VR Development for Beginners 2024 - How to get started

if you click on this video chances are that you are getting started on your vr development journey maybe you've already set up your first project but before writing a single line of code you are facing a lot of important decisions what game enjoy to use which vr sets to buy how to code the sdk that you need and from being a vr developer for five years now i know how confusing and demotivating this can be and this is why i've decided to make this video right here which will cover all of the fundamental that you need from making your first project to becoming a more advanced vr developer so i'm valem and you are here on my second youtube channel valim tutorials a channel dedicated to help you learn about vr development so the first piece of advice that i can give you is to go down below and subscribe this will be worth your time i promise but without further ado let's get started [Music] so what is virtual reality okay i know that some people are probably running their highs that i'm explaining this but i want to put everybody on the same page and you will see this will be very important for the next part of this video so what is virtual reality a definition that i really like is this virtual reality is an immersive experience in a virtual and interactable environment and i really like this definition because it contained the three fundamentals of vr the immersion the environment and the interaction these are the three goals that you will have to keep in mind as a vr developer but how can we achieve them [Music] let's talk about the first one the immersion so the current state of yeah use a vr et cetera to this one there are dozens of vr set available on the market that can vary in price resolution field of view refreshment rate and so on but as a vr developer what we really need to know is this first is the vr headset 3 degree of freedom which means that you can only rotate your head like the oculus go the pico g2 or the google cardboard or is it 6 degree of freedom which means that you can rotate and move your head like the quest 2 that i have over there where this is important is of course that it will influence what kind of game you can make with it so even if 3 degree of freedom headset are nice to view 360 videos it's going to be really hard to make a o shape type of game using that device and second important factor is the vr headset standalone or connected to a pc this is important because it will change the platform the headset used and this means that there are different settings that you need to take into account but most importantly if the headset is standalone it means that it runs on itself and that you will not have the computer power as a pc so your goal as a developer will be to optimize your game better and this is why we see a lot of quest adaptation that reduced their graphics quality so finally the third important question is what are the headset specific features and this is something that is not really talked about but there are capabilities some headset have that other don't so for example the valve and text has the grip controller that allows you to have a more immersive grabbing or this one here is the quest and has grid and tracking capabilities that allow you to interact without the controller so of course if you are looking to make a vr game with such specific features well this restricts your choice obviously so what do i recommend in term of price and of specific features it's really hard to beat the quest 2 right now of course i'm not sponsored by meta to say this mr zuckerberg if you are watching this video you can leave a comment below so we can settle something out so with this headset you have lots of specific features like the end tracking the path through and what i really like is that you can use it as a standalone handset on its own but you can even plug it to your pc with a simple usbc cable and use it like a pc connected headset that even works with theme vr so if you want to learn more about vrr where and how to compare them i will leave in the description below some great vr channel and this big wikipedia page that will help you [Music] now that we talked about the immersion let's focus on the auto two parts the environment and the interaction so how can we manage both and the answer is with cayman giant a game engine is a development platform that can handle all aspects of a game like the physics the graphics and this is where we will be able to join together interaction and environment to make our game so you could code your own game engine of course from scratch but as a beginner i highly highly highly suggest you to use an already existing game engine maybe you've probably heard of at least two unreal and unity so which one should you choose now i know this is a hidden topic among all game developers you will always hear people complaining about one or the other but here is the truth it does not matter as a beginner your focus is on making your first project it's not about the tool is about what you make with them and here unreal or unity are perfect valid option that will be more than enough for you for your first project personally i use unity for my personal project and for my tutorials here on this youtube channel and on my main channel valem and what led me to this choice is simply the community unity has built a big community of developer and teacher which i'm super proud to be part of this means that no matter what your issue is you will always find the resource to fix this and this is especially useful when getting started now if you like more information about the comparison between unity and unreal i will as well leave some documentation in the description below [Music] now that we know how to manage all three fundamentals of vr development we can finally get started and as always we could do everything from scratch but fortunately for us there are resources to speed up the development the software development toolkit or sdk for sure so a sdk is a collection of tools to handle specifically your vr headset and its interaction so for unity the official sdks are the oculus integration steamvr unity xr interaction toolkit and mrtk there are also other sdk that are made from independent developer like vrtk the vr interaction framework hurricane vr photo n and so on now in this video we will only focus on the official sdk but if you are interested to learn more about the other let me know in the comment section below and i can cover it in a future episode so let's do the comparison the oculus integration is a meta slash oculus official sdk and of course this sdk targets the meta vr headset it allows you to quickly set up a vr player with an animation and contains implementation for the specific feature of the quest headset like passthrough and tracking special anchor or meta avatars so this sdk is often updated and something that i really enjoy lately is their new interaction sdk which allow you to create some great interaction for both end tracking and controller so if you'd like to know more about it i've made a recent tutorial series about it on this channel right here that will get you started so next we have steamvr this is valve official sdk and early on it was one of my favorite sdk because it was tackling more advanced vr interaction like custom grabbing or this cool bow and it adds specific interaction for the valve knuckles controller but unfortunately this sdk has not been updated for a while now and i don't know if valve is planning on keeping it alive but if you are interested in learning about this sdk as well i've made this tutorial series that will guide you through all of its amazing features but next we have unity own sdk the unity xr toolkit but in comparison to the other the strength of the sdk is to be cross-platform but what does it mean it means that it has not the best advanced features it really contains only the basic interaction like grabbing teleportation continuous movement but the aim of this sdk is to work the same on all devices which is a lot simpler especially when you are getting started again i made a big tutorial series about it which you will be able to find direct link on the top right corner over there and finally we have the mix ready toolkit or mrtk which is microsoft on sdk so this sdk was designed as well for microsoft devices like the hololens or the windows mix ready headset but lately it has a new update that allowed the sdk to work even with the quest which is great news so this is the sdk that featured the most advanced interaction in my opinion which is really useful for more advanced developers now i talked about this sdk not on youtube this time but in the two-part video on my patreon which is the place i used to tackle more advanced vr subject like this one now the big question is which sdk should you choose so you might see me coming with this one but what i recommend for beginners is the unity xr toolkit because being a simple and cross-platform sdk makes it the perfect tool to get started even if it doesn't have all the interaction it will be more than enough for your first project and on the plus side as it is unity own sdk you will be able to find lots of documentation about it and you can rest assured that it will also work for future version of unity [Music] now how to became a better developer at this point by following the tutorial i've already mentioned you have everything for your own project and congratulations now you can get creative and if you need inspiration for a project a good place to start is by joining a game jam so a game jam is a game developer competition where the goal is to create a game in a short amount of time around a specific theme so it's the perfect place to challenge yourself and get ideas for your own project you can also find some game jam available on this dedicated hio page that you will find in the description below and i'm also hosting the vr jam every year which might see a comeback this year so stay tuned of course there comes a time where you will need to code your own interaction now if all you already know a little bit about programmation this will not be a problem for you by following the tutorial that you will find but if you haven't well i have a great news for you as well it does not matter both unity and unreal have visual scripting which allow you to program simply by connecting node and which is again more than enough when getting started so you are now a vr developer you can set up a vr project and even make your own interaction but how can you go further now already we've talked about two direct improvements you can learn about the other sdk to see all more interactions are made and the specific feature of each sdk that's some vr headset f like hand tracking and secondly you can learn more about programming by the way for this one one of my favorite tutorial series about c-sharp is this tutorial series made by brackies now there are of course other aspects of vr development that can make you a better developers like for example basic mathematics and here i highly recommend freya ulmer tutorial which is a goldmine for that subject 3d modeling is also very important to create your own 3d assets and for this you've probably already heard about blender which is a free and open source 3d software and where the blender guru youtube channel will teach you everything you need to know and for various aspects of game development you will love both practice video and the gdc talks that are also available for free on youtube of course you don't need to be an expert in all of this field to make a vr game that's really not the point but this will help you broaden your understanding of how you can make them at least that's what i felt it was for me now i want to finish this video by also talking about the other resources that might help you on this journey there are obviously the official documentation of both unity and unreal and for all the sdk that i mentioned and you will be able to find a link to all of them in the description below i know i am a bit biased but if you are looking into more advanced interaction in vr i post every month exclusive tutorials on my patreon where i cover more advanced subjects like making a portal in vr physics interaction with and tracking driving a car and much more and of course this video will not be complete if i didn't talk about the other awesome vr creator that you can find on youtube such as dilmer valesilos which makes video about both vr and ar and likes to present the newest sdk feature there is vr with andrew also with using voice will guide you step by step to make your own vr interaction or justin p bartnett which goes really deep in explanation and covers cool projects like for example how to make your own gorilla tag movement in vr so let's turn this video into the best starting place to anyone who is interested in vr development i want you to comment about your own vr journey and what is the best tips that you have for a beginner now thank you for watching this video i hope that it helped you in any way and if it did you can leave a like below it really helped to promote this channel thank you again see you soon bye

Channel: Valem Tutorials

Views: 50,464

Keywords: vr beginner, how to make a vr game, unity virtual reality tutorials, how to make a vr game in unity, best game engine vr, vr sdk comparison unity, how to learn vr development, how to make a vr game 2022, game engine comparison, what is the best sdk unity, xr interaction toolkit beginner, vr beginner tutorial unity, unity vr tutorial beginner, unity vr tutorial beginner 2022, vr beginner guide, vr development tutorial 2022, how to get started with vr

Id: i3DbJwy0R6E

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2022