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)

VR terms and definitions

For the purposes of this book, we will define augmented reality (AR) as the melding of the real-world environment and computer generated imagery (CGI). AR is more than just a simple Heads Up Display (HUD), as AR tracks some or all of the real-world environment in three dimensions in real time, giving the impression that the computer generate imagery is part of the real world. Simple AR demos populate the App Stores for all modern smartphones, though the best experiences are done through a Head Mounted Display (HMD).

In AR, a CGI cartoon character would be drawn in your living room. With certain AR hardware, all of the details in your living room would be scanned and converted into 3D spatial data, allowing the CGI cartoon character to interact with your furniture, jumping from the floor to the couch, to the coffee table. You would see both your living...