My full setup routine and calibration for VRC with FBT. 

yeah i dont play vrchat to stare into a mirror im just a normal person it’s just anyone can see this video is over complicated :) plain and simple.

What's the whole set up like names and stuff I have been looking into fbt and this one looks.simple

I guess it wasnt clear but this is how I do it my nitpicky personal way and it was just one recording. I dont agree that it was exaggerated as everything i did had a purpose and wasnt drawn out aside from calibration to explain what I was doing. The update likely doubled how long it took but I decided to leave it in since this wasnt a tutorial and just one take of setting up for me. Personally I have no issue with facebook headset users seeing this as a hassle. While not 100% of the time most people who decided to get a quest over any PC tethered headset are unlikely to be interested in any of this BECAUSE they chose the headset that is "fast and easy". Obviously that doesnt apply to everyone and I understand its a bit exclusionary but the whole point of this video was to show how I personally setup and if people find it to be a hassle than I cant help that. Finally the reality is that this can take some time depending on the results you want and how thorough you are. I will add a note in the description clarifying some of this to try and avoid people getting the wrong idea and I appreciate your thoughts on the video so thanks!

yes it did for me however reading this made me reconsider, thank you for the definition

omg i didnt even know turning the controllers on launches SteamVR, im gonna try this tonight haha

Yeah this seems extreme to me. Since I already have my reflective surfaces covered in my room, for me its a matter of unplugging my trackers/controllers (i keep my dongles plugged in and powered on all the time), putting them, along with my headset on my bed, strapping my controllers to my feet (I play in socks with the straps around my feet), putting on my waist, power on the controllers to boot up SteamVR (I also never have the 1 in 10 headset updates you claimed, but then again, I have an Index), powering up the trackers, then finally cleaning my lenses and putting on my headset.

Yeah this is way overblown. It’s just three extra trackers, adding maybe an extra two or three minutes assuming you’re already using a headset and controllers that are base station tracked. Now if you’re using a mixed setup with a Quest or Reverb then yes there is a little more setup and calibration involved, as well as possibly having to recalibrate mid-session. Having to download third party software and mess around with more settings makes that less fluid and beginner friendly. I would still say it’s not *that* bad but requires a little more patience to have to set up every time.

Your welcome! I'm glad you found it useful. I've found my trackers have recently become far more reliable, I'm not sure what made the difference but I'd guess just firmware updates. Good luck and dont waste your time laying around, experiment with moving around with them and have fun o/

Some of my issues with USB devices got better after updating my mother boards bios so maybe that's worth a shot?

Mute friend?

@@MrBaracu common term for ppl on vrchat that can't or don't want to speak

A lot of people just turn on there headset and strap the trackers to themself

I'm glad to hear it! A lot of the little bits add up when you're trying to get good tracking.

You're dead on with IKtweaks being the issue. Regrettably for some reason no matter what options are checked I can't stop the avatars view ball point from snapping to the tracked location of my head at the moment I bind the calibration. IK tweaks is great but I've never managed to truly separate the tracked objects and the avatars rigging using it. I just deal with the worse IK for now since I only use the avatar shown here which is very old and using sdk2. Proper calibration is understandably too much hassle for most people so I wouldn't expect IK tweaks to get updated for this anytime soon but you could always try reaching out to the dev. Sorry I don't have a better solution for you gl and thanks for watching and commenting ☺️

Thank you ;~; fun fact I've streamlined the process down quite a bit since this vid and steamvr has been giving me less issues so on a good day it takes around 15 min.

Sadly no 😞 thats an issue of avatar scaling. The ratio between your feet and hips and the ratio between the avatars feet and hips needs to be as close as possible for the most accurate IK. Some model bases like MMD have very long legs and it can be problematic. My advice would be to prioritize the accuracy of the feet over the hips so the virtual floor lines up better with your real floor. Hope this helps

Sounds like you may have not enabled legacy calibration. Since this video came out they've added the legacy calibration option in the settings. This should unlock your trackers from the model during calibration. Sorry for the late response and hope this helps 🙏

If your physical trackers are on your feet but show up on your shins on your avatar it's likely a scaling issue between you and the avatar (e.g. avatar has longer legs) you can use playspace mover to line the feet up but obviously this moves your head and rest of your body down as well. You can move the trackers individually in vrchat now in the settings as well as a few other things to adjust but you kind of have to find what works for you. Alternatively you can rescale the the avatar to fit your body. Hope this helps and gl

As long as your using the quest on PC using steam VR and have base stations Vive trackers should work

having dongles unplugged is just to avoid the controllers freaking out and pairing to the dongles which is rare but can happen. and thanks the large playspace is great for infinite walking and other real locomotion stuff. I know a few people who use the rubber band trick.

@RustyHeartt Yea that's the one.

@RustyHeartt Welcome to the full body experience in advance. :D Just a warning, once you go full body, doing just VR (half body?) just won't feel right anymore. xD

@RustyHeartt Well you can add me ingame if you want. Name's "Sanquin" in vrc. (And I would like to know yours as well so I don't ignore the request. I tend to ignore random friend requests. :P) Not going to put my discord in a youtube comment section though. ^^;;

Enter "--legacy-fbt-calibrate" in the steam launch options.

Nothing else you need, but I use a nice Anker power bank for charging. Glhf!

Funny you mention it I'm quite good. I use it all the time to get around since it feels more natural than stick locomotion. I've been doing it for about 3 years now and helped start a discord server with a few friends for stuff like this that we categorize as "real locomotion".

Sorry its been 2 months, It's a very old Anker 4 port powered USB hub. I wouldn't recommend it anymore just because its old.

Sorry it's been 4 weeks! You right click on the game in your steam library and click properties then find the launch options. In that box you'll type something like "--fbt-legacy-calibration" I'm at work and can't load pages properly so you'll have to Google the exact line to put in. The legacy calibration is more picky but gives the best results when you get it down. Good luck!

They're almost always adjustable but I would guess about 5 feet max length when not clipped together.

It's just a USB hub for the tracking dongles. The hub has switches on it to control each port which can be useful for when I want to make sure they don't connect before I want them too. I actually broke it a few days ago funny enough and had to buy a different one.

Thanks! The same enthusiasm for detail I have for calibration was apllied to trying to make those and other bits like the hoodie strings move just right!

@@ZackKenin way cool! I come back to this video every now and then to remind myself that no- maybe I don’t want FBT just yet hahaha!! ❤️🔥 amazing work!!!

@@alwaysyouramanda thanks so much! Don't let my pessimism push you too far away though, Many people are much less thorough but still get lots of fun out of their FBT setups and there's new options coming out such as slimevr. I get a feeling it won't be long until FBT is common if not a standard.

I’m back for the sick tunes *bobs head* 🔥🤗 I can’t wait!!

@@alwaysyouramanda all the music is from pistol whip which is like my 2nd favorite VR game. I highly recommend checking it out.

That's most likely to do with your base stations position in your room, so I'd try mounting them in different ways and make sure they look down on you not directly at you. Another possible issue is your shirt may crumple and create foods that block the line of sight to the base station. (I tie my shirt up in a knot at one corner with a scrunchie while I play)

Oh shit actually some avatars just do that and it's a rigging issue which I don't have any advice on sadly. Try other avatars and if youre using alternative IK solutions like IKTweaks mod swap to standard or maybe even try installing it via melonloader.

Yup so there's a bit to unpack here so I'm gonna give you the outlines and have to ask you to research the details/figure them out. First, pretend you don't know ANYTHING about height or scale in vr cause it's easy to make assumptions that'll screw you up. You'll need to download and install "openvr advanced settings" this has built into it a tool we colloquially call "playspace mover" (Google how to use it and lock it to just the up and down axis). Next you'll need to put into your steam launch options for vrchat something like --vr_fbtcalibration_legacy (Google for this) this will use the old method where during calibration you move independent from the t-posed model, allowing you to choose the distance between you and your calibration points including vertically. Finally in vrchat begin calibration and you should notice you're able to walk around your playspace without the model following. So now stand relaxed but straight matching the models posture/position if you want it to accurrately reflect yours. Then using play space mover slide yourself JUST up and down till you find a specific balance. For most humanoids this balance is having your feet trackers matched vertically to where the models feet are AND having your shoulders match as close as possible. You will often have to change your "real height" in the settings to scale yourself to be big or small enough to line both up. That should be it! But it's not. The maximum quality of calibration can often come down to your proportions as a ratio compared to your models proportions (hence why I scaled mine off me). So German starter server the tldr is: 1.playspace mover 2.legacy launch option 3.calibrate and slide up and down till it's close 4. Adjust real height 5. Repeat 3&4 until shoes and shoulders both match as close as possible. I hope that made it clearer and not more confusing sorry Im not at my PC and can't get all the links for you. Good luck! And yea hold the controllers in your hands arms that are too long or short can be changed with real height but again that changes other stuff so it's a tricky balancing act.

@@ZackKenin Thank you for the info/guide Open VR i had already installed and i toyed arround a lot with my playspace. The launch option --vr_fbtcalibration_legacy is indeed new to me, does it also work still with the update that has been released today? So i also need a good fitting avatar for myself.... oof..... time to visit a lot of avatar worlds -.-

@@welpenhund --legacy-fbt-calibrate is the exact line you need to put into the steam launch options for the game. It does work with the new update and should work forever onwards until it's deprecated. By using this method and playspace moving vertically in combination with adjusting your real height you should be able to fudge a pretty great fit on the majority of avatars as long as they are close to average human dimensions. Without the legacy calibration your head moves with the avatar so you can't lower yourself to say; match your feet. This makes fitting into avatars more difficult as you can't "fudge" it.

If anyone can't stand due to a medical condition thinks I'm including them in that statement they probably are disabled. And I think you're disabled for thinking someone without functional legs would spend 300+ USD on devices to track the *movement* of their legs. Thank you for your algorithm assisting comment, have a nice day

@@ZackKenin I can hear the sizziling💀

Vrchat does a bit of filtering automatically by the time the movements reach the other players. If I did dancing or something and recorded it locally I would use the smoothing but I kinda like it being a little jerky. Great suggestion though I hear that software is mint.

It broke awhile ago and I don't remember sorry. I'd recommend using your USB cradles that came with the dongles whether you use a USB hub or not.

what is the avatar name? :D

@@xisty5366 Sporty Fox by ImLeXz. Check out ImLeXz's public avatar world for it

To fix your first issue you need to use the legacy fbt calibration launch option and put it into steam. (A Google search will get that done for you in minutes) this will unbind you from your t posed model while calibrating (so make sure you're centered when you lock it in!). As for your second issue I have a theory.. it seems that if you open an overlay such as steamvr while loading in vrchat it can clear your calibration. Try going to 3 worlds in a row after calibrating and don't touch any buttons aside from the virtual "go" button. And definitely don't open any menus or stuff in the stuttery initializing phase. You can also get mods that will save your calibration even between avatars! Hope that helps and enjoy the metaverse!

@@ZackKenin Both issues are now fixed , thank you kindly sir

@@SuperFAILMC glad to hear it!

Sure! I have a Ryzen 3900x and a 3080. My setup has changed since this point and now I use a quest 2 over virtual desktop which is a big performance hit as it needs to encode all the video. In decent worlds with 10-15 people I usually get between 40-50 frames. I keep my super sampling in steamvr at about 50%. I'd also reccomend an nvme drive. Those things are wicked fast.

@@ZackKenin got it, thank you!

In steam, right click the game and go into properties> set launch options, then type in: --legacy-fbt-calibrate . This is the original vrchat calibration method and unlocks your head from your model, so take care to line your spine up. Good luck I hope this helped

@@ZackKenin Yes it did :D Thank you very much

@@ZackKenin Is there also a way to get arms of smaller Avatars than myself to work better? Because even if I can line up my hips and the feet, lightly smaller avatars like basicly 90% of anime avatars reach their max. arm length to early. And that leads to weird stretching while moving or weird standing when my arms just relax and hang down. Or do I have to make my own avatars for that and make them actually taller in Unity. I really hope thats not the case ..

@@takerst you adjust the "real height" option to change the scaling. In the new ik beta you can set I scaling is based off wingspan or height but you almost always have to fudge it a bit. You generally have to prioritize shoulder, foot, or eye height accuracy.

@@ZackKenin Those are good informations, thank you again. The thing with the Launch options works pretty fine. I´ll see how it ends up when I prioritize these 3 named spots. I always did it for the eyes though. The problem with the feet is no solved thanks to the Launch Options and shoulders I actually never checked before. Thought that would be correct automatically because you also dont have to actually stretch your arms before finishing the calibration. (I´m always doing it though^^) I continue trying

If you mean the angle for the base stations, I recommend just a slight downwards tilt depending on how high they are off the ground.

Not specifically "need" but in my experience it's a very good way to avoid bugs that can arise from new driver installation.

VRCHAT uses maths called "inverse kinematics" or IK that basically calculate from your hips to your feet to guesstimate the position of your knees etc by knowing how humanoids can move. It's really cool stuff and used in flat screen games for character animation as well! (E.g in star citizen when your characters feet bump into an object the knees bend accordingly)

Thank you ☺️

Thanks I care quite a lot about it. And Ive considered wireless many many times but it's so much money and I always feel like I might upgrade at any point rendering the wireless pointless.

I'm glad to hear your setup works so well, and cleaning your headset and other peripherals is very important. Keep that up and your devices will last you a long time!

@@ZackKenin Thank you, also I love your content.

@@amybraathen7873 glad to hear it thank you

I would highly recommend looking into vrchat more then. There's tons of live music events with djs in vr and dancers too, there's even people who use real poles in their rooms and pole dance I can't fit even a fraction of how cool it is in a RU-vid comment so I really reccomended looking it up. If you need an in- look for DDVR or dance dance vr they're a party group in vrchat and have a discord where people would be happy to tell you about it.

@@ZackKenin id really really love to but i just dont have any of the equipment right now at all sadly:( i hope i can get it soon or something though because ive been researching full-body tracking after seeing some videos on twitter, and im so glad its a relatively accessible thing money-wise. hopefully some time soon i can get some sensors & set up in my room

As I mentioned in the pinned comment on this video; my computer was having some serious motherboard bios issues at the time giving lots of trouble, especially with USB devices like dongles.

www.vive.com/us/accessory/vive-tracker/ this is the official link but for the price I might reccomend alternatives such as the 3.0, tundra trackers, or slime vr depending on your budget. For 2.0 trackers I also reccomend buying used as many people quickly decide they won't use it enough. Good luck ☺️

Valve index controllers!

@@ZackKenindidnt realize you could mix and match like that, i see. thank you :)

Except usually I don't check for issues starting up everything, if I run into an issue later on I'm fine, just starts off gameplay a lot faster. Only thing i do is check if my lenses are dirty before starting up, I play a lot of Gorilla Tag alongside VRChat. But now it's much easier just having index with everything compatible, I don't run into many issues anymore

That's great to hear! It's amazing how just a little bit of effort will develop into skills over time. Good luck on the slimevr trackers they look super interesting.

@@ZackKenin thank you! DIY Vr has been my passion hobby for a few years now, I actually started with diy but I got lazy when I got my quest, and now im back to diying some more stuff. Planning on picking up a next gen headset and whatever vive trackers or tundra's or whatever there is in the future. Ill buy them in around a year or 2, for now, my slime trackers will be great until then, we're getting close to finishing the first ones!

Very true, average setup should be much quicker. At the time of filming this video my motherboard was having a lot of problems and those issues take a large chunk of the time. It's definitely time for a new video.

It’s no issue! I think I mainly just wanted to highlight that it would take less time so people aren’t turned off of FBT! Your process is honestly fine and I’m sure it helps a lot of people :)! I had issues with my PC a few months ago and I know that computer issues can definitely have an affect on set-up time!

@@Stephanie0420 thanks I appreciate you looking out for other players 👍

The tech keeps getting cheaper and more accessible, I'm sure if it's something you're really interested in you can make it happen before you know it.

Thanks for the advice, I dont use the vive anymore but at the time I tried what you mentioned many times, to varying degrees of success. The issue was my out of date BIOS actually which is why the issues were so erratic.

It's an old avatar from like 2019 that I bought the rights to and made a rescaled version of with some tweaks. Can't remember the original name sorry :/

Very embarrassed to say I barely use it 😞 I focus on guitar mostly

@@ZackKenin mfw

Sorry to ruin my own cool factor but It's an airsoft replica. The H9 is in it's holster under the table ;) . I wouldn't keep real firearms out if I had them (as much as I'd want too).

Not wrong my room was very messy at the time

Very happy for you 👍

I go my vr back I’m getting my pc in June

Got my pc

Yup, it's a small thing but I find that having it close to the side gives you more options of movement for instance laying on your back and being able to roll to your stomach in one direction.

I'm glad that vr experiences are so accessible for you to reach the level of immersion and quality you like. A major part of this video was the calibration tips section at the end and that's where a lot of the time is usually spent. You can just calibrate without doing these things and not notice any difference but I would. I'm obviously very anal about that quality and as such it takes longer for me to setup.

@@ZackKenin jeh, for full boddyn i just aline my feet wagely and the hip and thats it. i also was lucky to haven an avatar that fits me almost perfectly. but i understand that for you or others the thighs and shoulders n stuff matter too. what i ment was the setup besore. i mean u got unfortunate whith the updates and headset not being recognized. but if i wantet to get FBT and saw this 15 minute long setup and i would think this is what its like every time this would let me think twice about getting FBT or even swith from a quest.

@@wikinger7286 I see what you mean and a few people have mentioned that this video would scare them away. I put a message in the description and a comment it sounds like you found trying to clarify that this was my experience and not neccessarily a standard one.

In my current (different) setup I have a ceiling mounted cable setup

Yup I got lots of strange kit. Not super great with it but I love using it.

Dunno if the average player has 17x17 foot playspace but it's probably about as messy

Thanks Nicolas, Im glad it's easier for you 😘

6 foot 2 ;)

I'm really really picky about it but it's worth it for me.

The haritorax is IMU based tracking that is coming to the west from Japan and is fairly popular over there. It should be about 270 USD. Not cheap but cheaper, good luck ☺️

No idea what you're talking about ☺️

I hear they're great and I've heard the mic is comparable to studio quality! However I own a generation one HTC VIVE which doesn't come with any audio solutions. I purchased the valve index controllers separately and use them with the vive and 1.0 base stations, much like how I use the 2.0 vive trackers with the 1.0 base stations. Finally I wear earbuds cause they're less heavy and bulky on an already very cumbersome setup. Hope that helps!

Not wrong not wrong, but I'm plugging and unplugging devices many many times a day. I had cable management originally but having to undo all of it a few times a day was driving me nuts so now I just live with my messy cables. I've even spun my PC around to get easier access to the ports I'm using so often. If anything I just need to keep the whole room cleaner overall 😂

@@ZackKenin lol

Glad you liked it but I SWEAR I'm not overcomplicating it at least for my specific setup. Back when I made this vid I'd been having serious motherboard driver issues and windows 10 issues and almost everything here was a preventative measure for a specific issue I had been having at that time. Yes, in general you shouldn't need all this but if you're having issues this may help. Thanks for watching

I agree with pretty much everything youve said. As I'm sure you know remaking and uploading the video would be a huge hassle but I've already left a comment and altered the description to more or less clarify those points. What I disagree with is the 1-2 min to have everything working "perfectly" you could call it just bad luck but I find steamvr Bluetooth dongles, lighthouses, and tracked devices to all be very buggy and give me issues about twice a week. I wrote "current gen fbt" and while we are more or less in the same place the software and firmware end has certainly improved a bit and made the whole ecosystem more reliable. That said, Just a few hours ago I spent a whole hour fixing an issue so weird it would take paragraphs to explain and missed an event as a result. Basically it comes down to a question of: am I (ZackK) just really really unlucky? Or are people not mentioning their issues or playing less than I. I'm now stuck with a rift s hybrid setup using my dead vive as a steamvr Bluetooth receiver for 2 index controllers so I'm not doing myself any favors. Thanks for your comment and thoughts and sorry for the lengthy response.

@@ZackKenin i do have very occasional software issues but they are usually simple (when i'm playing vrchat 25-50 hours in two weeks), i don't ever have problems like yours. although on the hardware side vr headsets and controllers last like a year of heavy use for me before major problems arise, while my monitor, mouse and keyboard have been working without major problems for many years but it's understandable why vr equipment lasts that long

@@225and there's a good chance that's where some of my issue lie then. Most of my hardware is well over 3 years old (except those damn index controllers) I really wish such expensive hardware would be more durable when it's expected to be used harshly. Like where's my sweat proof headset?

@@ZackKenin the technology is very early though, just like 5 years ago we got room scale vr, so 1000+ hours isnt that bad for 1000$, or even less if you use something like a quest. vr has already improved much more than when i got it 3 years ago, we should really be grateful that it's quickly improving and becoming more popular. the valve index has a 1 year warranty that is very generous. while it might feel cheap if it breaks after a while, it's very good value for what we're paying for. sorry for kind of arguing i just want to get my point across lol

I'd bury you in an awkward, 100 ping, shadow fight-thing, but sadly my headset broke recently ;; I bought a pimax visions 8k plus but then proceeded to break it's cable. So now until the new cable comes in I cant partake in my beloved metaverse. I dunno you might be cuter but I try my best :/

@@ZackKenin it's okay, my FBT experimental software is not going well. We will just have to have a stare off

It seems like people are getting the wrong idea. This isnt the setup "needed" its my personal VERY thorough routine for setting up and I had an unexpected update that made it much longer. Under many circumstances you can be up and running in 2 minutes if youre rushing.

its different for most people. for me its basically starting up steamvr, putting on my shoes and belt, put my pulley on the hook on the wall (pulley already attached to the cable), putthe headset on my head, grab controllers, start up controllers, start up fb tracker and done. this whole process takes me like 5-8 minutes most of the time

@@ZackKenin Man I got full body and it takes me no time to put the trackers on and the headset etc. I get it done in like 3 minutes at most

Thanks for your comment. You can find clarification in the pinned comment and video description.

If I ever move back I'll be sure to do that 👍