Resolved Can I create a VR game on Mac?

I was just thinking about porting a game to a VR headset.

Does anyone know what the most popular VR headsets are? I was going to target Googl Cardboard but I just read it was discontinued last week.

And can I develop for any of these headsets in Unity on a Mac?

 

I heard that most popular VR headset is PlayStation VR but to dewelop for PlayStation u need special deweloper kit.
Quite cheap option(read: popular) is Oculus Quest which was released march(?) this year(2019). It works on Android (Api level 21 or 24. I don't remember), has mobile phone quality and has many bugs. Ow, and no PC needed to play games. No cables and u can use it outdoor
I prefer Oculus Rift. It's been on market for 3-4 years and have the best quality I saw in VR(I did't use Oculus Rift S or new HTC Cosmos). Bad news are that you need powerfull PC with at least 3 USB 3.0 and one HDMI. Good news are that you download "Oculus integration" Asset and it will work with HTC headset (not sure about the newest models) too.

For Oculus Quest i'm sure u can creat working game on Mac. I'm not sure about Oculus Rift(if your Mac has 3x USB 3.0 and HDMI it can work.

 

Use Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. Both are very popular, and easy to develop for on Mac. Both Beatron 2000 and QuiVr Vanguard were developed (for Go) on a MacBook pro.

The only downside is that Oculus, as a company, can be very difficult to work with, and not very supportive of indie developers. But still, if your goal is to get into the VR space, that's the way to do it.

EDIT: OMG, you're the Nimian Legends guy! Entering your world on the Go (or Quest) would be an absolute dream come true. Please do it!

 

Thank you - this gives me a great place to start researching. Its too bad about Daydream because I actually found the smartphone vr easy to use. although I hear you could still develop for it, I don't want to go down a dead path. Im going to look into all of these and I appreciate the impressions because its hard sometimes to get a feel for that just reading the specs.

 

Im going to check to those games and the Oculus - thank you. I don't know much about VR but im using the latest version fo unity so if the merrier to entry is OK then id be really interested.

"The Nimian Legends guy" Thats one of the coolest things I've hear all year - I didn't know anyone knew me. Thanks for the ego boost and the support. Yeah, I was wandering around my upcoming game Wilderless, which is just you and your camera obscure and a wide open world and I was thinking you know it would be cool to see all of this in VR. I love open worlds - playing them and making them - and I think it could be relaxing to see the lake above actually in front of you, listening to the wind and watching the sunset

 

Fully agree. Your first Go/Quest game could literally be nothing but that: a peaceful spot at the edge of that lake. I'd buy that!

Some follow-up recommendations: if your budget is tight, start with the Go, as it's cheap and will make you wonder why you ever thought smartphone-based VR was a good idea. For the kind of games you want to make, I think it's more than adequate; we don't need dual controllers and 6DOF head tracking to appreciate your beautiful worlds. OTOH if money is no object, get both Go and Quest; developing for both is almost trivial. Both are essentially high-end Android phones, development-wise, so they should be no problem for you.

Second, there is a Discord server you should seriously consider joining called MVR (Mobile VR): https://discord.gg/9FkXv6M They're all about Go and Quest, and they are one of the most friendly and supportive communities I've ever seen. Many of the members are players, who love developers and want to do whatever they can to support them; the rest are Go/Quest developers, and always happy to help each other out. You will be very welcome there!

 

This is super helpful - Ill lot at bit but I like the sound of the go. I think the headset itself is only like 200$ or something USD. And good call about the lake. I don't have to do anything fancy and starting simple , maybe a subset of the game, would be a good place to start. thanks for the encouragement

 

Absolutely Quest. I develop for Quest on a Mac. When Oculus Link comes out next month, I'll probably bootcamp in to Win10 to do VR editing in VR when doing level design. The Quest is USD $400 and $500, depending on how much internal storage you want.

Personally, I'd not bother with a Go. I'm suspecting it'll be going the same way as Cardboard, Daydream, and GearVR very soon. But if a Go is all you can afford, it's a good starter and will let you develop with the Oculus Integration asset, which is what you'd use in a Rift or a Quest, too.

 

This is certainly possible. Oculus seems to think it has legs as a "media viewer" or a cheap way for people who are unsure about VR to get into it — or possible to stay within the "Christmas/birthday gift" range. But it does seem like a lot of players very quickly jumped ship for the Quest.

On the other hand, if your game doesn't need two controllers or 6DOF tracking, then supporting both devices is trivial. @protopop has a history of supporting a huge variety of devices already (all on his own — I have no idea how he manages it), so I say show the Go users a little love if you can.

 

Thanks I looked around and the vive and rift are out because of the pc requirement.

I kind of like the sound of the Quest. It’s newer and is potentially like you to be able
To walk around the world. I’m not clear from reading if the go just lets you stay in one place and look around, or could the player goto another spot using the single Pointer.

I also like the idea of potentially having hands in The world which I think the quest does. The price is more expensive, but still inside my budget.

Im going to see if it’s posiibke to actually try the two handsets. I’m in Montreal Canada so I don’t think there is a store or anything - I’m guessing it’s all order online - but I will look around and see what I can find.

It’s funny because I bought the original oculus development kit way back when (I think it was oclulus, it was one of the first car development kits you could order ) and used it on my Mac. And then when they released the final version they took away Mac support, so I gave it away. It’s encouraging to hear people actually developing on Mac successfully with these.

 

They have one at Best Buy in Montreal. I’ll try to go tomorrow and see if I can try a demo or at least look at it. The exchange rate is so high between Canada and the US now but if it’s really good I think it’s a reasonable price for an investment.

Edit: They have a Go too - I’ll take a look at both

 

I saw it at Best Buy - I cant try it but it looks so much better in person than I thought , and they have a cool case of it too.

I only had the idea last night, but now I really want one I’m gonna mull it over but I appreciate all the advice here that helped me get to this so quickly and understand the playing field a bit more

 

Quest (and Rift/Rift S) support seated, standing, and room-scale VR. Also, they're allowing Go apps to run on the Quest (another death knell?)

Seriously, the Quest is like the best bang for the buck. In another month, it can pretend to be a Rift with the Oculus Link update. It'll already pretend to be a Go (even turns in to a 3DOF device in the dark for movie watching).

The only drawbacks with it is there is a higher and subjective bar in getting your apps in to the Oculus store. It's not the wild west that SteamVR is. Sidequest can help with that, but the audience is limited. And who knows if/when Oculus will nix sidequest users.

The drag about the Quest is its brand new. Firmware 10 just came out. It's a moving target. Controllerless hand tracking is announced for sometime in 2020. Yes, that's right....just a headset -- no controllers needed.

 

Oh man I didn't even think about where I would sell it.

The cool thing about android and apple is almost anyone can see their game.

Ive been rejected by Ubisft, Nintendo, Microsoft and more , so I'm very wary about hard to get in stores.

Is there alternate ways to sell oculus content games? I guess they aren't compatible between different VR devices.

 

You can sell it for Sidequest (a popular side-loading app for Go and Quest). But even though I'm rather sour on Oculus's approval process, they seem to absolutely love pretty visuals. And you've got that in spades. As long as you can maintain a steady 60 fps, I don't think you'll have any trouble getting in the store.

 

To be clear, you can compile and build directly to the Quest on a mac in OS X, but Oculus libraries don't support running in the Unity editor so for something like Link, as been said, you'd have to try bootcamp or other alternative.

 

That's true, but I don't let it stop me; I just have a couple of scripts that, if running within the editor, emulate the functions of the headset and controllers. So I still do most of my testing/debugging in the IDE on my Mac, and just occasionally put it on the device for tweaking or to check how it's all looking in VR.

 

I'm developing VR on mac. Go for it!

If you want to get a wired headset to work, gonna need an eGPU. (Vega64 is good) and run bootcamp for best performance. Unity / steam on osx is JaNNNNKEEeeeey so perhaps not a good use of anyones time... people who value their sanity should stay away. But if you don't mind booting up as windows, it's gravy.

Quest dev is 100% possible on mac osx Unity. Link will need bootcamp... and an Nvidia card... gulp

 

Bootcamp is free. Win 10 is "free". I have an unactivated copy running on my Mac and have for a very, very long time.

My MacBook has a Vega 20 in it, which is ok for very very low-end VR. I haven't tried Link with it yet.

You can also buy an eGPU housing and put an nVidia in to that. If I ever upgrade my PC from the 1080ti it has, I might try that.

 

Vega 20 won't work with Link

nVidea eGPU option works on OSX High Sierra with some tinkering, but not mojave or catalina

 

Hi Guys, I know this threads a little old, but I'm looking to get back into Mac Unity/VR development, not with some more free time on my hands. I failed at getting the HTC Vive Pro to work, but I do have the Oculus Go (somewhere). And recently the Mac Mini M1 (and an old iMac Pro/Vega 64 16GB). Was looking at Corysia's work (thank you). So is this possible? Any 'new' tips? Thanx

 

Yes, it's still possible, but no, I don't have any new tips for you. Actually, I can't be certain it's possible on the M1, because that's Apple's new weird-ass processor and who knows whether command-line tools like the Android toolchain work on it? They're supposed to (it emulates an Intel chip at the OS level, right?), but I wouldn't be shocked if something fails there.

So just fire it up and give it a try!

 

So did this ever make it to the Quest 2?

 

Unfortunately no. I'm an indie dev and the requirements to get in the store were too daunting. But Wilderless did make it onto Apple's App Store and Google play store.