With the rebranding of Facebook and Oculus’ headset, along with the growing VR industry, now is the best time to jump into VR development. In this article, we’re going to cover the steps you need to take to specifically build games for the Meta Quest, and help you discover the need-to-know information to do it.

Let’s dive in!

What You Need to Know About Virtual Reality

In this section specifically for beginners, let’s establish some baseline concepts before we jump into making a game for VR. These will inform the sorts of games you can build, and are important when it comes to establishing your design.

What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality is, in its simplest, the virtual simulation of 3D spaces. Using a headset, you’re immersed visually into a convincing but ultimately digital environment. The headset controls the camera and stands in for your natural vision, and is capable of things like head tracking. In so doing, the idea is that you’ll have a more immersive experience as if you were actually there.

Depending on the headset, you may also have access to controllers, which can be used as hands. Depending on the game, these controllers can enable you to swing equipped weapons, grab objects, and more.

Despite how advanced virtual reality sounds, it’s worth noting that it works for many different devices, from PC to mobile. Though we’ll be focusing specifically on the Meta Quest headset and what it’s suited for, it is still good to keep in mind that this isn’t the only one available.

What are Stationary Experiences?

When designing a VR game, you may wish to go for a stationary experience. These sorts of experiences only track where your head is looking – or in other words how the game camera should be rotated. Other head tracking features that affect position are not utilized in these experiences. So, as the title of this experience implies, users are fairly stationary.

That being said, these can still be used to great advantage. They work well for things like theme park ride simulations or virtual tours. They also more readily avoid simulator sickness – a common phenomenon in VR that causes people to experience motion sickness. It is also considered the more accessible of the two experiences in VR, even if less immersive.

What are Room-Scale Experiences?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, room-scale experiences are those that aim for complete immersion. The game camera not only follows where your head is looking, but also how it is positioned in the world. As such, if you crouch down, the camera goes with you. If you look over an object, the camera goes with you. And so on and so forth.

While this experience is more prone to simulator sickness, it is fantastic if you want to really increase the immersive of the game you’re making. However, keep in mind only more heavy duty headsets, like Meta Quest fortunately, are capable of this style of experience.

How the Meta Quest Works

Years ago, VR was a fairly expensive and clunky platform. Now with the Meta Quest (originally known as the Oculus Quest), VR is reaching its broadest audience yet.

When it comes to portability and ease of use, the Meta Quest is by far the winner among the different VR headsets. However, there are also some advantages specific to Meta Quest, which have made it the focus of our article here. Thus, we want to cover these as well, so you know just what Meta Quest has to offer you.

All-in-One

The Meta Quest, is what’s known as an all-in-one headset. This means that the tracking and computing is done entirely in the headset. No cables plugged into a computer, or external sensors are required.

Inside Out Tracking

You may have seen other VR headsets like the Valve Index, which require external lighthouses to be setup in order for the tracking to work. With the Meta Quest though, you need nothing. The tracking is entirely computed from and on the headset itself, with the help of numerous cameras capturing the surrounding environment. This, along with accelerometers, allows for fairly precise tracking.

Six Degrees of Freedom

Not so common now-a-days, but with mobile VR and the Oculus Go – they features three degrees of freedom. This basically means the headset can be tracked in the three rotational axis’ (yaw, pitch, and roll). With the Meta Quest though, the degrees of freedom are six. The three rotational axis’, as well as the three positional axis (forward/backward, up/down and left/right). This allows for much more immersion, as the player can not only look at the virtual environment, but move through it.

Picking your Game Engine

Now that we got all the information heavy stuff out of the way, let’s jump into the meat of it: how to make a game for Meta Quest.

In order to create a game, we need a game engine. This is a piece of software which allows us to design and code our games. They have many features already setup for us, like 3D environments, interactions, physics, UI, platform support, etc. When it comes to VR, the Unity game engine is your best bet.

Unity, is a favorite among game developers since it has support for pretty much every platform and type of game: VR, AR, 3D, 2D, multiplayer, etc. Many of the VR games you have played were likely made in Unity. This is because Unity was a fairly early adopter of the technology and has since refined their toolkit.

Unity is also free for developers who are earning less than $100,000 in revenue or funding per year. Thus, it is a great choice even for indie developers who are just starting out on their game development journey.

Now there are other engines capable of VR, such as the popular Unreal Engine. We don’t want to mislead you on that count. In fact, if you’re after photo-realistic graphics, we can understand the allure of Unreal Engine, as it is the best game engine for that aspect. Unreal Engine is also well-established in AAA companies.

However, it comes with a few disadvantages:

• Unreal Engine simply isn’t as versatile as Unity. As mentioned above, Unity supports tons of different platforms, so learning how to use Unity gets you more mileage even outside of making games for Meta Quest.
• Unity works better on lower-end computers. Of course, for testing purposes, you will still need a VR-ready computer. However, Unity itself is all around less resource-intensive than Unreal Engine.
• Unity’s default programming, C#, is much easier to learn and use than Unreal Engine’s default language, C++. Though arguably C++ is more industry-standard, it simply has a much more difficult syntax and lacks some modern features modern programming languages like C# have.

Though the choice is up to you, we still highly recommend Unity in this case. If you’d like to know more about the Unity vs. Unreal Engine issue, though, you can check out our article on that exact topic.

Planning your Game

The next step to making a game for Meta Quest is simply to plan it. Game design is a whole separate field of study, so we won’t go too much into that. Though, if you are interested, you can read this article on making Game Design Documents to help you along the way.

Regardless, virtual reality doesn’t have as many limitations as you might think. So, simply put your ideas to paper, decide your features, and have fun with it.

However, there are two issues to consider when planning your game that are specific to virtual reality.

Movement

When it comes to VR, there are two main styles of movement.

With teleportation, users select points on the map and are instantly transported there. Once at the point, they remain in that spot until they click another point to teleport to again. As for the points themselves, they can vary in implementation. Some games allow free-roam with the teleportation, and others use specific set points that limit further where a user can go.

In smooth movement, users use their controllers to move player characters just as they would in a regular game. Though head tracking elements are still at the mercy of the headset, movement is ultimately smooth. It is worth noting, though, this area is rapidly changing, as many companies are experimenting with omni-directional treadmills to enable movement controlled by actually walking.

Simulator Sickness

As we mentioned before, simulator sickness is a common issue with virtual reality. Without getting into the science behind it, just understand it as motion sickness like you’d feel in a car, airplane, or boat. Unfortunately, people’s sensitivity to this issue with virtual reality varies widely – some people have no problems whatsoever, and some people can’t play for 5 minutes without getting dizzy and nauseous.

During your planning phase, it’s wise to consider some best practices you’ll need to implement in order to combat simulator sicknesses. While we’re sure you can find even more tips throughout the helpful game development communities on the internet, we’ve included some common ones here.

• If using smooth movement, players should always be able to move themselves around – don’t move the player via code or other means.
• If you need to move players around yourself, it’s usually better to go with stationary experiences.
• If you need smooth movement AND the ability to move players around, you can block peripheral vision when moving the player as an alternative means to lessen simulator sickness.
• Ideally your game should run at 60FPS, as lower framerates correlate to higher chances of simulator sickness.
• Use fade-in and fade-outs to hide scene loading, teleportation, or any situation where the user is instantly transported somewhere else.

Make your Meta Quest Game

With plans all set to go, it’s time to start making your game for Meta Quest. We’ve included some of our favorite tutorials below. However, before jumping in, you may want to start by reading the Oculus Quest Documentation and the Getting Started with Oculus in Unity guide. Both of these will serve as great resources as you expand your game development knowledge.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

Before learning virtual reality, it’s a good idea to master Unity – as that is a skillset in itself.

With the Unity Game Development Mini-Degree by Zenva, you’ll learn all the foundations you’ll need to utilize Unity to its fullest. You’ll cover topics ranging from getting set up with Unity and coding principles with C#, all the way to developing games in specific genres like first-person-shooters. You’ll also get to explore several of Unity’s unique tools, such as ProBuilder, Cinemachine, Shader Graph, and much more.

Though a premium resource, it will ensure you get an amazing full curriculum of courses to be ready for any game that comes your way.

LEARN UNITY – The Most BASIC Tutorial I’ll Ever Make

If you need to learn Unity for free, LEARN UNITY – The Most BASIC Tutorial I’ll Ever Make by Imphenzia is another great choice just for learning Unity.

In this tutorial, you really will learn everything you need to know as someone who has opened Unity for the first time. This includes how to get Unity set up on your computer, how to navigate the Unity editor, how game objects work in Unity, how to add things like materials and colliders, and even how to deal with C# scripting. You’ll also learn a few useful game mechanics along the way, such as how to collect coins and how to debug your programs.

Thus, if you have zero Unity experience, this is a fantastic tutorial that will get you up to speed for the VR tutorials on this list.

Introduction to VR in Unity

Introduction to VR in Unity, created by Valem, is a 12-video playlist focusing specifically on various virtual reality aspects in Unity.

Using the XR Interaction Toolkit, Unity’s newest tool for adding interaction to VR games easily, you’ll explore useful mechanics that can be utilized in many different kinds of games. This includes things such as different styles of movement, how to interact with objects using hand controllers, and even performing things like ray casts to interact with UIs. You’ll also learn more niche mechanics, such as climbing or interacting with things like doors and levers.

Setup information is included as part of the series as well, so it’s a perfect start to your VR journey.

MINI-COURSE – Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit – VR Tutorial

In MINI-COURSE – Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit – VR Tutorial by Zenva, you’ll get the quick version that will get you set up with a VR project in 30 minutes.

This tutorial focuses once again on the XR Interaction Toolkit. With this toolkit, you don’t even need C# to add interactivity to your project – as this tutorial will show. Instead, it focuses solely on getting the toolkit installed into your project and what components you need to have to make it work with hand-tracked controllers. While learning this, you’ll also set up a little demo kitchen scene with the goal of making the objects interactable within the scope of VR.

If you want to know how to get from blank project to VR project in no time flat, this tutorial is the way to go.

How to Make VR Games in 2022

This simple video, How to Make VR Games in 2022, by Justin P Barnett similarly covers just the basics you’ll need to get started with VR in Unity – with a specific focus on Meta Quest.

Like the tutorial above, this one focuses mostly on the basics. You’ll learn how to set up the XR Interaction Toolkit in Unity quite thoroughly, and then cover basic interaction such as movement and picking up objects. This video also covers how you can actually test your VR creation for various different operating systems – yes, including Linux. As a bonus, the video also shows you how to apply Justin’s own template to your project, making this process even speedier.

No matter what game you make, this one strips it down to the most universal level that is useful to any sort of project!

Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

The Virtual Reality Mini-Degree, another premium resource from Zenva, is a full set of courses focused specifically on virtual reality.

In this curriculum, you’ll learn everything from the basics of Unity to making full virtual reality games. This includes games in many popular genres such as FPS games, RPGs, rhythm games, and more. You’ll also explore interactive experiences in general, and learn how to create various styles of simulations that focus-less on gameplay and more on creating unique and immersive environments. Beyond this, you’ll of course get to learn various basics as well, including the different styles of movement available.

If you want to come out of this experience with a full portfolio ready-to-go, this may be the set of courses for you!

Parting Words

We hope you’ve found this information on building a game for Meta Quest useful! While virtual reality is still a growing technology that will continue to change, making a game is possible even now. As we hope to have conveyed as well, it doesn’t have to be a particularly intimidating experience either. If you have the will, you can make a game!

We wish you the best of luck with your Meta Quest VR experiences, and we can’t wait to see them out in the world.

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Although VR has been attempted many times in the past, this time, it’s here to stay. Thanks to improvements in technology, developers have access to a whole new way to create virtual experiences. Not only has this revolutionized how we interact with and experience games, but also improved many other industries.

As such, we consider VR an important skill for developers of any skill level to investigate. In this article, we’re going to do just that, and also help you get the skills you need to start creating your own VR games.

If you ready to make unique and exciting projects, let’s get started.

Understanding Virtual Reality

Our first step in our journey is to get an understanding of what virtual reality is.

Without getting too technical, virtual reality is simply the process of simulating/representing virtual, 3D spaces as if they were real. This is achieved via the use of special VR headsets. These headsets operate by creating a visual for each eye through various means. Since this simulates how our vision works in real life, it creates the illusion that you’re truly in the virtual environment being shown.

To sell this illusion, VR headsets use head tracking technology to track the movement of your head. In so doing, this allows you to use your own head movement as the means of manipulating the camera. Thus, when you look somewhere, the visuals change accordingly to match this movement.

In addition, some headsets come with controllers that can act as hands for the purposes of interaction. Using these controllers, you can do things like pick up objects, throw them, and so forth.

The VR Experiences

We’ve taken the first step to understanding VR. However, when it comes to developing in VR, there are two different types of VR experiences – and understanding these will dictate how you develop your project and for which headset. As such, let’s talk about those next.

Stationary

Stationary VR experiences are exactly like they sound. While users in this style can look around via their VR headset, no other head movement is tracked. Common stationary experiences include things such as theme park ride simulations, some FPS games, and other situations where you don’t really need the user to move around much.

Though sometimes VR headsets for these experiences come with simple controllers for interactivity, they are usually very limited. That being said, stationary experiences are tried and true, as this is one of the earliest forms of VR. Additionally, they’re considered a bit more accessible, as a user can even sit down while they enjoy these experiences, and these are also often the experiences that work with mobile devices.

Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR are both headsets designed specifically for these types of experiences.

Room-Scale

As you might imagine, room-scale VR experiences are the opposite of stationary experiences. With room-scale experiences, head-tracking is more complete. As such, you can look around, crouch, look over objects, and so forth – and each movement will be detected and reflected in the virtual world.

Additionally, headsets suited for room-scale experiences more often come with motion-tracked controllers that track your hand movements in a similar manner. Consequently, room-scale experiences are considered the more immersive of the two, since they better integrate the user with the virtual environment.

Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and PlayStation VR are the headsets that support this style of VR experience. It is also noteworthy that while stationary VR headsets cannot do room-scale experiences, room-scale headsets can do stationary experiences.

VR Movement

Along with the types of VR experiences, there is yet another concept to explore before you go about developing a VR game: movement. How one moves in VR can be handled in a few different ways, so briefly we want to touch upon that.

Teleportation

As the name suggests, teleportation is a type of movement where a user instantly moves from one point to another (usually at a visible distance). This is achieved with the user selecting a specific point in space to teleport to with a compatible input device. The points of teleportation can be wherever the user picks, or you can set your game up to only allow teleportation to specific points. However, regardless of the points of teleportation, this style of movement requires fade-out and fade-in effects in order to hide the direct change and make the experience less disorientating to the user.

Smooth Movement

Smooth movement is simply the same standard style of movement you’d see in most games – where you watch your player character move from point A to point B. In most cases, this movement is currently achieved using a joystick or similar input device (again, exactly like a regular game). However, newer technologies and devices, such as omnidirectional treadmills, are currently being developed and could possibly replace this in a few years. Regardless, the one thing to note with smooth movement is developers should be warier of virtual reality sickness.

Virtual Reality Game Engines

So far we’ve covered what virtual reality is, and covered some core concepts important to designing your project. However, we come to the next step of making a VR game: choosing a game engine.

A game engine is simply a piece of software that comes bundled with tools for creating video games. Instead of needing to code everything from scratch – such as how graphics are rendered on the screen, how physics is calculated, and so forth – game engines provide pre-established frameworks that take care of some of the more nitty gritty elements. This leaves you free, as a developer, to focus on the important mechanics of how your game works.

While it’s not impossible to create a virtual reality game from scratch, given how advanced VR technology is, working within a game engine is the best choice here.

Though there are a lot of game engines and ways to get VR experiences up and running, there are two main players in this space: Unreal Engine and Unity. Below, we’re going to talk about both and give you the pros and cons of each.

Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine is a high-end, powerful engine focused primarily on 3D games. It is generally most noted for its robust graphics system which, when done with a deft hand, can get you photorealistic results. As just a huge and well-support powerhouse, Unreal Engine is used heavily in the development of AAA games, but is also used in the indie space due to its generous terms in regards to pricing.

As one of the main, go-to engines in the industry, it has a high capacity to support VR, particularly for instances where the graphics need high fidelity.

Programming Language: C++

VR Documentation: Virtual Reality Development

Pros:

• Great for games in-need of AAA level graphics
• Long established visual scripting system
• Integrated multiplayer support
• Unreal Engine 4 is royalty-free until you earn $1 million

Cons:

• Requires a higher end computer to run compared to Unity
• No real support for 2D graphics
• Not as versatile as Unity, particularly with AR and mobile
• The language of choice here, C++, is not the easiest language to learn

Unity

Unity is a popular game engine used fairly equally by indie developers and AAA companies alike. Unity’s main focus has been cross-platform capabilities, meaning you can develop all the following with this single engine: 3D games, 2D games, mobile games, AR apps, VR games, and console games. With a fairly powerful rendering engine, it has also been used in other industries for things such as short films, architecture, and more.

Much like Unreal Engine, Unity has become one of the primary engines for VR, though in this case due to wide industry support for the engine with setups compatible with numerous headsets.

Programming Language: C#

VR Documentation: Getting started with VR development in Unity

Pros:

• VR frameworks are applicable to many different headsets
• Offers support for many different kinds of games and platforms
• Works better on lower-end computers compared to Unreal Engine
• Free until you earn free until you earn $100,000 in annual revenue.

Cons:

• Not as graphically powerful as Unreal Engine
• Less industry presence in terms of AAA games
• Multiplayer and visual scripting are less established features (though are being developed)
• C# is not as used in the industry as C++

Which Engine to Pick for VR?

We’ve covered both engines briefly, but you may still be a bit undecided as to which engine is the right one for you. Much of this will depend a bit on your project. However, if you’d like some more comparisons to help you pick, we recommend checking out the articles below to help make the final decision:

• Best Game Engine
• Unity vs Unreal
• Best Programming Languages for Game Development

How to Make a VR Game

At last, we come to the primary section of how to make a VR game. Here we’re going to discuss a few remaining matters, before getting you set up with tutorials for your VR game development.

Considering your Headset

Before you develop any sort of project, you should get an understanding of the headset you’re aiming to develop for. As mentioned earlier, different headsets work better for different sorts of experiences. So, you’re going to want to think about this aspect.

In general, though, you’re probably going to want to develop for a headset you actually own. While this isn’t a requirement to develop VR games, it makes it a lot easier if you want to do that all important step of actually testing your game.

Unfortunately, given how many headsets are out there, we can’t cover every one in depth. However, we do encourage you to check out the links below thoroughly to read more about each headset, its abilities, and so forth. This should especially be the case if you haven’t yet gotten a headset.

• HTC Vive
• Oculus Quest
• Playstation VR
• Google Cardboard
• Samsung Gear VR
• Valve Index

Best Practices for Motion Sickness

Before you sit down at your computer and fire up that game engine, there’s one last thing to consider with your project: motion sickness.

Motion sickness is a phenomenon where your brain, try as it might, can’t process the sense of motion via the usual physical senses (primarily visual). When this happens, a lot of bad things occur. People get sweaty, they get dizzy, they get nauseous, and, if prolonged long enough, it can even cause headaches.

Unfortunately, by the very nature of VR, motion sickness is often a problem. While some people deal with it perfectly fine, many others are extremely sensitive to this phenomenon. And believe us, a VR game that causes too many people motion sickness is the VR game that isn’t going to get played.

So, how do you address this? While there is no one gold star solution that solves everything, there are many best practices, covered below, you can try to reduce it. Keep in mind you’ll never resolve this for everyone, but the more people you can make not sick with your game, the better.

1. When it comes to smooth movement types of experiences, it’s best to have the player move themselves around. Since this puts their brain in charge of the movement, it lessens the chance of the brain misinterpreting the visual information.
2. If you need to move the player around, using stationary experiences is usually the best choice for calming the mind (though you can block peripheral vision as an alternative).
3. Try to make your game runs at 60FPS or higher. Lower framerates have been associated with motion sickness due to animations being less smooth.
4. In situations where you’re transitioning to a different game scene/area, use fade in and fade outs. This gives the player’s visual reception time to process the movement.
5. Be wary of effects like motion blur, as these very often cause motion sickness even in non-VR experiences. If possible, include this as an optional setting so player’s can find what works for them.

Tutorials

Last but certainly not least, we get to the tutorials section. Below we’ve gathered what, in our opinion, are the best VR tutorials to get you started on your journey.

Unity

Basics

• Unity Game Development Mini-Degree by Zenva
• Unity 101 by Zenva
• Introduction to Game Development with Unity and C# by Sebastian Lague
• How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial by Jason Weimann

Virtual Reality

• Unity VR Documentation
• Virtual Reality Mini-Degree by Zenva
• VR Game Development 101 by Zenva
• Unity XR Toolkit Series by VR with Andrew
• Introduction to VR in Unity by Valem
• How to Make VR Games in 2022 by Justin P Barnett – VR Game Dev
• Unity VR by ExpanseVR

Unreal Engine

Basics

• Unreal Game Development Mini-Degree by Zenva
• Unreal Engine 101 by Zenva
• Unreal Engine Beginner Tutorial: Building Your First Game by Devslopes
• Unreal Engine 4 Beginner Tutorial: Getting Started by DevAddict

Virtual Reality

• Unreal Engine VR Documentation
• Beginner to Advanced Unreal Engine VR Tutorials by Sir_Fansi Gamedev
• Using UE4 to Develop for Oculus Quest 2 by Quinn Kuslich
• UE4 Tutorial: Advanced Movement by underscore
• Smooth Locomotion For UE4 VR by GDXR
• Getting Started in VR by Raptor Tech 4 Unreal Engine
• VR bowling [] Unreal VR simple game tutorial by Sir_Fansi Gamedev

Parting Words

Virtual reality is not the gimmick it used to be. Instead, it is a powerful technology that is changing how we engage with digital experiences – whether for games or even for businesses.

As the technology has improved, so have the headsets. Whereas before they were limited to PCs, you can now get headsets for consoles and even mobile devices. With the release of Half-Life: Alyx recently, a VR game made by a AAA company, we’ve also seen new grounds as well in terms of the kinds of games that can utilize VR.

There is no question that VR is growing. So, if this novel gadget has captured your imagination at all, now is a fantastic time to jump into it and start making your own VR games!

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Extended reality, commonly referred to as XR, is the umbrella term used to describe virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. While the technologies for these vary, there is no question that they’ve led a revolution in many different industries. From providing new forms of game experiences to improving job training, these vastly changing technologies are set to give us that science fiction future we’ve often seen in movies.

As such, now is an exciting time for developers of all walks of life to jump in and start learning how to make projects using VR, AR, and MR. In this article, we’ve gathered some of the best VR tutorials, best AR tutorials, and best mixed reality tutorials to help you get started.

Let’s not delay and jump right in.

What are VR, AR, and Mixed Reality?

Before we get to the tutorials, and just in case we have some super beginners present, we figured it’s imperative to pause and explain the difference between the parts that compose XR.

First, let’s understand the similarity of why they’re all grouped under XR. Extended reality is a concept where we use virtual objects of some kind to “extend” the reality we live in (eg. add more “features”). All VR, AR, and mixed reality apps do this to some degree, which is why XR is a helpful way to categorize this concept.

Where they differ, is how each technology does this.

Virtual Reality: With virtual reality, we completely replace the “real world” with a digital environment. While you certainly exist in reality, this experience allows you to use your real body and head movements to interact with this virtual world and immerse yourself as if you were actually there. This experience is where you most commonly see people wearing headsets.

Augmented Reality: Augmented reality is where we overlay digital objects to our real-world environment and can view them with any device with a camera. These digital objects can respond in real-time with changes in our actual environment. Most often, these experiences are achieved with modern smartphones, and you’ve probably seen this popularized with Pokémon GO.

Mixed Reality: Mixed reality can be considered the median between the two technologies above. Mixed reality generally uses headsets, but does not completely create a virtual environment. Instead, it takes the real environment around you and adds virtual objects like in AR. However, in mixed reality, you can interact with the digital objects and real-world objects in front of you at the same time, completely blending the idea of what’s virtual and what’s real.

Best VR Tutorials

Learn VR Game Development in 2 Hours with Unity

Duration: 2 hours, 22 minutes

This free, complete course provided by Zenva covers everything a beginner needs to know to get started with VR development. While the tutorial assumes you’ve had some prior Unity experience, it doesn’t require any specific knowledge of virtual reality.

In this course, you’ll design a simple, stationary platform experience where the player can look around a low-poly world while riding along in their platform on a pre-defined path. While this might sound like a simple project, you’ll learn a lot of key concepts associated with virtual reality, including how objects are tracked, how head tracking and degrees of freedom work, how to deal with motion sickness, and similar. So, if you’re especially interested in getting a good technological base, this is a fantastic VR tutorial.

In addition, you’ll also learn how to tailor your project for different headsets, including Oculus, HTC Vive, Gear VR, and Google Cardboard. Thus, you can make this tutorial work for a good number of setups.

Topics Covered:

• Virtual reality technology
• Object tracking
• Head tracking
• VR vs. AR
• Motion sickness
• Creating predefined circuits of movement
• Project setup for headsets
• Optimizing performance

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Unity XR Toolkit Series

Duration: 50 minutes

Divided into a six-part series, this tutorial set by VR with Andrew covers Unity’s new XR Interaction Toolkit. The XR Interaction Toolkit is Unity’s pre-built system of XR components that makes setting up interactivity for VR (and AR for that matter) easy. Since its release, its come to be seen as the industry-standard way VR should be handled in Unity – with other previously established plugins falling a bit by the wayside.

With this series, which is perfect for beginners, you’ll learn the XR Interaction Toolkit from the ground up. You’ll get to learn how to set it up for your projects, how to use components to make interactive objects, how to implement teleportation movement, and other key features you may want to create for your VR experience.

Topics Covered:

• Setting up the XR Interaction Toolkit
• Interactive objects
• Teleportation style movement
• Pointer systems
• Snapping object rotation
• Creating a realistic button

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Beginner to Advanced Unreal Engine VR Tutorials

Duration: 4 hours

Featuring a whopping 17 videos, this VR playlist is a fantastic resource for learning VR game development in the popular Unreal Engine. The series, which was created by Sir_Fansi Gamedev, has numerous explanations for various VR features – from setting up Unreal Engine with the best VR plugin to actually handling interaction. As such, as the title boasts, this is a fantastic series for beginners who also want to expand their skills from the basics.

Where this tutorial series stands out, however, is how the topic is approached. Each tutorial video focuses on a specific game feature one might find in a real game. This ranges from simple game functionality like pausing, to how to add things like shooting a shotgun into a game. As such, you learn with a very practical approach you can use in your own creations.

Topics Covered:

• VR Expansion Plugin setup
• Movement in VR (teleportation, climbing, etc.)
• Melee weapons
• Functional guns and bows
• NPC AI for VR
• Practical UIs (maps, quests, inventories)
• Pausing, saving, & loading
• Oculus Quest tweaks

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Aframe WebVR – VR Development Tutorial Series

Duration: 44 minutes

If you aren’t sure about Unity or Unreal Engine, or simply want to aim at easy web sharing, A-Frame WebVR is the way to go. The WebVR interface, which is JavaScript-based, utilizes your browser to render VR experiences and is compatible with many devices, including Google Cardboard.

In this 4-part series created by Paperballoon Studios, you’ll explore how to create WebVR Aframe projects. You’ll learn everything from setting up these technologies to working with objects using a web framework. Through this, you’ll be able to create VR experiences publishable on the web that can be shared with just about anyone. Though you will probably need a bit of JavaScript experience, the tutorials are written to be very accessible for those with no VR experience.

Topics Covered:

• Aframe WebVR project set up
• Native VR vs. WebVR
• Adding primitive objects
• Manipulating object appearance
• How to use ECS architecture
• Animation

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Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

Duration: 57 hours

While not free, we did want to include this one in our best VR tutorials section for the sheer fact it’s a comprehensive resource.

Created by Zenva, the Virtual Reality Mini-Degree is not one tutorial or course, but instead several courses collected together. These courses cover a complete curriculum set you’ll need to go from zero-experience in Unity or VR, to an industry-ready developer.

In this curriculum, you’ll learn VR development while building several different kinds of projects, including: rhythm games, virtual environment experiences, FPS games, RPGs, puzzle games, and more. Thus, not only will you learn the ins and outs of VR development from scratch, but get some nifty game projects at the end you can expand, create a portfolio out of, or simply share with friends.

If you have some money to spend, time to use, and really want to get an in-depth learning experience with virtual reality that prepares you to build numerous kinds of projects, this is the place to go!

Topics Covered:

• Unity and C# development
• VR movement (teleportation and smooth)
• UI implementation for VR
• Hand-tracked controllers
• Motion sickness best practices
• Interaction systems (grabbing, reticles, etc.)
• 360° media
• Game genre mechanics
• Particle systems
• State machines
• Optimization

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Best AR Tutorials

Learn Unity’s AR Foundation

Duration: 52 minutes

Created by Zenva, this complete and free course covers the fundamentals of AR Foundation in Unity.

For AR, there are many different SDKs, with the primary ones being ARKit for iOS and ARCore for Android. AR Foundation, however, combines the two technologies into a single, easy-to-use API – meaning no pesky multiple project. Instead, you can use the same Unity project to cover both platforms.

This particular course is fantastic for beginners, as it covers basic setup, deployment, and object spawning, the basis from which all AR projects need to function. It also covers some basic C# scripting as it pertains to AR development, giving you the tools you need to expand into bigger projects.

Topics Covered:

• Setting up AR Foundation
• Detecting planes
• Understanding position with placement indicators
• Spawning in objects
• Exporting to Android and iOS

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Unity & ARCore

Duration: 1 hour

If you’re particularly interested in AR for Android, learning ARCore is a good bet. In this eight-part series by Dinesh Punni, you’ll learn just that, while still taking advantage of the Unity platform’s features.

The videos cover a good set of fundamentals that are part of ARCore development, from detecting environments in various ways to detecting objects in those environments (virtual or otherwise). While you won’t learn how to develop any projects in particular, you will discover everything ARCore has to offer. Thus, wherever you go, you’ll have a fantastic understanding of what features are available and how to use them.

Topics Covered:

• ARCore setup for Unity
• Android deployment
• Understanding environments
• Image tracking
• Light estimation
• Motion tracking

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Create Your First AR App using RealityKit

Duration: 22 minutes

For iOS developers, this video by Reality School will teach you the basics of Swift, RealityKit, and ARKit for generalized AR development.

RealityKit is Apple’s developed framework aimed at making AR application development easy. It utilizes ARKit in the background, but provides convenient tools and API elements that make accessing ARKit information a more intuitive, smoother process.

Through the video, you’ll learn how to use this framework through coding with Swift to deal with features such as touch gestures, object spawning, and more. Though some Swift experience will be required here, the tutorial is a great entrance into augmented reality itself.

Topics Covered

• Setting up a project with RealityKit
• Detecting taps
• Adding other AR gestures
• Understanding AR views
• Setting up 3D models
• Manipulating models in AR

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Easy AR Tutorials

Duration: 80 minutes

Focused on the EasyAR SDK, this ten-part tutorial series by Render Island will showcase how to develop AR apps in Unity using the EasyAR plugin.

The highlight of this series – and the EasyAR plugin in general – is you can make many powerful AR applications without needing to write a single line of code. Instead, you can use various components and other tools to run the different aspects of your project. This series demonstrates the various techniques to achieve this, making it the most non-programmer friendly option on this list.

In addition to learning standard object spawning, you’ll also get to explore location-based AR, which uses your own location to render AR elements.

Topics Covered:

• EasyAR installation
• Spawning objects to customize your room
• Automatic spawning
• Location-based AR
• Integrating Azure Cloud Recognition

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Augmented Reality Mini-Degree

Duration: 14 hours

Similar to our VR section, we did want to include one paid item for augmented reality.

The Augmented Reality Mini-Degree by Zenva is a curriculum consisting of AR focused courses for Unity. You’ll cover the major SDKs – AR Foundation, ARCore, ARKit, and EasyAR – while building several real world projects. These projects include a space shooter game, a painting app, a furniture placement app, and more.

The curriculum is also designed with complete beginners in mind, so you don’t even need to have Unity experience to get started. All the courses are also developed by industry professionals, meaning you’ll get top quality advice on AR development.

So if you’re looking for a comprehensive package, and can afford it of course, this curriculum is an excellent choice for getting a well-rounded education in augmented reality.

Topics Covered:

• Unity fundamentals
• AR Foundation, EasyAR, ARCore, & ARKit setup in Unity
• Android and iOS deployment
• Plane detection
• Object spawning & manipulation
• Object tracking
• Image targets
• Light estimation
• AR compatible UIs
• Game and application mechanics

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Best Mixed Reality Tutorials

Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK) Tutorials with Unity

Duration: 1 hour, 48 minutes

This six-part playlist series by Dilmer Valecillos covers the foundations of creating mixed reality apps for the HoloLens2 device created by Microsoft.

Using Unity and the MRTK package, which was made specifically for developing for the HoloLens2, the tutorial covers everything needed even if you have no mixed reality experience. You’ll learn how to set up Unity, how object spawning actually works for mixed reality, and even how to use UIs in mixed reality. Though some Unity experience is recommended here, this tutorial is a good first step into mixed reality in general – even if you want to move to other devices.

Topics Covered:

• Unity project setup
• Spawning and manipulating objects
• Dealing with spatial awareness
• Track object transformations
• Dealing with UX elements

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Oculus Mixed Reality with Passthrough API Tutorials

Duration: 49 minutes

For VR headset enthusiasts, this five-part tutorial series will cover mixed reality when it comes to the Oculus Quest (as the title suggests).

Created once again by Dilmer Valecillos, this tutorial series is a bit more advanced, as you won’t strictly be learning the basics for mixed reality development. However, you will learn some of the newer features available for Oculus, in particular how to generate an in-game mesh on top of a real-world object.

So, if you feel a bit more confident in your skills, this series is great for experimenting with the next level of integrating virtuality and reality.

Topics Covered:

• Understanding the Passthrough API
• Implementing Passthrough components in Unity
• Working with Passthrough Layers
• Dealing with surface projection
• Hand-tracking
• Tracking keyboards

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Mixed Reality Masterclass | Episode 1

Duration: 25 minutes

A bit different from all the tutorials on this list, there is another aspect of mixed reality we feel it’s important to address: filming. Rather than experiencing an app that blends real environments immersively with virtual aspects, many people are interested in making videos that combine their real-world selves with the virtual game environment. This is particularly popular with the game Beat Saber.

So, with this video created created by TougeVR, you can learn that aspect specifically. The video covers everything from studio setup to the actual technical aspects of the filming process. While definitely a departure from development, it is still a part of mixed reality that can be interesting to dive into – if not just for its sheer popularity online.

Topics Covered:

• Green screen setup
• Required equipment & setup
• LIV and OBS setup
• Keying, calibrating, and so forth
• Filming process

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Parting Words

XR is an exciting field. There are a slew of untrodden paths when it comes to VR, AR, and mixed reality. Each industry is finding its own way to use these technologies to their advantage. In turn, their choices are changing how we develop these technologies. All in all, this makes the future of this technology hard to predict.

However, what we are sure of is that XR is fun to develop for. You have much more freedom to experiment, and there are always new features just around the corner that you can try out. So, whatever your personal goals, we hope these tutorials help you find a new niche for creating exciting software.

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Fortunately, none of these issues need to stop you – not with Amazon Sumerian available! Offering opportunities for professional developers, hobbyists, and beginners alike, Amazon Sumerian will let you easily build for virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D, while also giving you a quick method to distribute your project to anyone. With this article, we’ll help you understand not only what Amazon Sumerian has to offer you, but also how you can start using it to bring your projects to life!

What is Amazon Sumerian?

Amazon Sumerian is a facet of AWS – Amazon’s popular cloud computing service. With Amazon Sumerian, you’re provided with a concrete set of browser-based tools that let you build 3D scenes and make them interactive. As the technology is built on WebGL 2.0, this has some wonderful implications for developers using it.

First, the entire service is web-based. As such, you don’t need to worry too much about installing extra programs, plugins, or similar. Instead, all building is done from the comfort of your browser. Additionally, when you’re ready to distribute your project, this is likewise done over the web, so there is no complicated exporting or package creation. Instead, you can either embed your project into a website or simply get a URL to send to users – who in turn can connect even with their mobile devices. It also easily integrates with AWS, so if you use these services for other web projects, you’ll have an additional advantage.

The other positive of its WebGL base is that Amazon Sumerian is compatible with WebVR and WebXR. Consequently, you can easily take your apps beyond just plain old 3D and turn them into full-fledged virtual reality or augmented reality experiences. Similar to the above, as this is web-based, as long as users have a compatible VR headset or AR-capable smartphone, they can easily access the project with no fuss.

Advantages of Amazon Sumerian

While there are many VR, AR, and 3D scene solutions available, Amazon Sumerian offers some distinct advantages – regardless of your skill level – that make it a worthwhile service.

Web-Based Production

As mentioned above, Amazon Sumerian is entirely web-based – including both the editor and distribution. This gives it well-rounded, cross-platform capabilities (yes, that includes mobile devices) that can easily suit your needs. It also means there is a low overhead for your customer enablement if you’re using it for that purpose.

Templates & Assets

If you’re a busy, on-the-go person, no need to worry. Amazon Sumerian offers both templates and assets at your disposal. The templates help quickly set up pre-defined scenes for 3D, AR, and VR, so you’ll spend less time fussing to just get your scenes going. Additionally, with a variety of 3D assets and textures available, you can quickly shave off time on production and focus on the aspects that are most important to you.

Want custom assets, though? Don’t fret! Amazon Sumerian accepts FBX (2017) files and OBJ files, so you can add in your own models if you want.

Easy Access to VR & AR

Another one we’ve previously talked about already, but it still stands as an advantage! With pre-made templates at your fingertips, you can easily take any project into the XR world space and go beyond the benefits of 3D – giving you novel ways to improve customer enablement.

Pre-Made Scripts

Amazon Sumerian is also great if you have no coding experience. Using a drag-and-drop UI system, you can easily use predefined actions to do a number of different things. This includes playing animations, processing commands, moving the camera, and more.

However, it does leave its scripting API open and well-documented, so if you need to get custom behaviors into your project, you have the option to do so! It also uses the popular JavaScript programming language, so you don’t have to worry about learning anything too niche.

Sumerian Hosts

What if you’re interested in having virtual characters guide users through different interactions? Well, this is where Sumerian Hosts come in. These 3D animated characters are powered by an easy-to-access AI backend that lets you perform various actions. For example, the hosts have the ability to verbally aloud read scripts you compose or even integrate with voice commands to answer user questions. Of course, you can also customize these hosts to suit your project’s needs. Once again, no advanced programming knowledge is necessary, and you can use these hosts to add innovative solutions to your websites.

Affordability

Amazon Sumerian is quite affordable to host as well. If you sign up to the AWS Free Tier, you can create a scene that is 50MB per less and get access to 100 views/month. However, as long as you don’t need any advanced storage needs, paid hosting only costs $0.38/GB based on bandwidth use (i.e. based on visits). For businesses looking to use this for customer enablement, you won’t be breaking the bank.

What Can You Make with Amazon Sumerian?

Amazon Sumerian has a number of uses, including but not limited to:

• E-commerce product displays
• Marketing
• Job training aids
• Simulations
• Education

… and much, much more! The only limit here is your imagination!

Tutorials

Check out the collection of Amazon Sumerian tutorials below to get started building your own 3D and XR projects on the web!

About Amazon Sumerian

• Amazon Sumerian Homepage
• Amazon Sumerian Getting Started
• Amazon Sumerian Documentation

User Tutorials

• Amazon Sumerian Getting Started Tutorials by Amazon Web Services
• Developing AR/VR Apps with Amazon Sumerian | Ep 4 Foundations – Creating Chatbots by AWS Online Tech Talks
• Crash Course Creating a Industrial Machinery Training Application by E-learning Platform Free
• Creating a Simple WebVR Experience in Amazon Sumerian by How To Create VR
• Amazon Sumerian: Conversing Hosts by Jake Smeester
• Adding YouTube Videos To Your Amazon Sumerian Project by How to Create VR
• Creating an Augmented Reality Application by Amazon Web Services

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In this article, we’ll help get you started with the XR Interaction Toolkit and show you how it can change the way you approach your Unity projects with an easy-to-use component system.

Let’s get started!

What is the XR Interaction Toolkit?

Unity’s new XR Interaction Toolkit allows developers to implement interactivity into their AR and VR experiences without needing to code. The toolkit is available for Unity 2019.3 and can be downloaded from the Package Manager. It features a number of components which can be attached to different GameObjects in order to give them certain interactive properties. These are systems which typically need to be scripted or downloaded from external libraries. Now built into Unity, these systems are going to make developing an XR app faster and more stable.

Let’s now have a look at what’s available for both VR and AR.

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VR Interactions

• Interactivity with objects: hover over, select, grab, throw and rotate.
• Ability to interact with UI elements using your VR hands.
• VR locomotion: teleportation, snap turning.
• VR rigs for stationary and room-scale experiences.
• Haptic feedback through the controllers.
• Cross-platform XR controller input.

AR Interactions

In order to use the AR interactions, AR Foundation is required. This is a Unity framework you can download from the Package Manager.

• AR gestures for interacting with objects in the world: tap, drag, zoom and pinch.
• Object placement.
• UI interactions.
• AR annotations to inform users about objects placed in the world.

XR (extended reality) is a blanket term for both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The toolkit covers both systems because although they function differently, many of the systems are the same. Tracking the rotation and position of a camera in 3D space (headset for VR, phone for AR) and interacting with objects (grabbing, selecting, etc).

Unity is also really good at platform independent development. You’ll notice that there’s no Oculus Interaction Toolkit, or Windows MR Interaction Toolkit. This is because on the surface, you’re developing for an XR interface and not any specific device. The same goes for AR. You don’t need to worry if the device you’re developing for is the iPhone X or 11. You’re developing for AR or VR inside of Unity and the engine does all of the translation between the different platforms behind the scenes.

As of late, Unity is putting more time into developing their XR systems. With the announcement of the new XR Plugin Framework earlier this year and now the XR Interaction Toolkit – developing VR for Unity is becoming easier and more accessible.

If you’re interested in trying out the new XR Interaction Toolkit, check out the tutorials below to give you a full overview on how these new systems work and how to add them to your project.

Links

• XR Interaction Toolkit
• Unity Manual
• XR Interaction Toolkit Examples

Tutorials

• Unity XR Interaction Toolkit Tutorials series by Dilmer Valecillos
• Unity XR Toolkit series by VR with Andrew
• Introduction to VR in Unity – Unity XR Toolkit Tutorials by Valem
• How to Code a VR Game by Daniel Buckley
• How to Code an AR Application by Daniel Buckley
• How to Make a Mobile Game In Unity by Tim Bonzon
• Zenva Schools – K12 Online Courses for Schools

Other New Unity Features

• Unity Reflect
• Unity Havok Physics
• Unity ML-Agents
• Unity Device Simulator

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With new technology comes new ways to create games. Virtual reality offers a whole new way to immerse players into worlds, provide interactive VR experiences, and just all-around present stories in a new and different light. Though VR still has some limitations to work out, each VR experience is truly unique when it comes to games – and it’s only getting better.

Thus, whether you’re a beginner or veteran game developer, you might have had your eye on jumping into this fast-growing industry. But… how does one actually code a VR game? In this post, we will help you both understand virtual reality, how it works, and how you can develop exciting games with this exciting, cutting edge technology. Let’s jump into it, and learn just how to code a VR game!

What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality (VR) is the simulation of 3D spaces that you can experience through a headset. You can look around and with some headsets – move. With your entire vision being controlled by the headset, along with the ability to move and look around in the real world – immersive VR is a very sought out technology.

In some more advanced headsets, you can use controllers that act as your hands. You can pickup objects, throw them and interact with the world around you. Virtual reality is a technology that can be found on PC, mobile and consoles with a wide range of different headsets.

As the years go on, the headsets are getting cheaper and the catalogue of games is getting larger and larger. At the start of the year, Valve released Half-Life: Alyx. One of the first AAA VR game and a major turning point for the industry. There are also innovative companies like Magic Leap trying to bridge the gap between VR and AR, showing just how robust this technology can get.

Types of Virtual Reality

When it comes to VR, there are generally two different types of VR headsets and VR experiences. Stationary and room-scale experiences.

Stationary

The most basic form of VR which generally has the cheapest VR headsets. You can look around in VR, but can’t move your head. These VR headsets sometimes have a small controller with basic functionality. Having a seated VR experience is the most accessible type of VR.

Each VR headset below can give you a stationary VR experience:

• Oculus Go
• Google Cardboard
• Samsung Gear VR

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Room-Scale

When it comes to having the most immersive experience, room-scale VR is what you want. This form of VR allows you to not only look around, but move around too in a virtual world. These VR headsets normally also have motion-tracked controllers so you can interact with the world.

Each VR headset can give you a room-scale experience:

• Oculus Rift
• Oculus Quest
• HTC Vive
• Valve Index
• PlayStation VR

Which Game Engine Should I Choose?

When it comes down to creating a VR game, what you need to do is choose a game engine. What’s a game engine? A game engine is software that allows you to create video games. Instead of coding everything from scratch, you only need to code the gameplay aspects. The engine handles rendering, objects, data management and many more things.

When it comes down to VR development – there are two game engines our there which do it great.

Being the most popular game engine, Unity allows you to create pretty much any kind of game. It has universal VR support, which means you can make your game once and can play it on pretty much any VR device. Unity’s VR tools are extensive and require minimal coding.

• • Getting started with VR development in Unity

Pros

• • Universal VR framework
  • Very versatile
  • Large amount of platforms to build to

Cons

• • Less AAA presence than Unreal Engine
  • Less graphical fidelity than Unreal Engine

The Unreal Engine has a focus on 3D graphics. So if you want the best visual fidelity in your VR game, then Unreal may be the way to go.

• • Virtual reality development in the Unreal Engine

Pros

• • Graphically, one of the best game engines out there
  • Visual scripting (no coding required)

Cons

• • Less versatile than Unity

Above we’ve given a brief overview of the two major players. However, if you’re interested in more information, you can also check out any of the following articles:

• Best Game Engines of 2020
• Unity vs. Unreal – Choosing a Game Engine
• How to Make a Game – Making Video Games from Scratch
• How to Code a Game

Best Practices for VR Development

When developing a virtual reality game, you need to be cautious about how you develop your game. Motion sickness is something that can easily occur in VR. Some people are fine with it, while others are very sensitive to it. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind in order to reduce the chance of motion sickness.

• Only the player can move themselves around.
• If you do want to move the player around (out of their control), either block out their peripheral vision or place the player in a cockpit (stationary context).
• Make sure that the frames per second (FPS) are greater than 60. Low FPS can be a large factor in motion sickness.
• When transitioning scenes or areas, you’ll want to fade the screen out then back in.
• Player movement can be done with smooth movement or teleportation.
  • Smooth movement is like any other game. You can press a button or move a joystick to directly move your player around.
  • Teleportation is where you can aim your controller point to a location to teleport to. When teleporting, you want to make sure the screen fades out/in to hide the direct change in position.

Links

If you’re wanting to get into VR game development, you should start with the Unity or Unreal game engines.

• An Introduction to Virtual Reality

Unity

• Unity Virtual Reality Mini-Degree
• VR Game Development 101 – Platform Setup (Free Course)
• Unity VR Documentation
• Unity XR Interaction Toolkit

Unreal Engine

• Unreal Game Development Mini-Degree
• Unreal Engine 101 – 3D Game Creation (Free Course)
• Unreal Engine VR Documentation

Here at Zenva, we’ve created a couple of VR games.

• Insect Revolution
  • Oculus Rift
  • Oculus Go
• Zenva Sky
  • Oculus Rift
  • Oculus Go

Read More About Each VR Headset

• HTC Vive
• Oculus Quest
• Oculus Rift
• Oculus Go
• Playstation VR
• Google Cardboard
• Samsung Gear VR
• Valve Index

Conclusion

Congratulations if you’ve reached this point! While we’ve only just touched the surface here, you should now have a better understanding of how to get started coding your own VR game.

There is, of course, a lot to consider when developing for VR – least of all which VR headset to target and what sort of game you even want to create. Remember, though, that even if new, VR offers tons of freedom to create novel games never seen before. VR is truly a new frontier of game development, whether for games or just creating a virtual world. So even if you don’t stick with it long term, gaining the skills for virtual reality can only be a net positive!

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AR sounds exciting, right? But where do you get started learning this explosive new technology? We’ve compiled a list of the best AR tutorials covering AR fundamentals: from setting up your development environment, including AR software and SDKs (software development kits), to building AR experiences for iOS, Android, and the web!

Let’s dive in and learn how to make our own augmented reality apps!

What is AR?

Before we begin, just what is AR? How is it different from Virtual Reality (VR)? Essentially, AR is a technology paradigm for bringing the virtual and “real world” together in entertaining and useful ways. While VR is about replacing the “real world” with an immersive digital experience, AR is about adding digital layers (data, sound, video, graphics, GPS overlays, and more) on top of “real world” objects. This digital content then responds, in real-time, to changes in the user’s environment.

There’s of course a lot to it, but as you review the ar tutorials below, you’ll discover just how easy mastering AR can be!

New to Augmented Reality? Start Here!

This 4-part AR tutorials series from Reality School starts by defining Augmented Reality (AR) and answering common AR-related questions. From there, explore how AR works including basic concepts such as mapping your environment and tracking objects within that environment. Learn how to place virtual objects in the “real world” and create an AR experience.

The next couple of videos show you how to create and share simple AR experiences directly on your mobile device without writing any actual code! In the first example, you’ll create a “Happy Birthday” experience from scratch. In the next example, you’ll create an AR Bowling game with no code. Both examples use Apple’s Reality Composer App (Android device options available) and provide a simple but amazing introduction to AR possibilities without leaving the touch experience of your mobile device.

Key Topics Covered:

• What is Augmented Reality?
• Mapping your Environment
• Tracking within your Environment
• Placement of AR Content
• Making AR experience realistic
• Creating an AR experience with just your mobile device
• Creating an AR game with just your mobile device

Duration: 40 minutes of video training

Access Now: New to Augmented Reality? Start Here! 

Augmented Reality (AR) Development

In this 9-part AR tutorial series from Zenva, learn how to set up your development environment to create immersive AR apps and games using the Unity game engine. Unity is one of the most popular and versatile engines for creating 2D, 3D, VR, and AR experiences across a large number of platforms.

Within Unity, learn how to install and set up the two main AR software development kits (SDK): Apple’s ARKit for iOS devices and Google’s ARCore for Android Devices. You’ll also learn about Unity’s cross-platform API (AR Foundation) that utilizes both ARKit and ARCore to allow you to develop a single app that can then build to both iOS and Android devices seamlessly.

Finally, learn how to install and set up the EasyAR augmented reality engine within Unity. EasyAR provides powerful sensing, tracking, and mapping abilities to your AR app. Beyond install, this tutorial provides instruction on project setup and image targets.

Key Topics Covered:

• Apple ARKit – Install and setup SDK for iOS builds
• Google ARCore – Install and setup SDK for Android builds
• AR Foundation – Install and setup of Unity’s cross-platform API
• EasyAR – Install SDK, setup project and image targets

Duration: 1 hour of video training

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Augmented Reality 101 – AR Foundation Basics

Learn the basics of AR in this free course from Zenva. This tutorial will guide you through downloading and configuring AR Foundation for Unity. Gain the core skills you need to develop a simple Augmented Reality game that teaches you how to spawn virtual objects into the “real world” by tapping your mobile device screen.

You’ll learn the fundamentals of Unity’s AR Foundation that allows you to target iOS and Android with a single, cross-platform API. With these skills, you’ll be ready to take on more complex AR tutorials on your way to developing your own apps and games.

Key Topics Covered:

• Set up AR Foundation in Unity
• Detect planes using a mobile device’s main camera
• Place indicators for virtual object positions
• Placing objects into the “real world” with tap gestures
• Build your AR app to iOS and Android

Duration: 1 hour of video training

Access Now: Augmented Reality 101 – AR Foundation Basics

Unity AR Foundation Series – Setup and Concepts

Created by Dinesh Punni, this 9-part AR tutorial series starts with setting up your Unity AR Foundation development environment including the required setup for both iOS and Android builds (ARKit + ARCore).

Next, you’ll learn AR Foundation concepts including image tracking, plane detection, and adding AR objects to a scene using mobile tap. The series rounds out your AR Foundation introduction with tutorials on face tracking and filtered planes.

Key Topics Covered:

• Setup for Android
• Setup for iOS
• Image tracking
• Plane detection
• Place object in AR with mobile gesture
• Face tracking basics
• Filtered planes

Duration: 2 hours of video training

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AR Game Dev Series

This 11-part AR tutorial series from Mohd Hamza starts with installing, setting up, and providing an overview of Unity with its AR Foundation API. With the tools in place, the tutorial walks you through creating a beginner-level AR app from scratch.

Next, you’ll learn how to create and interact with AR objects using sliders and mobile touch gestures to rotate, scale, and interact with AR objects. From there you’ll explore basic game dev concepts such as player movement, spawning enemies, creating game bullets, image tracking, collision effects, and enemy re-spawning. Finally, you’ll learn game enhancements such as adding a scoreboard and timer!

Key Topics Covered:

• Install the Unity Game Engine from Unity Hub
• Unity AR Foundation – Set up and overview
• Rotate and scale AR Objects using sliders
• How to scale AR objects using mobile gestures
• Spawn AR objects and interact with touch gestures
• Control player movement using joystick and touch controls
• Use primitive objects, such as spheres, to create game bullets
• Introduce interaction effects when objects collide
• Learn how to re-spawn objects after they’ve been destroyed
• Use canvas and text to create a scoreboard
• Enhance gameplay by creating a countdown timer bar
• AR Image Tracking
• Use touch gestures to scale, rotate, and drag AR objects

Duration: 1.5 hours of video training

Access Now: AR Game Dev Series

AR App Dev Series

In this 15-part AR tutorial series from Joystick Lab, you’ll learn AR Foundation concepts using real-world examples. The series takes you from very basic to advanced AR concepts using Unity and its AR Foundation API. In this series, you’ll create four complete AR apps from scratch including a “Floor Tile” e-commerce app and an “IKEA style” app.

Through project-based learning, you’ll gain the skills to create and interact with AR objects including touch gestures, precise positioning, and object rotation. You’ll also learn more advanced techniques including scrolling with scale animation, how to store object information, using Addressable to load assets from Google Cloud Platform, how to handle AR objects dynamically using scriptable objects, and how to use Unity’s XR interaction toolkit for object manipulation (select, rotate, translate, scale).

Key Topics Covered:

• Create custom plane texture
• Add AR interaction
• Select AR objects in a scene
• How to block AR input from UI touch
• AR object rotation
• Techniques to ensure precise positioning of AR objects
• Advanced scrolling effect with scale tween animation
• Handle AR objects dynamically using scriptable objects
• Store information about AR objects
• Use Addressable to load assets from Google Cloud Platform
• Use XR interaction toolkit for object manipulation (select, rotate, translate, scale)
• Create app builds

Duration: 3.5 hours of video training

Access Now: AR App Dev Series

Create an Augmented Reality App with Unity and Vuforia

For this AR tutorial from Playful Technology, you’ll be provided with a step-by-step guide on creating an AR app using Unity and Vuforia.

Vuforia, an SDK for creating AR apps, integrates with Unity to add advanced computer vision functionality. This enables your app to recognize images and objects in the real world and overlay additional or alternative content on top of them when viewed through a device camera.

Key Topics Covered:

• Overlaying real-world image with an alternative image
• Overlaying real-world image with a video clip

Duration: 25 minutes of video training

Access Now: Create an Augmented Reality App with Unity and Vuforia

Marker-Based AR Apps for Beginners with EasyAR

This AR course from Zenva teaches you how to build Marker-Based games using Unity and EasyAR.

EasyAR Sense, an SDK for creating AR apps, integrates with Unity to add planar image tracking, motion tracking, and more. Using EasyAR’s marker-based technology, you can scan and recognize images and manipulate 3D models on image targets to create interactive AR apps and games.

Key Topics Covered:

• Set up EasyAR SDK in Unity
• Select image targets to track
• Instantiate 3D models on top of tracked image targets in AR
• Control image rotation and orientation
• Cast virtual beams between matching color points

Duration: 1 hour of video training

Access Now: Marker-Based AR Apps for Beginners with EasyAR

Marker-Based AR Games for Beginners with AR.js

Developed by Zenva, this AR course teaches you how to build marker-based games for the web using the lightweight and open source AR.js library. In this course, you’ll learn by building a marker-based AR puzzle game.

AR.js, built on top of two popular web-based 3D frameworks, A-Frame and Three.js, allows you to create AR apps that can be accessed on the web with any WebGL compatible device. This course guides you step-by-step through the process of building a marker-based jigsaw puzzle game that uses AR and image markers to take a custom image, slice, shuffle, and move the pieces back together to win the game.

Key Topics Covered:

• Understand marker-based AR
• Set up AR.js for web projects
• Implement image capturing
• Slice images into pieces using code
• Track image marker position and rotation
• Detect win conditions based on marker image positions

Duration: 2 hours of video training

Access Now: Marker-Based AR Games for Beginners with AR.js

WebAR Markerless Object Placement using WebXR API

This AR tutorial from AllInReality explains WebAR markerless object placement in the browser using the WebXR API. The tutorial covers several aspects of WebAR using WebXR technology including sample AR applications, object placement, modification, and reticle change plus testing WebAR apps using the WebXR API Emulator.

Key Topics Covered:

• Finding and cloning WebAR samples
• WebAR building and hosting
• WebAR object placement, modification, and reticle change
• WebXR API
• WebXR emulator
• WebAR application testing using an emulator
• WebAR application testing using ARCore model device

Duration: 23 minutes of video training

Access Now: WebAR Markerless Object Placement using WebXR API

Augmented Reality Mini-Degree

Take your AR Education to the next level with this complete curriculum from Zenva. The Augmented Reality Mini-Degree is a complete curriculum developed by industry experts with certifications from Unity Technologies.

After completing this project-based Mini-Degree, you’ll have the experience to take on real projects, a valuable certification to add to your resume, and more than a dozen immersive AR games and applications to enhance your professional portfolio.

Key Topics Covered:

• Using AR frameworks in Unity including AR Foundation, ARCore, ARKit and EasyAR
• Detecting planes using a mobile device’s camera
• AR techniques for both marker-based and markerless
• Adding and manipulating virtual objects in a physical world environment
• Track images, objects, and more
• Combine virtual and physical world mechanics in a variety of apps, games, and experiences

Duration: 12 hours of video training

Access Now: Augmented Reality Mini-Degree

Extra Resources

For those new to AR development, we recommend reading our How to Code an Augmented Reality Application article to get you started!

If you enjoy learning from books, then the free eBook – AR Game Development for Beginners is a good next step.

Alternatively, if you’re just ready to explore more AR tutorials, you can check out some of the tutorials here on this blog.

Ending Words

Unsurprisingly, this list of best AR tutorials is just the beginning! With AR powering applications in every industry, there is an extremely bright future for anyone ready to learn this awesome and emerging technology. Augmented reality is also constantly in flux and changing all the time to match both demand and technological evolution, so you can expect AR to grow exponentially in the coming years. Regardless though, we wish you all the best on this exciting journey, and we can’t wait to see the AR apps you create!

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Augmented reality may be the new technology kid on the block, but it is already making huge waves in the development industry. From games to informational apps to job training, AR is being used across a variety of industries to enhance how we interact with the real world.

In this article, we’re going to explore just how you can make your own AR application. We’ll explore not only what AR is, but get you started with expanding your development skills and technical know-how for this technology.

Let’s dive in and explore the world of augmented reality.

Understanding Augmented Reality

Before learning the development and coding parts of augmented reality, let’s talk a bit about what augmented reality is.

In short, augmented reality is a technology that allows us to place virtual objects in the real world, and subsequently view these objects with a device’s camera in real-time.

Due to the simplicity of just needing a camera, AR can be used with a number of devices, including smartphones (as mentioned earlier). This allows for a variety of applications, such as placing virtual furniture in a room, displaying textual information about a recognized object, letting you try on new hairstyles virtually, and beyond.

This being said, there are a few important concepts to understand in regards to how this technology works and actually “sees” things in the real world. There are different methods of detecting real-world objects, and each has specific nuances in terms of how you develop your application.

Image Targets

Image targets are one of the earliest forms by which augmented reality worked. Through this method, you manually connect a specific image in the program with a specific virtual object. While these days these images can be about anything (within reason of complexity), you’ll most often see black & white images that resemble something akin to QR codes.

In the real world, then, you print out these images and place them in front of the camera. From here, the camera is able to detect things like size, position, and orientation of the image. The app then uses this information of the image target to render the virtual object, even to the point that it can track when you move the paper your image target is printed on.

Plane Detection

The next step up from image targets is plane detection. With this form of detection, there is no need to print any real-world images to use.

Instead, the technology relies on scanning your environment for feature points with your camera. These feature points usually are relying on a high contrast between objects in the space and the surrounding planes. Through this, the app is able to calculate flat surfaces such as floors, tables, walls, and similar.

In addition, all these feature points are saved to memory in your device (temporarily at least). This allows you to move the camera around an area, face away from your feature points, and return back to your feature points with rendered virtual objects still in place.

Depth Sensor

The final way real objects can be detected is with depth sensors. Unlike the previous methods, this one does actually require a pretty high-end smartphone, as the technology here is a lot newer.

In this case, the technology simply uses newer cameras’ built-in depth sensor technology to see how far away objects are from each other. This allows flat surfaces to be detected almost instantly. Additionally, this technology can also better detect when a virtual object would render behind a real-world object (a concept known as occlusion).

AR Development SDKs

We have a decent understanding of AR now, so the next step is to obviously figure out how to actually create an AR application.

Fortunately, despite augmented reality being a newer technology, there are already helpful tools that will enable us to quickly gain access to all the things we need to use AR technology.

ARKit

If you’re creating AR apps just for iOS, ARKit is generally the first go-to in terms of development. ARKit is Apple’s AR SDK made specifically to work with their devices. The kit offers a ton of abilities and features, such as object recognition, motion tracking, environmental lighting, plane detection, and more.

ARCore

Whereas ARKit is Apple’s solution, ARCore is unsurprisingly Android’s AR SDK solution. Besides being suited to creating AR apps for Android devices, ARCore offers features including plane detection, image tracking, motion tracking, light estimation, and other usual standard features found in other SDKs.

EasyAR

Another AR solution to consider is EasyAR. EasyAR is its own, standalone SDK that works both for Android and for the Cloud. While EasyAR comes with many standard features, its main strength is in its spatial mapping features and its image recognition features. Due to its specific features, it’s often a choice for lower-end phones where other SDKs might not be compatible.

AR.js

If you’re considering making AR apps that are meant to be put on the web, AR.js is a top choice to check out. AR.js is a library based on JavaScript that allows you to access a device’s camera through the web. While its features are limited to keep it lightweight for the web, it is capable of image and marker tracking, as well as any location-based tracking.

Unity & AR Foundation

The last option we want to discuss is Unity & its AR Foundation solution.

For those who don’t know, Unity is a popular game engine that offers tons of features useful to creating video games. Unity is able to handle aspects like physics, collision detection, rendering, and more automatically – meaning you can focus on the important parts of your project.

Because of its feature, Unity has also become one of the top tools used to create augmented reality apps in general, including the ever-popular Pokémon GO.

When it comes to augmented reality, Unity created its own API: AR Foundation. AR Foundation is a package you can add to any project. With this package’s API, you can develop for ARKit and ARCore at the same time. While there are a few limitations in terms of features, this does mean you can develop for both iOS and Android devices at the same time. This means you only ever need one project for your app to be cross-platform.

How to Make an AR App

Finally, let’s talk about how to create an AR app and get you settled with some tutorials.

Which Development Environment to use for AR?

Now, it is in our humble opinion that learning to develop AR apps with Unity is the best way to start. Not only does Unity come with powerful features you’ll need, but every SDK mentioned has compatible package plugins that allow you to develop with that SDK in Unity. As such, you aren’t just limited to AR Foundation if you’d rather develop for something like ARCore.

With this in mind, we’ll be providing tutorials mostly for Unity in this case, but showcasing each different SDK so you can choose which you want to learn.

Of course, you will need some experience using Unity and the C# programming language (which is the language that Unity uses). There are a large number of resources to learn this online, but we have included some bonus tutorials for this aspect as well.

Device Compatibility

Before jumping into tutorials, you should also consider your own device’s compatibility. While AR.js generally doesn’t require anything special since it is rendered through the web, ARCore, ARKit, and AR Foundation, by association, do require specific devices for testing. We recommend checking out the supported device lists below to make sure your mobile device is compatible.

• ARKit supported devices (iOS)
• ARCore supported devices (Android)

Additionally, we do want to note that a Mac is required to fully build an iOS AR app that can be distributed. As such, if you’re a PC user, you’re going to have to settle for just building to Android.

Tutorials

Finally, let’s jump into the tutorials below where you can start learning Unity and, in our opinion, the best resources for developing AR apps.

Unity

• Unity Game Development Mini-Degree by Zenva
• Unity 101 by Zenva
• How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial by Jason Weimann
• How to program in C# by Brackeys

AR Foundation

• AR Foundation Documentation
• Augmented Reality Mini-Degree by Zenva
• Augmented Reality 101 by Zenva
• Beginners guide to UNITY AR Foundation by Mohd Hamza
• Getting Started With ARFoundation in Unity (ARKit, ARCore) – by The Unity Workbench

ARCore

• ARCore Documentation
• Intro to ARCore by Zenva
• Unity & ARCore by Dinesh Punni
• ARCore Tutorials – Practical Augmented Reality Course by Augmented Startups
• Build AR apps in Android Studio using Sceneform SDK by Hey! Let’s Code

ARKit

• ARKit Documentation
• Intro to ARKit by Zenva
• Create Your First AR App using RealityKit by Reality School
• ARKit Unity Tutorial – Build a Realistic Construction Site by Parth Anand
• ARKit Tutorial – Create an AR Shopping Experience with ConfigWise by Rebeloper – Rebel Developer

EasyAR

• EasyAR Documentation
• Marker-Based AR Apps for Beginners with EasyAR by Zenva
• Easy AR Tutorials by Render Island
• AR Tutorial: Image Tracking with EasyAR by Third Aurora
• How To Markerless Augmented Reality With Unity 3D And EasyAR by Denys Gamers Tutorial

AR.js

• AR.js Documentation
• Marker-Based Games with AR.js by Zenva
• Location Based Augmented Reality Using ARjs by AllInReality
• Tutorial: augmented reality web app using AR.js & A-Frame by Alvin Tang

Parting Words

Although building an augmented reality app is a bit intimidating, it is extremely possible to learn. While we wouldn’t recommend it for someone who has never coded before, it can be a beginner-friendly experience if you keep your application simple enough.

However, taking the time to learn AR can only be a benefit. More and more industries are adopting it every day for day-to-day business practices. Thus, the demand for AR skills and apps is only going to grow. Plus, with new AR technology coming out every year, there is a lot of unexplored territory when it comes to AR.

Whatever your goals, we hope you feel ready to start building AR apps of your very own.

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With such exciting opportunities, developers willing to learn can gain a distinct advantage in the market! Below, we’ve compiled some of the best VR tutorials for beginners to get you started developing your own VR experiences as a fun hobby or professional pursuit. The future is exciting and VR is here to stay… so let’s get started!

What is VR?

So what is VR and how is it different from Augmented Reality (AR)? Essentially, VR is a technology paradigm for replacing the “real world” with an immersive digital environment that is artificially constructed and therefore completely void of naturally enforced limitations (gravity, oxygen, and proximity to name a few). While AR is a technology paradigm for bringing the virtual and “real world” together by adding digital layers (data, sound, video, graphics, GPS overlays, and more) on top of “real world” objects, then interacting and responding, in real-time, to changes in the user’s environment, VR is about replacing the user’s environment entirely.

There is, of course, a lot to VR development, so the VR tutorials below will help further cement these concepts!

Learn VR Game Development in 2 Hours with Unity – COMPLETE COURSE!

This VR course from Zenva provides a complete introduction to VR game development with Unity across various platforms, including Google Cardboard (Android and iOS), Gear VR, Oculus, and HTC Vive.

This series is great for anyone interested in creating VR games with Unity but doesn’t know where to start! Assuming no prior experience, the tutorial starts by answering the question: What is VR? Next, foundational concepts such as tracked objects, degrees of freedom, and the reality-virtuality continuum are explained.

You’ll build a flying platform demo during the course where the player is transported to different destinations in a low-poly world. This simple example covers the building process in Unity for all the main VR platforms.

Key Topics Covered:

• What is VR
• Models and platform movement
• Tracked objects
• Degrees of freedom
• Reality-virtuality continuum
• Circuit implementation with arrays
• SDK and phone setup
• Google Cardboard for iOS and Android
• Gear VR
• Oculus Right
• HTC Vive
• OpenVR

Duration: 2 hours of video training

Access Now: Learn VR Game Development in 2 Hours with Unity – COMPLETE COURSE!

Introduction to VR in Unity

Created by Valem, this 11-part VR tutorials series starts with setting up a VR project in Unity from scratch. The series then delves into VR in Unity beginning with basic input and hand presence. Next, you’ll learn popular VR movement concepts including teleportation and continuous movement.

The series continues making use of the XR Interaction Toolkit to grab and use objects, deal with faraway objects using ray interactions to grab, interact with the UI and trigger any behavior. From there you’ll explore popular Unity XR Toolkit concepts such as using a lever, door, and drawer type interactions, using drop zones that snap objects to predefined positions, and trigger custom behavior. Learn how to incorporate physics and allow players to climb in your scene as well as use two-hand grab techniques including the C# scripting code required. Finally, explore Unity’s new input system and OpenXR support.

Key Topics Covered:

• VR Setup in Unity
• Input and hand presence
• Teleportation
• Continuous smooth movement
• Grab interaction
• Ray interaction
• Door, lever, drawer interaction
• Snap or drop zones
• Trigger custom behaviours
• Climbing with physics
• Two hand grab technique
• Unity’s new input system and OpenXR support

Duration: 3.5 hours of video training

Access Now: Introduction to VR in Unity

How to Make a VR Game: Beginner’s Guide

In this 14-part VR tutorials series from Justin P Barnett, you begin with an introduction to making a VR game using Unity, OpenXR, and Unity’s XR Plugin and XR Interaction Toolkit. After a beginner-friendly introduction, explore Unity’s action-based input system and new Interaction System.

Next, you’ll learn popular VR movement concepts including VR teleportation and natural-looking continuous movement to avoid possible VR-induced motion sickness.

The series continues with techniques to animate hands in your VR scene in a way that connects your player to the game in a realistic way, make VR buttons using joints and physics-based actions, use inverse kinematics to simulate accurate joints for upper and lower body movements, and implement physic-based two hand grab techniques with the help of C# scripting.

Key Topics Covered:

• Introduction to Unity VR development
• Beginner-friendly VR games and Unity’s XR Plugin
• Unity’s action-based input system and how it works in VR
• Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit
• OpenXR
• Jumping in Unity VR
• Continuous movement in Unity VR with OpenXR Locomotion and FPS
• VR Teleportation using Unity’s input system and XR Interaction Toolkit
• Hand animation using Unity’s input system, XR Plugin, and physics-based animation
• VR buttons using configurable joints and physics-based actions
• Inverse kinematics to create realistic joint movements for upper and lower body movement
• Physics-based two hand grab technique with C# scripting

Duration: 4 hours of video training

Access Now: How to Make a VR Game: Beginner’s Guide

Unity XR Interaction Toolkit

Get acquainted with Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit, including installation and setup, in this VR tutorial by Zenva. After setting up your basic VR project in Unity, this tutorial covers an overview of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit including what it’s used for. You’re then walked step-by-step through the installation process.

With the XR Interaction Toolkit successfully installed, the tutorial walks you through creating a project to demonstrate its functionality including interacting with objects, as well using hands to grab objects.

Key Topics Covered:

• VR project setup in Unity
• Overview of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit
• Installation of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit
• VR lighting and color in Unity
• Setup VR camera to reflect a VR headset
• Setup Oculus Quest support in Unity
• Interactable objects
• Hand grabbing

Duration: 32 minutes of video training

Access Now: Unity XR Interaction Toolkit

Unity XR Toolkit for VR Series

This 6-part VR tutorials series from VR with Andrew introduces you to the Unity XR Interaction Toolkit – including an overview and setup within Unity. The series then takes you through key features and basic examples including interactions, teleporting, canvas pointer, snap rotation, socket interactions, and creating realistic VR button presses.

Key Topics Covered:

• XR Interaction Toolkit setup in Unity
• Interactions
• Teleporting
• Canvas pointer
• Snap rotation
• Socket interactions
• Realistic VR button press

Duration: 50 minutes of video training

Access Now: Unity XR Toolkit for VR Series

VR Rhythm Game BASICS – Note Breaking Tutorial

In this VR tutorial from Zenva, you’ll learn techniques for creating VR experiences by building a block-breaking rhythm game for Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, and Oculus Rift S using Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit systems and C#.

Through building this game, you’ll master techniques for creating interactive blocks that can be placed along a moving track and sliced with VR controllers to the beats of a song. You’ll learn both how to utilize Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit for games and how to create systems for rhythm games that can be expanded with additional songs, different block types, and more. You will learn how to set up interactable objects, create animations, detect collisions, and more.

Key Topics Covered:

• VR Project setup in Unity
• Overview of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit
• Installation of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit
• VR camera
• VR controllers
• Interactive objects
• Animations
• Collision detection

Duration: 37 minutes of video training

Access Now: VR Rhythm Game BASICS – Note Breaking Tutorial

WebXR APIs and Examples

This informational and official VR tutorial from WebXR and W3C Immersive Web Chair, Ada Rose Cannon, provides a comprehensive look at the exciting and emerging world of WebXR – including technology overview, key device APIs, important features, complementary technologies, current ecosystem, and a wide range of examples.

The video is accompanied by a long list of timestamped topics that allow you to get the full WebXR overview or jump between topics that catch your attention. A small sample of topics is listed below.

Key Topics Covered:

• WebXR features and device APIs
• Immersive devices and VR headsets
• WebXR with mobile devices
• VR on the web
• Demos
• Related technologies including WebGL, Three.js, A-Frame, React360, and more
• Anchors, layers, and hand interactions
• WebXR resources

Duration: 31 minutes of video training

Access Now: WebXR APIs and Examples

Basics of Cardboard VR Game in Unity – Google VR Tutorial

For this VR tutorial, created by The Game Guy, you’ll learn the basics of making a Cardboard VR game in Unity using the Google VR SDK. The tutorial teaches you how to create a beginner-friendly game that allows you to look around and interact with your environment.

Key Topics Covered:

• Basic game creation
• Google VR Cardboard
• Google VR SDK

Duration: 18 minutes of video training

Access Now: Basics of Cardboard VR Game in Unity – Google VR Tutorial

Virtual Reality Development

In this 34-part VR tutorials series from Zenva, you’ll find some of the most important VR techniques required to develop any VR games, apps, and experiences that you can imagine!

Learn the basics of VR in Unity such as environment setups, managing assets, teleportation, grabbing and throwing objects, scaling, modular level design, UI screens, and working with components.

Or, expand your knowledge with a specific game and app concepts like 360 photos, adapting existing 3D games to VR, space and underwater experiences, RPG and FPS games, piloting a ship, developing a fitness app, and much more.

Key Topics Covered:

• Environment setups
• Draggable components
• Adapting 3D games to VR
• FPS mechanics
• RPG mechanics
• Room-scale experiences
• Tracked controllers
• Mobile VR
• Grabbing and throwing objects
• Modular level design
• Oculus apps
• Working with 360° photos and videos
• Game design documents

Duration: 6 hours of video training

Access Now: Virtual Reality Development

Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

Take your VR education to the next level with the Virtual Reality Mini-Degree from Zenva. This complete curriculum was developed by industry experts with certifications from Unity Technologies, CompTIA, and more.

The Virtual Reality Mini-Degree is designed to give you everything you need to build VR games and applications for all modern VR platforms. You’ll learn by building real projects – including a space station app, a 360° video quiz, a first-person shooter, a platformer game, and more. Whether your goal is to build VR experiences as a hobby or launch a career in this exciting, fast-growing field, this curriculum will give you everything you need to reach your goals.

After completing this project-based Mini-Degree you’ll have the experience to take on real VR projects and have 22 professional VR games and apps to enhance your portfolio.

Key Topics Covered:

• Coding basics with C# and Unity
• Teleportation
• VR-optimized UI design
• Hand-tracked controllers
• Working with 360° media (photos and video)
• Preventing simulator sickness
• Industry best-practices for mobile and desktop VR

Duration: 56 hours of video training

Access Now: Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

Extra Resources

For those new to VR development, we recommend reading our Introduction to Virtual Reality and How to Code a Virtual Reality Game: A Beginner’s Guide articles to get you started!

If you enjoy learning from books, then the free eBook – VR Game Development with Unity for Human Beings is a good next step.

Alternatively, if you’re just ready to dive deep into VR tutorials, you can check out some of the tutorials here on this VR Game Development blog.

Ending Words

Virtual reality is an expansive topic, so this list of VR tutorials is just the beginning! However, particularly for beginners, this list will help you take your first steps and establish a good baseline foundation before diving into more advanced topics. Regardless, though, with VR enabling immersive experiences in every industry, there is an extremely bright future for anyone ready to learn this awesome and emerging technology!

We wish you all the best on this exciting journey!

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Learn to create virtual reality games without the need to code – all by exploring the basics of Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit. You can also dive further into using the XR Interaction Toolkit by checking out the full course below!

Discover the XR Interaction Toolkit for VR

About

Following the guidance of Unity game developer, Daniel Buckley, you’ll learn the foundations of not only what the XR Interaction Toolkit is, but how you can integrate it into your very own projects for Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, and Oculus Rift S. You’ll also explore how, without any C# coding, you can use this toolkit to create interactable objects quickly and easily. No matter what type of VR game you’d like to build, these techniques will provide you with a whole new avenue by which to explore the world of virtual reality development!