Skip to main content

VR developer straps Vive controllers to players’ feet for full-body tracking

Most VR games that track users’ bodily position in space do so with a combination of external cameras, headset-mounted sensors and handheld motion controllers. VR developer Cloudgate Studio has added another wrinkle in a new experiment: By strapping HTC Vive controllers to a player’s feet, the studio may have created the closest thing to a “full-body” VR experience yet.

The demo, called “full body awareness experiment,” involves a soldier avatar whose limb and torso locations line up roughly with the player’s thanks to the extra sensors. That allows the player to reach down and touch their chest, legs or feet and have the action reflected accurately within the game, theoretically increasing immersion via that sense of “presence” VR devs are always chasing.

Recommended Videos

Cloudgate Studio is the developer behind the popular Brookhaven Experiment, a “VR survival shooter” released for HTC Vive last summer. For the “full body awareness experiment” the developers used their experience with motion capture and other related fields to jury-rig the full-body VR suit over the course of a weekend, though they’d envisioned the experiment as early as a year ago, Polygon said.

For now, the feet-tracking VR demo is just a YouTube video, but this type of full-body virtual reality experience should become more common later this year as developers get their hands on HTC’s official Vive Trackers. The small black discs, which can be attached to objects to make them detectable by the Vive’s sensors, should prove easier to strap to players’ shoes than full-sized controllers.

Whether it’s wise to encourage players to flail their feet around with expensive, sight-obscuring technology strapped to their bodies is, thankfully, a question for philosophers, not developers.

Michael Rougeau
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mike Rougeau is a journalist and writer who lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and two dogs. He specializes in video…
The best VR-ready laptops you can buy right now
oculus quest hand tracking hands on review cameras vr 2

While VR headsets need a fairly robust GPU to operate properly, you’re not completely bound to a desktop computer. With the right laptop, you can run VR just fine, making it easier to find the perfect VR setup around your home or on the go.

Virtual headsets like the Vive Cosmos or the Rift S have their own recommendations for how much computing and GPU power you need. And while this is a good starting point, it doesn’t really give you an idea of what laptops can really run VR well.

Read more
Everything revealed in the Mario Kart World Direct: A Rewind feature and more
Mario in Mario Kart World.

Today's Mario Kart World Direct revealed much more information about the upcoming title, and it looks like a great blend of familiar fun with a whole lot of new gameplay elements. From the Free Roam feature that lets you explore the entirety of the world to a slew of new tricks that include grinding on rails, Mario Kart World looks like the refresh the series needed.

Let's start with the courses. There are numerous courses scattered throughout the map, each one thematically influenced by its surrounding geography. The Direct demoed the Mario Bros. Circuit, Crown City, the canal-focused Salty Salty Speedway, snowy Starview Peak, Boo Cinema, Toad's Factory, Peach Beach, Wario Shipyard, and more. Classic courses make a comeback, but with a few tweaks to the tracks you know and love.

Read more
Star Wars Outlaw’s second DLC trailer leaked its release date a day early
Kay Vess stands next to arcade cabinets in Star Wars Outlaws.

The trailer for Star War's Outlaws' DLC A Pirate's Fortune seems to have been published early by accident and revealed a release date: May 15, 2025. Ubisoft has already taken down the leaked trailer, but not before fans snapped plenty of screenshots. Better yet, a demo for Star Wars Outlaws is also available starting today on the Epic Games Store, as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. Unfortunately, your save will not carry over to the game, if you choose to purchase it after trying it out.

The demo features roughly three hours of non-consecutive gameplay, letting players experience different aspects of the game. It's not just a few hours at the start, so it makes sense that the saved data won't transfer.

Read more