VR Hardware Prerequisites

To follow along with the content in this book, you’ll need to have either an Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, Oculus Quest, or an HTC Vive headset , which are all 6DOF. As we proceed, I’ll assume that you have already set up your headset and ensured it is working, indicating that your computer is VR ready. If you haven’t, now is a good time to do this. Both Oculus and Steam VR provide system tools that allow you to check whether your computer meets the minimum requirements to be VR ready. Head to www.vive.com/eu/setup/ or www.oculus.com/setup/, and run through the guided installation and setup process listed there. Lastly, ensure that you have your VR headset set to developer mode . Be sure to test out your headset and ensure that it is working before setting up your development environment.

If the VR system you’re using is Oculus Quest, it would be good to connect your Oculus Quest to your PC or laptop with a link cable and playtest using link mode. Doing this would be more convenient than having to deploy a complete build to the Oculus Quest each time you need to do a test run. You do not need to get the Oculus-approved link cable. There are several cheaper options available online from Anchor, Belkin, and Amazon. I use a six-foot Anchor USB C to USB 3 cable.

Unity Prerequisites and Oddities

The only requirement for following along with the content in this book is that you use Windows 10 and Unity version 2020.3.15f2. The project we will build throughout this book uses Unity’s LTS, version 2020.3.15f2, which is the latest LTS version at the time of this writing. I have experienced with different versions of Unity 2020, and even though LTS has a lot of oddities, I suggest you stick with LTS version 2020.3.15f2 throughout the exercises in this book. Other LTS versions do not provide any new features anyway. One thing you should not do is upgrade midway throughout your project to a newer version of LTS. Doing so will cause your project to malfunction.

When installing Unity, ensure that you set up the Android Build Support by checking the boxes for Android SDK, NDK Tools, and OpenJDK . Also, ensure that you check the box for the module, Windows Build Support (IL2CPP).

Setting Up Your VR project

As part of this book, you have been provided with Unity package files that you will download and import into your Unity project, as explained in this chapter.

To proceed, you’ll need to download the provided Unity package file, “VRTK_Playground,” to an easily accessible location, such as your desktop or any other folder on your computer.

Then, launch the Unity hub, click the New button in the upper right-hand corner, and ensure that you select the latest version of Unity, LTS 2020.3.x, that you downloaded. Note that I am using Unity Hub, version 2.4.5.

As shown in the dialog box in Figure 3-1, select VR in the Templates section . Then, choose an appropriate location in which to save your project. Give your project a proper name; I have named mine “VR_Playground.” Finally, click the Create button to set up the project, and Unity’s editor will be open on your desktop. You will be greeted with a VR Project Template dialog asking you to select an appropriate platform. Click the Close button on this dialog, allowing the Unity editor to display its default sample scene. On the far-right side of the editor, you will notice the Tutorial tab. Click the vertical ellipsis button on this tab and select Close, as you won’t need it. In the “Assets” folder on the Project tab, you will notice that three folders have already been set up by default. Using the VR template that is listed, you have avoided the need to manually set up XR Plugin Management, which you would otherwise need to do, should you have chosen the 3D template.

Within the Unity editor console tab, you may see a message stating that a new Visual Studio Editor package version is available and asking you to update to this latest version for better visual studio integration. To do so, open the Package Manager in Unity, select the Visual Studio Editor item from the pane on the left, and click the Update to 2.x.x button.

Importing the Unity Package File

Now that you have downloaded the provided Unity package file, “VRTK_Playground,” it’s time to import it into your project.

From the main menu, select Assets ➤ Import Package ➤ Custom Package. Navigate to the folder where you saved the downloaded Unity package file, select it, and click the Open button within the Import Package window. An Import Unity Package window will pop up, as shown in Figure 3-2. Click the All button, then the Import button. Unity will then begin its importing process, importing all the objects in the Unity package into your project.

Your Unity console will now display three error messages, as shown in Figure 3-3. You can ignore these messages for now. They indicate that a couple of namespaces are missing. The messages will disappear once you install version 4 of the VRTK in the next chapter.

Now that you have imported the provided VRTK_Playground unity package, go to the “Assets” folder in your Project tab and delete the “Scenes” folder, as it is no longer required. Note that a new “VRTK_Playground” folder is now available in your “Assets” folder. Expand the “VRTK_Playground” folder and then expand the “Scenes” folder, and you will find a Demo scene. Double-click this scene to launch it in the Unity editor. You will be asked whether you’d like to save the Sample Scene that is currently open. Click the Don’t Save button, as you do not need the Sample Scene anymore . Select the Scene tab within the Unity editor to view your VR framework environment. Select the Game tab within the Unity editor, and you will note that it displays a message stating that there are no cameras rendering. This is because there is no camera set up within your Demo scene yet.

Let’s start by exploring the Demo scene and the game objects that comprise it. First, we’ll select the Scene tab to switch back to the scene view. Figure 3-4 displays your Demo scene. Within the hierarchy, the parent Environment game object has been expanded and some of its child objects have been expanded, too. You will begin exploring your Demo scene by examining the game objects within the Environment object and noting their Tag and Layer settings within the inspector.

First, expand the Environment game object within the hierarchy, then expand all the child objects; namely, Table, Containers, Barrel, and Ladder. The Ladder game object contains two child game objects: Steel Ladder A and Steel Ladder B. Expand these objects.

Let’s now look at each game object within the hierarchy and note the collider components they have been set up with and their Layer and Tag settings .

Begin by selecting the Floor game object in the hierarchy . Note that the inspector has been set up with a mesh collider, its Layer has been set to Water, and it has been left Untagged.

Now, select the Table game object in the hierarchy, and note that it is made up of Table Top and Table Leg game objects, both of which have box colliders on them. Also note that their Layer and Tag properties have been left at their default values.

With the Containers game object expanded in the hierarchy, select any Container game object within it. All Container child game objects within the Containers parent game object have similar components. Note that all the Container child game objects have been fitted with a box collider. Also note that their Layer and Tag properties have been left at their default values.

With the Barrels game object expanded in the hierarchy, select any Barrel game object in it. All Barrel child game objects within the Barrels parent game object have similar components. Note that all the Barrel child game objects have been fitted with a box collider. Also note that their Layer and Tag properties have been left at their default values.

With the Ladder game object expanded, as well as both Steel Ladder A and Steel Ladder B child game objects, you will see that both of the child game objects contain several numbered Collision game objects. With the Move Tool on Unity’s toolbar toggled on, select several of the numbered Collision game objects in the hierarchy to see them highlighted within the scene view. Note that each of these numbered Collision game objects denotes either a side portion or a rung of the ladder. All the numbered game objects have been fitted with capsule colliders. As we will see in later chapters, this kind of collider setup allows you to grab onto either side of the ladder’s rungs and climb up.

Exploring the XR Plugin Management for Unity

Let’s begin by exploring the XR Plugin Management that Unity set up for you by default when you used the VR template provided. To do so, navigate to the main menu and select Edit ➤ Project Settings to open the Project Settings dialog box. From the pane on the left, select and expand the XR Plugin Management item, and you will notice that it has two child items—namely, Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality—set up by default. You won’t be developing for a Windows Mixed Reality device in this book, so select the Oculus item from beneath XR Plugin Management. On the pane on the right, you will see the PC, Mac & Linux Standalone settings tab, as well as the Android tab. On both these tabs, the Stereo Rendering mode has been set up by default. Also, for the Android tab, target devices have been set to Quest and Quest 2 by default.

Now, select the XR Plugin Management item from the pane on the left, and you will see the PC, Mac & Linux Standalone settings tab as well as the Android tab visible in the right pane. Both these tabs provide you with check boxes listing plug-ins from providers that you can use. However, as shown in Figure 3-6, there is no Steam VR plug-in listed here. However, this will not be a cause for concern if you’re using an HTC Vive device, as you will circumvent this by using the VRTK-provided Camera Rigs and Unity XR plugin management framework prefab.

The Oculus plug-in has already been installed by default, so you may now close the Project Settings dialog.

If you’re building for the HTC Vive, even though the XR Plugin Management does not support a plug-in for Steam VR, you won’t need to download the Steam VR Plugin from the Unity Asset store to have your framework work with your HTC Vive devices. However, you will need to have the Steam VR client installed on your PC to build to the HTC Vive.

Importing the Oculus Integration SDK

You, however, need to download and import the Oculus Integration SDK, as the VRTKs Camera Rigs, Oculus Integration wrapper will require it. This will become clearer once you install version 4 of the VRTK in the next chapter.

I’m using the latest version of the Oculus Integration SDK currently available, version 29, and I advise you to do the same. You can download the Oculus Integration SDK from the Unity asset store or the Oculus Developer site; the latter is a repository for all earlier versions.

Log in to the Unity asset store and search for Oculus Integration, and download and import it into your project. The Package Manager dialog should then open. If not, you can launch it by selecting Window ➤ Package Manager from the main menu. On the left-hand pane, ensure that the Item Oculus Integration is selected and then click the Import button located in the bottom right corner of the right-hand pane. The Import Unity Package dialog will be displayed. Click the Import button to begin importing the Oculus Integration SDK into your project. Once you’re done, close the Package Manager. Then, navigate to the “Assets” folder in the Project tab, where you will notice an Oculus folder, which is essentially the Oculus Integration SDK.

Choosing Player Settings within Unity

Now, navigate to the main menu and select Edit ➤ Project Settings to open the Project Settings dialog box. On the left-hand pane, select the Player item. On the right-hand pane, select the PC, Mac & Linux Standalone settings tab. Expand the Other Settings section and scroll down to the Configuration section. If you didn’t install Windows Build Support (IL2CPP) when setting up Unity, set the Scripting Backend property to Mono . Set the API Compatibility Level property to .NET 4.x. In the Configuration section , ensure that the Active Input Handling property has been set to Input Manager (Old), as shown in Figure 3-7.

With the Other Settings section still open, click the Android Settings tab. Scroll down until you see the Lightmap Encoding property , and set its value to Normal Quality .

Then scroll further down until you see the Identification section. Ensure that the Minimum API level property has been set to Android 6.0 “Marshmallow” (API level 23).

Scroll further down to the Configuration section and set the API Compatibility Level to .NET 4.x. Next, locate the Target Architectures section that follows, and ensure that the box for ARMv7 is unchecked and the box for ARM64 is checked.

Scroll further down to the bottom of the Configuration section and ensure that the Active Input Handling property has been set to Input Manager (Old), as shown in Figure 3-8.

Next, scroll up to the top, where you’ll see the Rendering section. Ensure that the Color Space property has been set to Linear, as shown in Figure 3-9.

Finally, collapse the Other Settings section and close the Project Settings dialog.

On the main menu, select File ➤ Build Settings to open the Build Settings dialog box. Then, click the Add Open Scenes button to add your Demo scene to the Scenes in Build list box. By default, you’ll notice that the Platform has been set to PC, Mac & Linux Standalone. These default platform settings are sufficient if you’re building for the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. However, if you’re deploying to the Oculus Quest, you’ll need to select Android as your platform. After this is done, change the Texture Compression property to ASTC and set the Compression Method property to LZ4. If you have your Oculus Quest connected to your PC, you can click the Refresh button beside the Run Device property and select your Oculus device from the drop-down. Finally, click the Switch Platform button . Unity will begin its importing process, which can take a while, see Figure 3-10.

Summary

In this chapter, we went over the various VR hardware prerequisites and the hardware you’ll need to follow along with this book. We explored prerequisites for the Windows version of Unity. You created a new empty VR project and then downloaded and imported the Unity package file provided to you in the new VR_Playground project. The assets you imported via the Unity package file set the environment in which you will build your VR framework. You explored each game object within the environment provided. Next, you delved into the XR Plugin Management for Unity and saw the default plug-ins installed. You then downloaded and imported the Oculus Integration SDK, which we will use once we have installed version 4 of the VRTK packages in a later chapter. Lastly, you set up several Player settings within Unity and looked at the Build Settings dialog box and saw how you could switch your development platform to work with an Android-based device like the Oculus Quest. In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at version 4 of the VRTK.