Getting a solid roblox vr collision script running is one of those things that sounds easy until you actually try to pick up a virtual mug and your hand disappears into the table. It's a common frustration for anyone diving into Roblox VR development. You've got your headset on, the tracking is smooth, but the second you try to interact with the world, everything feels like you're a ghost. If you want your players to feel like they're actually inhabiting a space, you need physical feedback. You need your hands to stop when they hit a wall, not just sail right through the bricks.
The main reason this is such a headache is the way Roblox handles parts and CFrames. By default, if you just "weld" a part to a VR controller or manually set its CFrame every frame to match the hand's position, you're essentially bypassing the physics engine. You're telling the engine, "Put this part here, I don't care what's in the way." To get actual collisions, we have to play by the rules of the physics engine, which means using constraints or forces rather than direct positioning.
Why standard movement breaks VR physics
When you're writing a roblox vr collision script, the biggest hurdle is the "teleportation" effect. Because VR controllers update their position dozens of times a second, a simple script that sets a Part's CFrame is basically teleporting that part over very tiny distances. Physics engines hate that. If a part teleports into another part, the engine doesn't always know how to push it out correctly. It might just get stuck, or worse, launch the player into the stratosphere.
To fix this, we need to stop thinking about "setting" the position and start thinking about "pulling" the position. We want a physical hand—a separate part with its own collisions—to try its hardest to follow the position of the VR controller without actually being glued to it. This is where things like AlignPosition and AlignOrientation come into play. They act like invisible rubber bands that tug your physical hand toward your real-life hand.
Setting up the physics rig
Before you even touch a script, you need the right setup in the Explorer. You generally want two sets of hands. One is the "Visual Hand," which is what the player sees. This one can be non-collidable and just follow the CFrame of the controller perfectly so there's no visual lag. The second is the "Physics Hand." This is an invisible (or semi-transparent) part that actually has its CanCollide property set to true.
In your roblox vr collision script, you'll want to link these two. You use an AlignPosition object and an AlignOrientation object inside the Physics Hand. You set the "Attachment1" of these constraints to an attachment located at the goal position (the actual VR controller's location). When you move your real hand, the attachment moves, and the physics engine calculates the force needed to move the Physics Hand to that spot. If there's a wall in the way, the Physics Hand hits it and stops, while your real-life hand (and the visual hand, usually) keeps going.
The importance of Network Ownership
This is the part that trips up almost everyone. If you don't set the Network Ownership of your physics hands to the player, you're going to experience a massive amount of lag. By default, the server likes to claim ownership of physical parts. If the server is trying to calculate the physics for your VR hands while you're moving them on the client, there's a round-trip delay that makes everything feel like you're playing in molasses.
In your server-side script, you need to call part:SetNetworkOwner(player) on the physics parts. This tells Roblox, "Hey, let the player's computer handle the math for these specific parts." Suddenly, the response time becomes instant. Without this step, your roblox vr collision script will feel jittery and broken, no matter how good your math is.
Balancing the force and responsiveness
One of the trickiest parts of fine-tuning the feel is the MaxForce and Responsiveness properties of your constraints. If you set the force too high, the hand will punch through walls because it's trying so hard to reach your controller that it ignores the collision. If it's too low, the hand will feel heavy and "floaty," dragging behind your actual movements like it's underwater.
It takes a bit of trial and error. You want the MaxForce to be high enough to lift objects in the game but low enough that it doesn't cause the physics engine to freak out when it hits a static object. I usually find that setting the Responsiveness to a high value (like 200) and then capping the MaxForce based on what the hand is supposed to be—human strength vs. superhero strength—works best.
Handling the "Ghosting" effect
So, what happens when the physics hand hits a wall but the player's real hand keeps moving forward? You get a gap. This is often called "ghosting." Some developers prefer to have the visual hand stay stuck to the wall with the physics hand, while others like to show a transparent "ghost" hand that shows where the player's real hand is.
If you want to implement this in your roblox vr collision script, you basically just check the distance between the Controller's CFrame and the Physics Hand's CFrame. If the distance is greater than, say, 0.5 studs, you can make a ghost hand appear or change the transparency of the main hand. This gives the player immediate visual feedback that they've hit something and can't go any further. It's much less jarring than having your hand just disappear or act weird.
Adding haptic feedback for impact
Collisions aren't just about what you see; they're about what you feel. Roblox gives us access to HapticService, and you should absolutely use it. When your physics hand detects a collision (using a .Touched event or, more reliably, checking the distance gap we mentioned earlier), you can trigger a small vibration in the controller.
A tiny buzz when the hand touches a surface makes a world of difference. It tricks the brain into thinking there's actual resistance. You don't want a massive vibration for every little touch—that gets annoying fast—but a sharp, short burst when hitting a wall or picking up an object adds that final layer of immersion that makes a VR game feel "premium."
Dealing with "sticky" collisions
One weird bug you might run into with a roblox vr collision script is what I call "sticky hands." This happens when the physics part gets wedged into a corner or another part, and the AlignPosition force isn't quite right, causing the hand to vibrate violently or get stuck.
To solve this, many devs use a "Sphere" instead of a hand-shaped hitbox for the physics part. Spheres are much smoother for the physics engine to calculate. They don't have sharp edges that get caught on geometry. You can still make the visual hand look like a hand, but the actual "collision shell" should be a simple ball or a capsule. It makes sliding your hand along a wall feel much more natural.
Final thoughts on VR interaction
At the end of the day, a roblox vr collision script is really just a bridge between the real world and the game engine. It's never going to be perfect because we don't have actual haptic suits that stop our real arms, but with the right mix of constraints, network ownership, and visual cues, you can get it pretty close.
Don't get discouraged if your first few attempts result in hands flying across the map or getting stuck in floors. VR physics is notoriously finicky. Just keep tweaking those force values and make sure your attachments are aligned correctly. Once you get that first solid "thud" when you punch a virtual wall, it all becomes worth it. It changes the game from a simple 3D experience into a world that feels like it has actual weight and presence.