Philosophy of Building Immersive Experiences
Welcome to Enhancing Virtual Reality Experience with Unity! In this book, we will explore not only what it takes to build virtual reality (VR) experiences, but also how to expand on that knowledge to create innovative experiences with VR. You will be able to create amazing projects in VR on your own in no time as we progress through this book. We will follow a series of step-by-step tutorials to complete projects aimed at giving you the skills you need to be proficient at VR development.
VR can encompass many content and concept areas, but we will cover the major areas so that you have a good foundation and understanding as you continue your journey as a developer. Ultimately, the goal is to create VR experiences that are fun and engaging.
This chapter will explore some of the foundational concepts of immersive experiences, VR, and using the Unity game engine. The goal is to first understand some of the philosophy around what immersive experiences are and why we build experiences with this technology. Before we dive deep into VR, we will expand your concept of VR by first defining immersive experiences and introducing VR within that context. VR goes beyond making games for headsets. It is a medium that can be applied to a variety of industries and applications, such as healthcare, education, therapy, design, entertainment, and so on. We will break down the various components that comprise the experiences and introduce some of the hardware that is necessary to develop and participate in those experiences. In this way, before we begin developing, you will have a better idea of what to expect when you open Unity to start building your experiences.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- What is an immersive experience?
- What are the essential components of an immersive experience?
- Understanding XR, AR, VR, and MR
- How does VR work?
- Approaching VR development