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Mastering Oculus Rift Development
Mastering Oculus Rift Development

Mastering Oculus Rift Development: The next frontier of gaming and simulation

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Mastering Oculus Rift Development

Chapter 2. Stepping into Virtual Reality

Now that you're familiar with the concepts that make up the Oculus Rift and virtual reality in general, you're ready to get your feet wet. In this chapter, we'll be diving into Unity3D, which is one of the most popular engines to develop VR on for beginners and experts alike.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • Getting started with Unity
  • Incorporating the Oculus Utilities package
  • Taking your first steps in VR
  • Enabling interaction with gaze-based mechanics
  • Unlocking the power of Unity's VR API
  • Building and running your first VR app

Getting started with Unity

Unity3D is a complex engine, but it's very easy to get started with. In this section, we'll cover every aspect of the engine you need in order to build and deploy your first VR experience, but we'll be exploring different capabilities of the engine every chapter. Unity3D offers support for a few different languages, but all code we write in this book will be C#.

Installing the Unity3D engine

To install Unity, navigate to http://www.unity3d.com/ and download the installation assistant from the front page. Unity offers a Personal and Professional edition; the Personal edition is free and contains everything you need to create a VR application. Also, create a Unity account on the page to manage your license and other account-based services.

Note

Unity's Professional edition isn't required for virtual reality development, but it does provide some helpful tools for finalizing your game before you sell it, such as the ability to remove the Unity...

Incorporating the Oculus Utilities package

Unity supports native VR development out of the box, so you don't need anything besides the engine itself to build VR experiences. However, Oculus provides a set of optional tools to developers that take care of some of the boilerplate functionality. In this section, we'll download the Oculus Utilities package for Unity and import it to our project.

Open a web browser and navigate to https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/. Select Game Engines in the category dropdown and then select the most recent release version (1.3.2 at the time of writing). Look for a package called Oculus Utilities for Unity 5, as shown in the following screenshot:

Incorporating the Oculus Utilities package

Click on Details, accept the agreement, and download the package and save it to a location where you can easily access it later, like your desktop. Once it has finished downloading, you can import it by mousing over Import Package in the Assets dropdown and selecting the Custom Package... option, as...

Taking your first steps in VR

The first step we'll take in setting up our first VR scene is to delete Main Camera from the hierarchy. This is a standard object that Unity adds to every scene in order to render it, but since the Rift is responsible for rendering VR scenes, we don't need a standard camera anymore.

After you delete the default camera, it's time to add a place for the player to stand. We'll get into creating natural terrains later in this book, but for now we'll just make a simple flat floor.

Click on the Create button in the upper-left corner of the Hierarchy window and select Plane from the 3D Object menu, as shown in the following screenshot:

Taking your first steps in VR

Once your plane has been created, click on it once in the hierarchy to display its properties in the Inspector window, which include its position and rotation. In this book's Unity layout, the Inspector window is at the same height as the Hierarchy window on the far right of the editor window.

At the...

Enabling interaction with gaze-based mechanics

If you've played a video game before (chances are high if you're reading this book), navigating with W, A, S, and D might seem familiar. It's a proven input method that has been a solid common denominator for many keyboard-operated games. However, VR enables us to implement input methods that haven't been possible before now, for instance, using your eyes.

One of the simplest ways that gaze is used in virtual reality experiences is to teleport or jump from point to point. This is sometimes seen as more ideal than the movement we implemented in the last section since any kind of smooth locomotion without a response from our inner ear can make us feel nauseated.

Gaze-based teleporting circumvents this issue by instantaneously moving the player to whatever point they were looking at when a key or button was pressed. Because there's no perceived inertia, there is no eye/ear disconnect; the player is stationary throughout...

Building and running your first VR app

Up until now, testing in the Unity Editor has sufficed for getting a taste of the features you're working on. That being said, it's always good to make a proper build and run it outside of Unity to test the game exactly as your users will be experiencing it.

In this section, we'll go over the configuration of different settings in Unity to prepare and build your first VR executable.

Configuring Unity Build Settings for VR

Open the File menu at the top of the Unity Editor and select the Build Settings... option. In the window that appears, set Target Platform to Windows and Architecture to x86_64, as shown in the following screenshot:

Configuring Unity Build Settings for VR

Next, click on Quality within the Project Settings section of the Edit menu to move onto the next configuration section, as shown in the following screenshot:

Configuring Unity Build Settings for VR

Configuring Unity Quality settings for VR

The quality settings of your project are not crucial for the functionality of your build, but they can...

Getting started with Unity


Unity3D is a complex engine, but it's very easy to get started with. In this section, we'll cover every aspect of the engine you need in order to build and deploy your first VR experience, but we'll be exploring different capabilities of the engine every chapter. Unity3D offers support for a few different languages, but all code we write in this book will be C#.

Installing the Unity3D engine

To install Unity, navigate to http://www.unity3d.com/ and download the installation assistant from the front page. Unity offers a Personal and Professional edition; the Personal edition is free and contains everything you need to create a VR application. Also, create a Unity account on the page to manage your license and other account-based services.

Note

Unity's Professional edition isn't required for virtual reality development, but it does provide some helpful tools for finalizing your game before you sell it, such as the ability to remove the Unity splash screen and the option...

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Key benefits

  • Create immersive 3D games especially designed for the Oculus Rift platform
  • Build complex realistic virtual reality (VR) games with the Unity Engine
  • Create striking VR environments with advanced graphical techniques

Description

Virtual reality (VR) is changing the world of gaming and entertainment as we know it. VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift immerse players in a virtual world by tracking their head movements and simulating depth, giving them the feeling that they are actually present in the environment. We will first use the Oculus SDK in the book and will then move on to the widely popular Unity Engine, showing you how you can add that extra edge to your VR games using the power of Unity. In this book, you’ll learn how to take advantage of this new medium by designing around each of its unique features. This book will demonstrate the Unity 5 game engine, one of most widely-used engines for VR development, and will take you through a comprehensive project that covers everything necessary to create and publish a complete VR experience for the Oculus Rift. You will also be able to identify the common perils and pitfalls of VR development to ensure that your audience has the most comfortable experience possible. By the end of the book, you will be able to create an advanced VR game for the Oculus Rift, and you’ll have everything you need to bring your ideas into a new reality.

Who is this book for?

This book is for aspiring indie developers and VR enthusiasts who want to bring their ideas into virtual reality with a new platform that provides an unprecedented level of realism and immersion.

What you will learn

  • Increase immersion with 3D audio and intuitive interfaces
  • Create group VR experiences using multi-player networking
  • Design fun and engaging mechanics that utilize VR principles
  • Explore the best ways to navigate and interact using the Oculus Rift
  • Design intuitive ways to navigate and interact with scenes in VR
  • Add stunning realism to a scene with three-dimensional audio
  • Invent mechanics and features that take full advantage of VR hardware
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Table of Contents

10 Chapters
1. Exploring a New Reality with the Oculus Rift Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Stepping into Virtual Reality Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Improving Performance and Avoiding Discomfort Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Interacting with Virtual Worlds Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Establishing Presence Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Adding Depth and Intuition to a User Interface Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Hearing and Believing with 3D Audio Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Adding Tone and Realism with Graphics Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Bringing Players Together in VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Publishing on the Oculus Store Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
(3 Ratings)
5 star 100%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
D. de Céspedes Feb 24, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
As someone new to development for VR I found this book really easy to follow and helpful.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Arikia A Millikan Mar 13, 2024
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This was the most helpful book of the many I read about the topic. Jack is a great writer!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Isabelle G Dec 05, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Tres bon livre. Simple et efficace pour debuter programmation Oculus.Ne couvre pas oculus touch.Livraison et produit ok.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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