Book Image

Unity Virtual Reality Projects

By : Jonathan Linowes
Book Image

Unity Virtual Reality Projects

By: Jonathan Linowes

Overview of this book

What is consumer “virtual reality�? Wearing a head-mounted display you view stereoscopic 3D scenes. You can look around by moving your head, and walk around using hand controls or motion sensors. You are engaged in a fully immersive experience. On the other hand, Unity is a powerful game development engine that provides a rich set of features such as visual lighting, materials, physics, audio, special effects, and animation for creating 2D and 3D games. Unity 5 has become the leading platform for building virtual reality games, applications and experiences for this new generation of consumer VR devices. Using a practical and project-based approach, this book will educate you about the specifics of virtual reality development in Unity. You will learn how to use Unity to develop VR applications which can be experienced with devices such as the Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard. We will then learn how to engage with virtual worlds from a third person and first person character point of view. Furthermore, you will explore the technical considerations especially important and possibly unique to VR. The projects in the book will demonstrate how to build a variety of VR experiences. You will be diving into the Unity 3D game engine via the interactive Unity Editor as well as C-Sharp programming. By the end of the book, you will be equipped to develop rich, interactive virtual reality experiences using Unity. So, let's get to it!
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Unity Virtual Reality Projects
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
11
What's Next?
Index

About the Reviewers

Krystian Babilinski began working with Unity and Blender when he was in middle school. Since high school, he and his brother, Adrian, taught via Google's Helpouts service. Through teaching, he exposed himself to a new assortment of problem sets, which he then experienced firsthand. Slowly, he began getting involved in large-scale projects and freelance work. With a growing portfolio and knowledge of Unity 3D along with platform optimizations, he and his brother started their own creative firm in 2014. They began developing assets for Unity's Asset Store and worked for larger clients, such as The Hasley Group and Beach Consulting. These successes wouldn't have been possible without their loyal customers.

Arindam Ashim Bose, as of 2015, is pursuing his master's degree in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He is interested in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality, and game development.

He was born in Mumbai and has been fascinated by computers and technology, especially computer games, since a very young age. He would spend countless hours during his vacations and weekends playing games and tinkering with them to modify them. It was this habit of tinkering and modding that got him into computer programming.

He is currently trying to break into the games industry as a programmer while pursing his master's degree.

Rongkai Guo is an assistant professor in the department of computer software engineering and game design and development at Kennesaw State University. His research interests are serious gaming, computer/mobile gaming, and virtual reality (VR). He has been conducting research on a VR for rehabilitation project for more than 4 years. He has conducted his first basic research study, IN THE WORLD, which formally investigated how VR impacts persons with mobility impairments.

Arun Kulshreshth is a researcher in the department of computer science at the University of Central Florida. His research interests include 3D user interfaces, human-computer interactions (HCI), games, and virtual reality. He received his master of technology (an integrated 5-year program) in mathematics and computing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 2005. He received a master of science in computer science in 2012 and a PhD in computer science in 2015 from the University of Central Florida.

He is the author of several publications that are related to his research work pertaining to utilizing 3D user interface technologies (such as stereoscopic 3D, head tracking, gestural interfaces, and so on) for video games. He is a professional member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In the past, he has conducted research at several international locations, including Spain, Denmark, and USA. One of his papers was awarded an honorable-mention award in a leading HCI conference (CHI 2014). In 2014, his name was featured in a Reuters article, and one of his projects was featured on Discovery News.

Robin de Lange is a researcher, lecturer, and entrepreneur with a focus on virtual reality and education.

Robin has an MSc degree in media technology from Leiden University and a bachelor's degree in physics and philosophy from the same university. He conducts part-time PhD research at the media technology research group of Leiden University under the supervision of Dr. Bas Haring. For his research, he is exploring the potential of augmented and virtual reality to understand and solve complex problems. Part of this research is an elective course, where Robin leads a group of students to create virtual reality prototypes for the field of education.

Besides his academic career, Robin has started many different initiatives. He is the director of a homework guidance company and the founder of Lyceo CodeWeken, a unique program for high-school students that teaches how to code.

Samuel Mosley is a game designer. He studied programming and game design at the University of Texas in Dallas. Showing an interest in both programming and games, he hopes to play an important role in both fields. He is currently working as a game designer for Bohemia Interactive Simulations.