the code base for haptics and it's definitely not something in my own code triggering it

 

Thanks! And yeah, its a very strange issue. I haven't been able to find any code triggering it. Did a search of haptics in my own code base (I only have 3 places I'm currently using haptics), searched through the XR Interaction Toolkits code but couldn't find anything there either.

I'm using an Oculus Quest through Oculus Link with SteamVR as the OpenXR provider. I've had the issue confirmed by another playing my game using a Valve Index as well.

 

Thank you!

 

Hi,

We do introduce a "haptic bump" once you hit an axis threshold when using our runtime. We feel it's a useful/helpful cue for users on when the trigger/grip action is actually activated.

We are also working on an OpenXR extension that'll give application developers more control over this haptic bump and axis thresholds. But for the meantime, this is a standard feature we'd be keeping in our runtime regardless of controller hardware in use.

Cheers,
Rune

 

That axis threshold is going to be different per game, and from my players I have received feedback that it is not a desired feature. It seems quite odd for it to be a default on with no option to turn it off and "breaks" all games that switch over to OpenXR.

 

Hi @emrys90 - the trigger click action we supply should be the same across all titles. are you supplying your own trigger action based on a specific axis threshold? If so, may we know why? If there's a way we could improve the axis->button binding it'd be good to know.

On the balance however, in the absence of the extension I mentioned in my first reply, we had to make a decision on the default for our OpenXR implementation and felt with available data, we should keep the haptic bump on.

If this interferes with your title and any upcoming release dates, the best option is to stay with SteamVR Input for now, where you are able to control these thresholds until an OpenXR extension is released and we've had time to implement it.

 

My game is cross platform with Oculus Quest, so using SteamVR Input was never a good option for us. I was using the legacy OpenVR in 2019.4, but it does not support the Index controllers.

I started with using the default OpenXR input bindings for trigger and grip buttons, but players with an Index during playtesting said that the grip button was far too sensitive, and the trigger button not sensitive enough, so I had to change them to custom values. Whether that is different than your thresholds or not I am not aware.

As to why thresholds can be different per game though, consider games that can do different actions based on the strength of a grip, or how far the trigger is pulled. It doesn't apply to my game, but there are definite use cases for it.

 

Thanks for the feedback @emrys90. It's one of the reasons we provide more granular control with SteamVR Input. Unfortunately it's the only viable option we have at the moment if you wish this level of control for your title.

The extension is still being worked on as I mentioned and as such, I wouldn't rely on its immediate release. I have bookmarked this thread and will let you know once its out and implemented.

 

Okay, thank you.

 

Just ran into this as well. While I appreciate the thought of having a haptic click on the Knuckles to let users know they've triggered something, it's also unfortunate that it can't be turned off. I have a beta tester with a hand injury, and he absolutely can not play a VR game with any haptic feedback, no matter how little. The hard coded haptic feedback makes my game, as well as any other game using OpenXR, entirely unplayable for him, and anyone else with a hand injury or carpal tunnel (which is triggered by vibration). The haptics cause him a lot of pain and make his hands unusable for up to a week. I don't think that's something we want as the default for all upcoming OpenXR titles. Can you please reconsider having the hard coded haptic, @runeberg-valve? It's easy enough to trigger it manually. I can't revert back to using SteamVR, because I'm developing cross platform.

Alternatively, exposing in the Steam VR interface an option to kill all haptics would be fine as well - if not even preferable. That would allow for a unified haptic tick across all titles on Steam VR hardware, while giving those sensitive to haptics the option to switch it off, regardless of whether the developer included the option to.

 

Indeed it is, thanks!

 

Is there any update on this? Noticing it occurring with the latest (1.2.8). We are also doing a cross platform game, and use haptics for specific user feedback (when they take damage, etc) and this interferes with that design, making us unable to use OpenXR.

Ideally it would just be disabled by default, since then developers could decide case by case whether a haptic feedback on trigger click is appropriate, since implementing a haptic impulse on trigger click is very straightforward.

 

Last I heard, we're still waiting on Valve to make an OpenXR extension to allow us to disable it. It is very frustrating, I very much dislike the haptic events, as do my players.

 

Is there a reason given to not just disable it entirely by default, then have an extension to enable it? I'm just not sure I understand why it is a default, since this is very easy for developers to implement themselves if they think it fits their interactions.

 

I completely agree. Unfortunately, it seems like something that is entirely on Valve's end, so not something Unity can do anything about.

 

Also still waiting on this. To me it makes no sense to take control away from the developers on something so core to the player's experience.

 

Okay, so according to the SteamVR 1.19 release notes, they have

In theory could we just set the threshold to be something like 2, so that it never gets passed and the haptic never triggers? For extensions, Khronos states that

Is this something Unity's OpenXR implementation supports?

EDIT: Here's the full description of the extension.

ANOTHER EDIT: Guessing that OpenXR features are how we interact with extensions?

 

Okay great, I've got a feature set up. It looks like I will need to make some calls to the native OpenXR API (adding an XrInteractionProfileAnalogThresholdVALVE structure to the XrInteractionProfileSuggestedBinding chain)—are there any examples of interfacing with the native OpenXR API? I'm guessing it would be called in the OnInstanceCreate method in the feature.

 

Any updates on this?

We are currently switching to OpenXR and we'd prefer to use our own haptic values per input as the trigger and grip have a different game actions detecting on context.

Additionally we have different thresholds set for the grip and trigger that don't align with where the haptic pulses occur.