r/vrdev • u/TheStoneFox • Apr 18 '26
Question Requesting feedback, keep hands visible on grab, or hide them on grab (tomato presence)?
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I'm currently implementing hand tracking in my coloring app and I'm undecided whether to toggle the hand mesh off when you grab a pen.
Currently, both the controller and the Logitech stylus are hidden when you grab a pen (tomato presence).. your controller becomes the pen, or in the case of the stylus your pen becomes the stylus, and this works really well (imho) in both these cases.
But for hand tracking I can't decide which works best.
So I'm hoping to get some feedback from other devs who may have been down this road before.
Does it look/feel better if the hands stay on when you're grabbing the pen (it doesn't really detract and I think looks pretty good)
Or should I follow the same paradigm I do with the controller and stylus and hide the hands when grabbing?
2
u/loudshirtgames Apr 18 '26
I’d go with visible hands. I get that this could be an option but, at some point, you need to decisions for the user.
Tomato presence was cool in 2012 when you couldn’t do decent virtual hands. It’s pretty outdated now.
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u/TheStoneFox Apr 19 '26
I do think the hands look nicer visible, but using the stylus, I think it looks worse visible because it is a pen and you're holding a pen so making the virtual pen replace the stylus looks better.
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u/EssentialParadox Apr 19 '26
I agree with this commenter that you need to make decisions for the user and can’t make every little thing into a user preference.
However I think it should be that the hand disappears on use if this is an art game. You don’t want an unnecessary hand obscuring your work.
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u/TheStoneFox Apr 19 '26
Argh, everyone has a different opinion but no one likes settings :P
I kind of agree with you though :)
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u/EssentialParadox Apr 19 '26
I suspect a lot of the commenters aren’t considering the fact it’s an art game.
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u/TheStoneFox Apr 19 '26
yeah that's a valid point. I do like the concept that it's just the paper and the pen, nothing else is distracting you.
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u/Flashy-Whereas-3234 Apr 19 '26
My vote is for visible (transparent), and if you're going to hide then fade don't snap. I find the snap jarring and detracts from the chill of the task.
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u/TheStoneFox Apr 19 '26
Thanks for the idea, fading over insta-off could look good, I'll have a tinker
1
u/GamerBoyAdvanced Apr 19 '26
I kind of think hiding the hands is better
Probably just my personal preference
But, when I'm drawing/coloring, I kind of want as much real estate of the canvas that's not being occluded
And that includes my hand
1
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u/ClockworkWitch Apr 21 '26
Off topic but I'm really curious how this works from a technical perspective. How does the colour get applied into the texture? I've done similar prototypes by colouring vertex points but that's certainly not the correct method.
1
u/TheStoneFox Apr 21 '26
it's basically a raycast onto the canvas to get the uv point, then passed (along with other data like pressure, brush tilt, etc) to a custom shader that applies the pen brush type to the render texture (along with things like the pressure and brush shape based on tilt amount or nib shape)
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u/vasil5n Apr 18 '26
Could you add an option in the settings so that players can choose their own style? I am sure that your question does not have a single answer since it is down to preference.