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
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

The Past, Present, and Future of VR

This book is designed to serve as a hands-on introduction to virtual reality, commonly known as simply VR. The book includes a brief history of the technology, some definitions of popular terms, as well as best practices to stave off motion sickness and ensure your trackers are working perfectly.

In the following chapters, you will begin creating your very own virtual worlds which you can explore using your mobile device or Head Mounted Display (HMD). Unity 3D will be used for all projects. Unity is a flexible and powerful video game engine used to create some of your favorite video games, such as Hearthstone, Cities Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Cuphead, Super Hot, and Monument Valley.

The Virtual Worlds you will be creating in Unity include:

  • Image Gallery: A Virtual Art Gallery/Museum where you get to decide what hangs on the walls in this Samsung Gear VR project.
  • Solar System: Ignore the rules of time and physics as you travel through a model of the solar system in Google Cardboard.
  • Zombie Shooter: The only good zombie is a dead one—wait, an undead one? Anyway, you'll shoot them in the Oculus Rift.
  • Carnival Games: The only thing missing from these realistic VR carnival games is the smell of fried pickles.

Additionally, you will cover Unity development topics, such as:

  • System requirements
  • Scripting in Unity
  • User interaction in VR
  • Building VR environments
  • Equirectangular images
  • Improving performance
  • The Samsung Gear VR workflow process
  • The Oculus Rift workflow process
  • Combating VR sickness