Image by Walkerssk from Pixabay
During our journey through development and research in Virtual Reality, we have encountered many challenges. We have faced each one and found solutions, so here we propose some helpful tips.
C1. Hand tracking or controllers? What to choose?
In our experience, if you can include both options, do it! In future projects, you may need to implement both, and having that functionality ready is ideal. It’s also extremely useful if your controllers run out of battery or if they’re not tracking your hands correctly.
You should consider the type of experience you are creating and whether users need controllers to move or if you prefer them to use natural hand movements to interact with the environment.
C2. The objects disappear for no reason in the virtual environment
Check the culling settings! Sometimes, to save energy or improve performance, headsets and applications may disconnect the rendering processes for objects that are too far away or out of the user’s field of view. Another solution is to set the animation speed to zero (if it’s in a geometry cache format) instead of simply pausing it if you want the object to stop moving.
C3. I have set up the language, but it does not work in the preview.
Test it in a packaged project. Sometimes, the language setting doesn’t update in the engine’s preview. Alternatively, try running a standalone simulation to see if that resolves the issue.
C4. I am experimenting significant lag in a Mixed Reality experience.
In Mixed Reality, you need to be particularly careful with the size of the models and the lighting. Keep in mind that pass-through technology has to render the real environment and 3D objects simultaneously. Aim to reduce the total polygon count to less than 1 million across the entire scene, and consider making lights static to enhance performance.
This also applies to standalone applications. It is important to reduce the number of polygons in meshes, the number of elements in the scene, the texture resolution, and limit dynamic lights to a maximum of one!
C5. The application always crashes when I try to run it on the headset.
This can sometimes occur if the application has not been installed properly. In other cases, it may be due to the size of the application itself. Reducing the polygon count can help alleviate this issue!
C6. Why am I being catapulted out of the scene?
One of the most overlooked issues is object collisions because they are invisible unless we enable their view. If you are being catapulted out of the scene, it may be due to a collision with an object—usually a large one. Try disabling collisions until you find the error. Once you identify the problematic object, replace the simple collision (a block that surrounds the entire object) with a complex one (which fits the object’s shape more precisely).
C7. Why some 3D models look dark when using static lights?
Check the UVs! Static lights are calculated by baking lighting on lightmaps. These UV maps are created automatically by the game engine taking as reference the base UVs of the imported model, so if the model had wrong UVs, probably the lightmaps will be wrong too.
More questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments!
KEYWORDS
#VirtualReality #VR #Device #Headset #Controller #HMD #Sensor #HapticFeedback #Passthorugh
Cite as
XRAI Lab. (2024, MONTH DAY. Virtual Reality: An Approach to Overcome Challenges. – XRAI Lab. https://xrailab.es/2025/04/14/virtual-reality-an-approach-to-overcome-challenges/
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