Book Image

Virtual Reality Blueprints

By : Charles Palmer, John Williamson

Book Image

Virtual Reality Blueprints

By: Charles Palmer, John Williamson

Overview of this book

Are you new to virtual reality? Do you want to create exciting interactive VR applications? There's no need to be daunted by the thought of creating interactive VR applications, it's much easier than you think with this hands-on, project-based guide that will take you through VR development essentials for desktop and mobile-based games and applications. Explore the three top platforms—Cardboard VR, Gear VR, and OculusVR —to design immersive experiences from scratch. You’ll start by understanding the science-fiction roots of virtual reality and then build your first VR experience using Cardboard VR. You'll then delve into user interactions in virtual space for the Google Cardboard then move on to creating a virtual gallery with Gear VR. Then you will learn all about virtual movements, state machines, and spawning while you shoot zombies in the Oculus Rift headset. Next, you'll construct a Carnival Midway, complete with two common games to entertain players. Along the way, you will explore the best practices for VR development, review game design tips, discuss methods for combating motion sickness and identify alternate uses for VR applications

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

The Past, Present, and Future of VR

The Past, Present, and Future of VR

The history of virtual reality

Through the looking glass

Making a static image dance

The bigger the better – panoramic paintings

Stereoscopic viewers

Why stop at just sight and sound? – Smell o' Vision and Sensorama

Link Trainers and Apollo

Interactivity and True HMDs

1990s – VR Explosion

Building a Solar System for Google Cardboard

Building a Solar System for Google Cardboard

Google Cardboard setup

Setting up the Unity environment

Building the TRAPPIST-1 System

Building the application

Building an Image Gallery System for the Gear VR

Building an Image Gallery System for the Gear VR

A virtual image gallery

Getting started in VR

Prepping for VR

Acquiring the Oculus SDK package

Constructing a panoramic skybox

Creating the Gallery prefab

Building the galleries

Adding User Interactions to the Virtual Gallery Project

Adding User Interactions to the Virtual Gallery Project

Facilitating user interaction

Finalizing user interaction

Using Event Triggers for user feedback

Building the application

Fighting Zombies on the Oculus Rift

Fighting Zombies on the Oculus Rift

Playing with zombies

The Oculus Rift platform

Process overview – Part 1

Setting up the Unity environment

Creating the Player GameObject

Building the game environment

Optimizing the experience for VR

Creating the zombie prefab

Scripting Zombies for the Oculus Rift

Scripting Zombies for the Oculus Rift

Scripting the zombies

Setting the mood

Building an executable

Expanding the experience

Carnival Midway Games — Part 1

Carnival Midway Games — Part 1

Recreating carnival games

Special production note

Process overview – Part 1

Making objects grabbable

Carnival Midway Games — Part 2

Carnival Midway Games — Part 2

Backing up the project

Midway booth games

Building the application

Expanding the game

VR Hardware Roundup

VR Hardware Roundup

VR hardware roundup

VR Terms and Definitions

VR Terms and Definitions

VR terms and definitions

Primer of best practices

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Setting up the Unity environment

Like all projects, we will begin by launching Unity and creating a new project. The first steps will create a project folder which contains several files and directories:

Launch the Unity application.
Choose the New option after the application splash screen loads.

Create a new project by launching the Unity application. Save the project as Trappist1 in a location of your choice, as demonstrated in Figure 2.2:

Figure 2.2: New project window

To prepare for VR, we will adjust the Build Settings and Player Settings windows.

Open Build Settings from File | Build Settings.
Select the Platform for your target device (iOS or Android).

Click the Switch Platform button to confirm the change. The Unity icon in the right-hand column of the platform panel indicates the currently selected build platform. By default, it will appear next to the Standalone...