Adding a New Hand

Folder Structure

This guide will assume that you are using the folder structured illustrated below. It doesn't matter where you put the CustomHand folder but keep in mind that locating it outside of the VRImmersiveHands folder could be better in case you would want to upgrade to a newer version.

• CustomHands

  • MyCustomHand

    • Anim

      • Emote

      • Grab

      • HTCCosmos

      • HTCVive

      • ... (Controllers)

    • ControlRig

    • Materials

    • Textures

Default UE4 Hand Skeletons

Follow these steps to add a skeletal mesh that uses UE4’s hand skeleton.

1. Right click on your skeletal mesh and change its skeleton to the one we provided. Its located in VRImmersiveHands>HandsAndControllers>Hands>Mannequin. This is required for AnimBP to work.
2. Add a new hand name to E_HandMeshes.
3. Duplicate the UE4_Mannequin in DT_AnimGroups and rename it to the new hand name. More on this later.
4. Add the same hand name to DT_Hands.
5. Fill out hand properties.
6. For each controller listed in DT_Controllers, add a new HandTransform map element for your custom hand and paste UE4_Mannequin's transform. Transform values can be copied and pasted by right clicking the element.

Settings	Description
Left Hand Mesh SR	A skeletal mesh for displaying as left hand
Left Hand Anim BP	An anim instance for left hand
Invert (L)	Set to true if you only have right hand. Like Epic's hand.
Right Hand Mesh SR	A skeletal mesh for displaying as right hand
Right Hand Anim BP	An anim instance for right hand
Invert (R)	Set to false if you only have right hand. Like Epic's hand.
Hint Material L	Hint Setup
Hint Material R	Hint Setup
Loc Offset	Offset to match UE4_Mannequin's location. Finding Hand Offset
Rot Offset	Offset to match UE4_Mannequin's rotation. Finding Hand Offset
Scale	A value to match UE4_Mannequin's 0.75 scale. Finding Hand Offset

Finding Hand Offset

When using a different Skeletal Mesh for UE4’s hand skeleton, it is not guaranteed that all of them will be exactly the same in size. Use Loc Offset, Rot Offset and Scale to match the new Skeletal Mesh to UE4_Mannequin. Be aware, if every animation looks good, great! You implemented a new hand without too much work. If they don’t look so good, you will need to fine tune animations to look better.

Fine Tuning Animations

If you are one of the unlucky folks, follow these steps to fine tune animations.

1. Copy and paste the controller animations you want to fine tune from Mannequin>Anim>HMDName to your CustomHand folder.

2. Utilize the Using Control Rig - Advanced Level and Bake To Control Rig to edit the duplicated animations. You can find the transform for the controllers in the DT_Controllers.

3. Replace the new animations with the ones in DT_AnimGroup.

Control Rig

Custom Hand Skeletons (Advanced)

There is no easy way to implement a new skeleton to any system that relies on animations. We recommend you to take a look at Marketplace for default UE4 Hand Skeleton compatible meshes. Example. In any case, you can follow these steps to add custom hand skeleton.

1. Custom hand skeletons will need to retarget or recreate every animation in “/VRImmersiveHands/HandsAndControllers/Hands/Mannequin/Anims”. A fine-tune to every animation might be needed after retargeting. Be aware, this will take a long time. You can create a new Control Rig from the one we included for UE4 Hand Skeleton to speed up animation creation process.

2. Retarget AnimBP_MannequinHand.

3. Make sure to change the bone names in nodes to your hand.

4. Follow Default UE4 Hand Skeletons.

5. Add hint sockets. Have a look at the provided hand.

6. Create a mask for every finger. Have a look at the provided hand.

Hint Setup

If you want to show hints on your fingers follow these steps. Have a look at the provided hands for example.

Hint feature expects the materials to be in a certain order in DT_Hands.

Material Order in the Hint Material Arrays

• MI_Hologram_MyCustomHand

• MI_Hologram_MyCustomHand_Culling

• MI_Hologram_MyCustomHand_DDT

• MI_Hologram_MyCustomHand_Culling_DDT

• MI_Highlight_MyCustomHand

Hologram Materials

1. Duplicate materials named with MI_Hologram... to your custom hands materials folder.

2. Create finger masks for your custom hand.

   1. T_MyCustomHand_T_I_M. (T=Thumb as R, I=Index as G, M=Middle as B)

   2. T_MyCustomHand_R_P_H. (R=Ring as R, P=Pinky as G, H=Whole Hand as B)

3. Set the sRGB value of the masks to false in UE4.

4. Replace the masks with yours.

Highlight Material

Duplicate your custom hands material and add this setup to it.