new book: Unity Virtual Reality Projects

https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/unity-virtual-reality-projects

What You Will Learn

• Create 3D scenes with Unity and Blender while learning about world space and scale
• Build and run VR applications for consumer headsets including Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard
• Build interactive environments with physics, gravity, animations, and lighting using the Unity engine
• Experiment with various user interface (UI) techniques that you can use in your VR applications
• Implement the first-person and third-person experiences that use only head motion gestures for input
• Create animated walkthroughs, use 360-degree media, and build multi-user social VR experiences
• Learn about the technology and psychology of VR including rendering, performance and VR motion sickness
• Gain introductory and advanced experience in Unity programming with the C# language

 

Which version of unity? Which version of Oculus SDK? Does it cover Gear VR?

 

Hi. It covers Unity 5.1 with integrated Oculus support, not much of the native Oculus SDK, and not GearVR specifically but uses Cardboard for the mobile VR and non-positional tracking examples. We're aware these interfaces are subject to change more quickly than fits a book, so our focus is more on building different kinds of VR experiences with Unity and some best practices. Btw the last chapter is a social Vr project using 5.1's new Networking components

 

Working through this book was great! I enjoyed every minute of it - about to start Chapter 10 - when that is done, I am planning on working through it a second time - well done to the author!!

 

Thank you for the kind words and enthusiasm! If you think it deserves 5 stars please also submit your comments on the Amazon page! Cheers. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/178398855X

 

Done!! You deserve it!!

 

@linojon
Hi just bought a book didn't come through all the book yet, but in general I'm looking for a way how to set up the scene to look in proportions the same way as in reality.
In Chapter 6 you have described how to correctly set up camera height to perceive other objects/players ... but how it work with distance?
My problem is that If i use Unity metrics and place a cube of 1x1x1 to 3 meters distance from camera cube looks much smaller than would look in real life.
I tested that behavior with different type of objects and with different distances, but in general objects in Oculus look much smaller than should have.
Any technique to match proportions in distance?

Many thanks

 

I really enjoyed the book! Good examples that can help you start building your first VR experiences. Plus a few tricks helped me make my VR app better. Thank you Jonathan!

I'm recommending the book as a starting point to my students, no need to teach them basics of VR now .

What I would like to see more in the next book is how to work with video playback on mobile. There is no free way to do that (almost). It requires a paid third party plugin to have a movie texture (correct me if i'm wrong).

There is hope though - in Vuforia SDK (which is free) there is video playback code. It is simple, but works. And there is new version of Oculus Mobile SDK with video, but I could not yet make it work with Unity 5.1.2.

 

Sorry i didnt notice the question sooner. It's a really interesting question. I've been mostly concerned with getting the relative scale of objects to be consistent and with the user's scale, and thought it looks right. One unit in Unity is 1 meter. So if it doesn't perceive as the right size to you (in VR) I'm not sure. In VR its related to the field of view of the camera and the physical lenses, unlike regular games which use the rectangular frame to scale against. There is a FOV setting on the camera, even VR ones, although that's generally not a parameter you're advised to tweak, it would affect the apparent scale. I'm going to play with it this weekend myself. And for example, I have a Weariity Cardboard device with 150 deg FOV which if not configured makes the scene look smaller.

 

@shakhruz We've been using this one: Easy Movie Texture ($) https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10032 . And the book includes a shader for inverting textures on the inside of sphere

 

I buy this book from Kindle, an i'm like it very much.

thank you,sir.