In particular, we see applications for the provided resource in 1) embodiment research and 2) conducting remote VR studies. There are a range of VR research topics where hand textures are useful.

1.1 Applications for Textured Hands in VR

For researchers that want to work with hand representations, but do not have expertise in 3d modeling, rigging, and texturing, there hence is a lack of easy to use options. While it can be possible to adapt or create a hand skeleton that matches a model to that data, that in itself is a task that commonly requires expertise from a 3d artist. There are textured hands available for purchase, but these usually use different underlying 3d models and hence are not directly compatible with the hand tracking data. Unfortunately, creating detailed textures for existing hand models requires the expertise of a texture artist-a role not typically found in research teams. For example, the Oculus and Leap Motion SDKs both do not include hand textures. While these systems usually provide hand models that work with their tracking, texturing of these models is limited. Virtual hand representations are increasingly enabled by consumer-oriented VR technology through built-in hand tracking support (e.g., the Oculus Quest 2) as well as add-on products that can add hand tracking support to headsets that do not otherwise support it (e.g., the Leap Motion 3). Our resource allows researchers to easily setup VR studies with visually realistic hand representations based on a standard skin tone scale. Hand representations are an increasingly common way for users to interact in virtual environments and the hand appearance an important part of the user experience and bodily self-consciousness when immersed. The textures cover all six skin-tone levels of the Fitzpatrick scale ( Fitzpatrick, 1988) in addition to three non-human variants. We release Hafnia Hands 1, a set of hand textures for use in virtual reality (VR) research.

Unity vr hand model free