Swing Arm Locomotion MetaXR Unity without controllers

[volo.volo]

I am working on my Virtual Reality simulation, but my idea is to use hand tracking instead of joysticks, as I am focusing on hand interaction. However, the virtual environment is slightly bigger than the room where the simulation takes place. Therefore, I need a locomotion system, and in my view, swinging arms to move should fit quite well.

I have written this script and attached it to the Camera Rig (see below). Right now, when I move my hands using the mouse in the Scene view, I can see that the script recognizes the movements. However, when I test it by actually swinging my hands, there is no impact.

Additionally, I have noticed a weird issue: the reference to the hands keeps getting lost. To make it work, I had to continuously call a method in the Update() function to update the reference. I assume this issue might be related to the problem.

What could I do to solve this and properly implement hand-swing locomotion?


using UnityEngine;
using System;
using Oculus.Interaction.Input;

public class HandSwingMovement : MonoBehaviour
{
public Hand leftHand;
public Hand rightHand;

public GameObject leftHandGameObject;
public GameObject rightHandGameObject;

public float moveSpeed = 5.0f;
public float swingThreshold = 0.2f;

private Vector3 previousLeftHandPosition;
private Vector3 previousRightHandPosition;

void Start()
{



// Corrected GetComponent Usage
leftHand = leftHandGameObject.GetComponent<Hand>();
rightHand = rightHandGameObject.GetComponent<Hand>();

if (leftHand == null || rightHand == null)
{
Debug.LogError("Hand components are missing!");
return;
}

// Initialize previous hand positions
previousLeftHandPosition = GetHandPosition(leftHandGameObject);
previousRightHandPosition = GetHandPosition(rightHandGameObject);
}

void Update()
{
// Recheck hands in case they get reassigned or deleted
if (leftHand == null || rightHand == null)
{
FindHandsRecursively(transform);

if (leftHandGameObject != null) leftHand = leftHandGameObject.GetComponent<Hand>();
if (rightHandGameObject != null) rightHand = rightHandGameObject.GetComponent<Hand>();

if (leftHand == null || rightHand == null)
{
Debug.LogWarning("Hand references are missing and couldn't be found!");
return;
}
}

// Get current hand positions
Vector3 currentLeftHandPosition = GetHandPosition(leftHandGameObject);
Vector3 currentRightHandPosition = GetHandPosition(rightHandGameObject);

// Calculate hand swing distances
float leftHandSwingDistance = Vector3.Distance(currentLeftHandPosition, previousLeftHandPosition);
float rightHandSwingDistance = Vector3.Distance(currentRightHandPosition, previousRightHandPosition);

// Calculate average swing distance
float averageSwingDistance = (leftHandSwingDistance + rightHandSwingDistance) / 2.0f;

// Debug logs
Debug.Log($"Left Swing: {leftHandSwingDistance}, Right Swing: {rightHandSwingDistance}, Avg: {averageSwingDistance}");

// Move player if swing distance exceeds the threshold
if (averageSwingDistance > swingThreshold)
{
if (TryGetComponent<CharacterController>(out CharacterController controller))
{
controller.Move(transform.forward * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
}
else
{
transform.position += transform.forward * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
}
Debug.Log("Player moved forward");
}

// Update previous hand positions
previousLeftHandPosition = currentLeftHandPosition;
previousRightHandPosition = currentRightHandPosition;
}

/// <summary>
/// Recursively searches for Hand objects tagged "Hand" within the GameObject hierarchy.
/// Assigns the first found hand as left and the second as right.
/// </summary>
private void FindHandsRecursively(Transform parent)
{
foreach (Transform child in parent)
{
if (child.CompareTag("Hand"))
{
if (leftHandGameObject == null)
{
leftHandGameObject = child.gameObject;
}
else if (rightHandGameObject == null)
{
rightHandGameObject = child.gameObject;
return; // Stop once both hands are found
}
}
// Recursively search deeper
FindHandsRecursively(child);
}
}

private Vector3 GetHandPosition(GameObject handObject)
{
if (handObject == null) return Vector3.zero;
return handObject.transform.position; // Fallback if skeleton is unavailable
}
}