Official [Custom Builds] Oculus Dash Support (5.6, 2017.1, 2017.2)

Dash Support in Unity​

Dash support has been officially added in Unity 2017.3 (specifically Unity 2017.3b11 and later). We strongly encourage all developers who wish to use Dash support to upgrade to this version.

Dash support in the Unity Editor consists of the following settings:

· Share Depth Buffer: Depth information helps avoid depth conflicts between the Dash UI rendered in the scene and objects in the scene, and enables compositor layer depth testing.

· Dash Support: Check this box to configure your application to signal the Oculus runtime that the application is Dash-compatible. Please make sure this box is unchecked unless you have tested your application with Dash handling and it is known to work well. ( 2017.3.0f1 / 2017.3.0f2 have it on by default )

For developers who are unable to upgrade we have provided below unsupported backports through custom builds of Unity to 5.6, 2017.1 and 2017.2 based on the recent release of each version. We have worked with Oculus to backport this feature to prior versions but we cannot ensure the behavior of Dash in the backports will be consistent with 2017.3 and onward. Unlike officially released versions of Unity the custom builds have had reduced testing and are intended only for users who specifically need Dash support – in all other cases please continue to use the normal releases available on our download page. Note that these builds only includes Windows Standalone support and Android Support. All other platforms have been excluded.

For any issues or feedback on the custom builds, please use the Oculus Forums:

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/categories/support


Custom Unity Builds:

2017.2

2017.1

5.6

About Oculus Dash​

At Oculus Connect 4 Oculus announced Rift Core 2.0, which includes substantial changes to Oculus Home and will replace Universal Menu with Oculus Dash. Oculus plans to make it available with the 1.22 runtime in January 2018.

Dash re-implements Universal Menu as a VR compositor layer. Have a look at the Oculus Blog announcement and watch the Dash video to get a sense of how it works.

Oculus has added new application lifecycle support to 1.18 integration in preparation for Dash. When Dash draws a menu overlay, the new Has Input Focus flag returns false, indicating that the application should pause and mute and the tracked controllers and hands be hidden from the scene, as Dash provides its own UI in the foreground. Depending on the application, additional action may also be warranted when input focus is lost (e.g., during a multi-player combat game, you may wish to freeze the player’s avatar and make it temporarily invulnerable to other players).

For more information, see Application Lifecycle Handling in the Oculus Unity Developer Guide. See the Input Focus sample in the Unity Sample Framework for an example of a typical implementation.

Preparing for Dash

Developers who would like to test Dash support before it rolls out to all users in January can download Oculus runtime 1.21 which includes preview support. It is available through the opt-in Public Test Channel (PTC) in the Oculus desktop app settings.