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

Multiplayer networking


Before we begin implementation, let's take a look at what multiplayer networking is all about and define some terms.

Networking services

Consider a situation where you are running a VR application that is connected to a server, and several of your friends are running the same application on their own VR rigs at the same time. When you move your first-person view within the game, shoot things, or otherwise interact with the virtual environment, you expect the other players to see that, too. Their version of the game stays in sync with yours and vice versa. How does this work?

Your game creates a connection to a server. Other players are simultaneously connected to the same service. When you move, your character's new position is broadcast to each of the other connections, which then updates your avatar's position in their own views. Similarly, when your game receives the changed position of another character, it is updated in your view. The faster, the better. That is...