Wielding things like two-handed swords in VR can be awkward. There’s no sense of grasping a solid object. The controllers (and therefore one’s hands) feel floaty and disconnected from one another, because they are. [Astro VR Gaming] aims to fix this with a DIY attachment they are calling the ARC VR Sword Attachment.
The ARC is a 3D-printed attachment that allows a player to connect two controllers together. They can just as easily be popped apart, which is good because two separate controllers is what one wants most of the time. But for those moments when hefting a spear or swinging a two-handed sword is called for? Stick them together and go wild.The original design (the first link up above) uses magnets, but an alternate version uses tapered inserts instead, and provides a storage stand. Want to know if the ARC is something you’d like to make for yourself? Watch it in action in the video embedded just under the page break.
VR is an emerging technology with loads of space for experimentation and DIY problem solving. We wish more companies would follow Valve’s example of hacker-friendly hardware design, but even just providing CAD models of your hardware to make attachments easier to design would be a big step forward, and something every hacker would welcome.