How To Play

If you are not familiar with the basic gameplay of Minecraft, start with a tutorial.

Minecraft is not a native VR game. Controller input is implemented through mouse and keyboard simulation for maximum compatibility. For the best experience please make sure the game window has focus on your PC.

Jump To Play Modes Default Controls Moving Around Combat and Mining VR Interact Other VR Features

Play Modes

Vivecraft has 2 major play modes: Standing and Seated. Switch in the VR Settings menu.

Standing play uses motion controllers and allows all room-scale interactions.

Seated play disables all controller input and uses the mouse and keyboard. Most roomscale interactions are disabled but VR functions, like teleporting, can still be used.

This page primarily describes Standing play mode.

Default Controls

Vivecraft ships default bindings for Vive, Oculus, Index, WMR, and Cosmos controllers. See this page for the default bindings in current versions of Vivecraft, and instructions for re-binding.

Different bindings are used for interacting with the world vs. interacting with a screen for maximum compatibility with vanilla Minecraft mechanics.

All controls can be rebound using SteamVR Input.

See this page for legacy bindings from before June 2019.

Moving Around

Vivecraft supports many types of locomotion options depending on your comfort level in VR, what controllers you have, and the mode of play.

The locomotion options available can all be found in the VR Settings menu and may change depending on your version and play mode.

By default, any controller with a left joystick will use that as Move and Strafe always. Additionally, on all controllers the left trigger will act as Move Forward or Teleport, based on your settings and if teleporting is allowed. Holding ‘Pick Block’ for several seconds will toggle the function of the left trigger from teleport to free-move.

Teleporting

Aim a parabolic arc at your destination and release to be teleported to it instantly.  In survival mode teleporting will cause hunger and has an energy meter that refills over time.

When actively using Teleport, all involuntary horizontal movement, such as knockback or being pushed by water, is prevented, This does not apply to vehicles. Vertical movement, such as jumping or falling, can additionally be turned off with the ‘Simulate Falling’ option. Using a free-move button will cancel these effects.

Teleporting may not be supported on multiplayer servers. In this case the Teleport button will only function as Move Forward’

Free-Move

There are multiple options for how free-move works. Switch between them in the Locomotion Settings. Several options also exist for mitigating motion sickness, such as movement speed reduction, increased inertia, and FOV reduction.

The following are the available sub-modes for free move.

Controller: Uses the offhand controller pointing direction as ‘forward’. This is the default.

HMD: Similar to controller mode but uses the the VR headset look direction as ‘forward’.

Run-In-place In this mode you hold the ‘Walk Forwards’ button and swing your arms to move. Forward is based on the direction of both controllers. Speed depends on how fast you swing your arms.

Roosmscale Movement

Walking around your play space will move your player in-game. The location of the player is represented by a square shadow. The player has to follow the normal collision rules of Minecraft so be sure not to lose your shadow buddy!

The ‘Walkabout’ and ‘Free Rotate’ bindings exist to allow continuous movement in roomscale if desired. Both allow manipulation of the world rotation. These are not bound by default.

Rotating

Rotating the world is bound to right joystick, if present. Rotation is ‘snap’ turning by default. You can configure the snap angle in the VR Settings menu or turn the angle all the way down to change the rotation to ‘smooth’.

Note that rotation is not bound by default to Vive wands. Rotate Right and Left can be found in the radial menu. If you wish to bind rotation to a Vive touchpad, you must use the Vector2 ‘Rotate Only’ action. You cannot use Rotate Left/Rotate Right as DPad actions. Complain to Valve.

Jumping

Jumping is bound by default to a controller button. You can also trigger a jump in roomscale by… jumping in roomscale. Make sure your height is calibrated and your room setup is correct to use this feature. Also ensure you are friendly with your downstairs neighbors.

Walking Up Blocks

By default the vanilla ‘auto-jump’ setting is disabled due to making you feel like a kangaroo. In lieu, Vivecraft has a separate ‘Walk Up Blocks’ setting that will instantly teleport you up 1 block if you move far enough into it using either free-move, or simply walking in roomscale.

Sprinting

Vivecraft includes an Auto-Sprint setting that will activate sprint when a joystick or trigger is pressed far enough. This frees up a button that would otherwise need to be dedicated to sprint. A sprint binding is available if an alternate setup is desired.

An icon on the HUD will appear while sprinting as it is sometimes difficult to tell due to the lack of a FOV-shift.

Sneaking

Sneaking is bound by default to the controller, or it can be activated in roomscale by physically crouching down. Make sure you calibrate your height and that your room setup is correct to use this feature.

While sneaking, an icon will appear on the HUD and the player arms will appear slightly translucent.

Climbing

Ladders and Vines can be climbed in roomscale simply by touching and pulling yourself up. You can also teleport your way up a ladder if you have vertical motion turned off. Vivecraft also includes some fun items for climbing any surface. See here.

Swimming

Swimming using free-movement buttons works much like vanilla swimming.

When ‘swim-sprinting’ (a feature added in Minecraft 1.14), the player hitbox shrinks to less than 1 block high. The VR view will shift downwards to prevent clipping into blocks. While this mode is active an icon will appear on the HUD.

Vivecraft also has a ‘roomscale’ mechanic that allows swimming by performing a breast-stroke motion with the arms. With this feature enabled, buoyancy in water is a little different to improve feel.

Flying

Elytra flying is left identical to vanilla. Simply point in the direction you wish to fly. There is no roomscale mechanic to flying, the lawyers talked me out of it.

Riding

Mounting a vehicle (animals, boats, and minecarts) is done via right-click as with vanilla.

A ‘roomscale dismount’ feature exists if you have un-bound the vanilla ‘dismount’ button (which is sneak). Simply walk away from the mount in room-scale and you should dismount it.

The ‘Vehicle Rotation’ option found in the locomotion settings will dictate if your view turns as your mount turns. You may wish to adjust this setting as it can cause motion sickness.

Boats can be rowed in roomscale by performing rowing motions.

Combat and Mining

Vivecraft has a mechanic for attacking and mining in roomscale. Damage and reach is dependent on the item you are using, the situation you are in, and the settings. Some notes:

  • Roomscale mining is enabled only in survival game mode. This is a setting.
  • Roomscale mining is disabled with a sword or trident equipped.
  • You can use either hand for mining or attacking, but you will always cause the damage value of the item in the main hand. This is a Minecraft limitation. It’s best to use the main hand for your weapon.
  • Hitting a block harder will cause more damage, to a point.
  • The collision for most items is at the tip of the item, approximately. Minecraft does not have a physics engine nor do mesh collision.
  • Attacking reach is greatly extended for monsters when using a sword or trident. This extra reach does not apply to players, blocks, or when wielding other items.

Vivecraft also has a roomscale bow mechanic. When a bow is equipped in either hand, the bow will appear in the offhand, and any available arrows in the right hand. Physically nock the arrow and hold the Attack button (usually right trigger) to draw the bow. Aim and release Attack to fire the bow.

Damage and Health

Since the HUD is sometimes difficult to look at in the heat of combat, a brief red tint is applied to the whole view while taking damage.

At low health a slow red pulse is applied. It is more pronounced the closer you are to death.

Eating

You can eat food by bringing it up to your face. Assuming you are hungry.

You can also drink but be sure to turn the beverage upside down. There are no straws in Minecraft.

VR Contextual Interact

In vanilla Minecraft, all interaction is done via left- or right-clicking the mouse and only affects the block or entity under the crosshair.

Vivecraft attempts to extend this as much as possible within the limits imposed by Minecraft networking.

The ‘VR Interaction’ system allows performing right-click actions on blocks or entities not under the crosshair, and with either hand.

When touching a block or entity that supports a ‘right-click’ action, the VR Interact bindings on that controller will activate. By default, these are the grips and triggers. Clicking any of these bindings will perform a right-click on the touched object instead of the normal function.

When a block is touched that supports VR Interact, a white outline is drawn around the block. Right-click-able entities, such as mounts, do not have such an outline, but there is a haptic bump sent to the controller when the binding activates.

Buckets can also be filled from either hand using VR Interact while dipped in water.

Switching hotbar slots uses the VR Interact binding on the main hand.

Other VR Features

The HUD

The normal Minecraft HUD will appear in the world depending on your settings:

  • Hand placement will float above your offhand.
  • Wrist placement will put the HUD along the inside of your off-forearm. This is the default for standing mode.
  • Head placement will put the HUD straight out from your view at all times. This is the default for seated mode.

Any in-game menu or screen that opens will always appear fixed in a position just in front of you. All screen interaction is done via the main hand pointer.

Some block or crafting screens, such as for chests, crafting tables, etc. will appear floating over the block.

You can change this in the HUD/GUI settings along with a variety of other options such as partial transparency and occlusion.

The Hotbar

You can touch the hotbar slots to equip the item in that slot. This can be turned off in HUD/GUI settings.

The newest versions of Vivecraft require a click to switch to the slot, as well as allowing an offhand swap.

Backpack Switching

Reaching behind your head with the main controller will switch to the 1st hotbar slot (or back to the previous slot). Good for quickly switching to a weapon.

Reaching behind your head with the offhand controller will swap items between your hands.

You can disable this mechanic in the Interaction Settings if desired.

The In-game keyboard

Vivecraft has a VR keyboard that can be used for typing into text boxes or pressing keyboard keys in-game. The keyboard should open automatically when clicking on a text box in Standing play mode.

You can also bring up the keyboard at any time in-game with a long press of the Game Menu binding. This can be rebound.

Vivecraft has 2 keyboard types available: Physical and Pointer. This can be changed in HUD/GUI settings screen.

The physical keyboard allows typing by pressing 3D buttons.

The pointer keyboard allows typing with 2-handed laser-pointer interaction.

Rebindable actions are available for which controller buttons click on keyboard keys, or serve as modifiers like alt-, shift-, or ctrl-

The keys available on the keyboard can be changed by editing .minecraft/optionsviveprofiles.txt. Look for the settings KeyboardKeys: and KeyboardKeysShift:. The keyboard should support most Unicode characters.

The keyboard will display a warning if the game window needs focus to operate and it does not have it.

The Radial Menu

The radial menu is bound by default to allow access to several uncommonly used commands. The radial menu can be customized in VR Settings. Any keybind can be set on the radial menu, and there are several options available to adjust how it behaves.

Quick Commands

Vivecraft adds a button to the Game Menu (pause menu) to access a set of pre-defined chat or / commands to send to the server with a click. You can customize this list in the VR Settings menu. Handy for commonly used commands like /home or /gamemode. A set of defaults is provided. Praise the Sun!