toggle between 2d and Google Cardboard

Hi
I have just upgraded to the new XR Plug-In system and don't understand how to toggle between 2d and VR screens.
This is how I used to do it:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.         XRSettings.LoadDeviceByName(YesVR);
3.  
4.         yield return null;
5.  
6.         XRSettings.enabled = true;

how do i do the same with the new system?
thanks

 

so i managed to uncheck the box but it went rapidly downhill from there. The documentation makes zero sense to me. Any chance you can explain? I guess it is easy if you know the answer but i have no clue.

What code do i need to turn on/off? Given it was only a few lines in the old system it would be very helpful if you could let us know what to replace with

thanks

 

that is way above my paygrade! thanks so much. I will have a play around and see how badly I can break it!
thanks v much for your help

 

first problem when trying to build, after creating the script and pasting your code into it:
error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'Management' does not exist in the namespace 'UnityEditor.XR' (are you missing an assembly reference?)
any help appreciated!
thanks

 

I get this error when I try to run the script
Initializing XR Failed. Check Editor or Player log for details.
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
<StartXR>d__2:MoveNext() (at Assets/MyStuff/Scripts/using/ManualXRControl.cs:29)
UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine:InvokeMoveNext(IEnumerator, IntPtr)

My understanding of your code is it bounces between turning the VR function on and off after the delay of 10s. Is that correct? So If I want to switch off for a scene, I call StopXR() and if I want to start it then I use StartXR(), removing the call to the StopXR() function

 

there are no other errors on the console

 

these are the plugins that I have installed

 

I am trying to build it so I can test with my headset but the apk fails to build. That is my problem. I get the error above about namespace "management"

 

i unchecked google cardboard then switched to PC, Linux Standalone - is that what you meant by standalone?
I still get the errors:
Library\PackageCache\com.google.xr.cardboard@8979e065b7\Runtime\Api.cs(164,33): error CS0117: 'ApiConstants' does not contain a definition for 'CardboardXRUnity'
Looks like i have missed turning off cardboard somewhere

 

I can try - what do i need to do? upload a scene and script here?

 

sounds promising ) will give it a go

 

gettting there!
I have built the apk successfully and it now loads in 2d

however when I try to flip to VR it doesn't work

These are my two scripts:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.XR.Management;
5.  
6. public class VRToggle : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.  
9.     void Start()
10.     {
11.         StartCoroutine(StartXR());
12.     }
13.  
14.     IEnumerator StartXR()
15.     {
16.  
17.         yield return XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoader();
18.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Start();
19.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Deinitialize();
20.     }
21. }

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.XR.Management;
5.  
6. public class VRToggleNo : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.  
9.     void Start()
10.     {
11.         StartCoroutine(NoVR());
12.     }
13.  
14.     IEnumerator NoVR()
15.     {
16.         yield return XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoader();
17.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Stop();
18.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Deinitialize();
19.     }
20. }
21.  

 

I get these errors when I run in Editor
ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: _unity_self
UnityEngine.XR.Management.XRLoaderHelper.StartSubsystem[T] () (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.xr.management@3.2.10/Runtime/XRLoaderHelper.cs:55)
Unity.XR.MockHMD.MockHMDLoader.Start () (at Library/PackageCache/com.unity.xr.mock-hmd@1.0.1-preview.7/Runtime/MockHMDLoader.cs:35)
VRToggle+<StartXR>d__3.MoveNext () (at Assets/MyStuff/Scripts/using/VRToggle.cs:28)
UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine.InvokeMoveNext (System.Collections.IEnumerator enumerator, System.IntPtr returnValueAddress) (at <e98ed0368295432e8c11e52d6243ee11>:0)


mockhmd is turned off as i can't control the scene with this turned on

 

anyone finding yourself here, this is the working code:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.XR.Management;
5.  
6. public class VRToggle : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.     public bool m_active;
9.  
10.     private void Update()
11.     {
12.      
13.                 if (!m_active)
14.                 {
15.                  
16.                     StopXR();
17.                 }
18.                 else
19.                 {
20.                    
21.                     StartXR();
22.                 }
23.             }
24.     //    }
25.     //}
26.  
27.     public void StartXR()
28.     {
29.    
30.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoaderSync();
31.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StartSubsystems();
32.     }
33.  
34.     public void StopXR()
35.     {
36.      
37.         if (XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.isInitializationComplete)
38.         {
39.             XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StopSubsystems();
40.         }
41.     }
42. }

thank you @joejo for all your help

 

Your code worked to start XR however when stoping it did not return rendering to the '2D' display anyone else run into this or have a hint as to what I might be doing wrong.

I actually got it to partially work by calling XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Deinitialize(); after StopSubsystems the issue though is that the camera is all out of wack and changing values on the camera or via Cinamchine isn't having any effect ... its as if the display gets stuck at whatever the last state was for the headset and nothing trying to make updates else where will have any effect.

Second Edit
So calling XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.activeLoader.Deinitialize(); does return rendering to standard output (monitor) but it also makes it so I cant restart XR that is if I try and call StartXR after StopXR I get errors and no rendering.

Would be great if Unity could give us a clear and managable way to enable/disable XR Rendering without having to monkey around so much. I'm also noticing in the new system that only 1 eye gets sky box and now for some reason only 1 eye gets any rendering ... I assume thats just a setting I jacked up someone while poking around with how the hell to simply enable disable XR rendering at run time.

 

here is my final code which seems to work fine:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.XR.Management;
5.  
6. public class VRToggle : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.     public bool m_active;
9.  
10.     private void Update()
11.     {
12.      
13.                 if (!m_active)
14.                 {
15.                  
16.                     StopXR();
17.                 }
18.                 else
19.                 {
20.                    
21.                     StartXR();
22.                 }
23.             }
24.     //    }
25.     //}
26.  
27.     public void StartXR()
28.     {
29.    
30.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoaderSync();
31.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StartSubsystems();
32.     }
33.  
34.     public void StopXR()
35.     {
36.      
37.         if (XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.isInitializationComplete)
38.         {
39.             XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StopSubsystems();
40.         }
41.     }
42. }

hope that helps

 

Thanks .. ya I think its working ... the issues I was seeing appear to be due to multiple camera layers that is we have a Base camera and a couple overlay cameras and XR doesn't seem to like that ... that or it has some caviots

I'll dig around and see what info I can find on that aspect.

Edit ...
Its not working
while I can start in a non-XR mode and switch to XR switching back just frezzes the display, if I then switch back int XR for a second time display resumes. So it would seem that the standard monitor display is not being returned to correctly

Edit 2 ...
So with a single camera set up XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.DeinitializeLoader(); does work ... and is required to get non-XR display to work correctly. It does work when I restart. So I think the only issue I have at the moment is the inability to use an overlay camera.

 

When you go to reinitialize - does the application crash on android?

 

Surely this will be attempting to start the XR system on every frame once m_active is set true. Do those methods have no effect if the system is already started? Is there a way to check if the XR system is started and a valid subsystem is loaded and active?

 

i didn't say it was a good answer, just one that worked! hoping someone with more than a few months of unity will step up and give a best practice answer but there was no such gold standard when i did this!

 

Doesn't 'crash' just doesn't render correctly when I have overlay cameras ... its all quite a mess so for the time being we have steped back to what we think is the simpler set up of PC only, XR + Desktop presentaiton 1 camera no overlay using URP ... still a pain in the backside to do simple things but getting there

 

I am starting to looking into this now, porting a previous VR app into the new XR system and one requirement is to switch between VR mode and magic window mode, ie mono screen but tracked. I will post here if I find anything useful.

 

Just to clarify with your implementation of the Carboard XR Plugin, while testing on an android device your application does not crash if you follow this sequence? Stop() > DeinitializeLoader() > InitializeLoader() > Start()

If so, could I see your code/sequence please?

 

Thanks for the help on this forum, it took some finding but it's helped a lot. My problem now is that on iOS it works great, but on Android it works once then when I leave the VRscene to go to a non-VR scene and go back into the VR scene the app crashes and I'm given a "Null Pointer Dereference" error. It fails in the same point when it is trying to initialize loader sync (XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoaderSync(). Below is the code I've used and by using the Unity Android Logcat plugin have been able to copy the crash log into a .txt file. It always crashes after Debug.Log("3") on entering the VR scene a second time.

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.XR.Management;
5.  
6. public class ToggleVRController : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.     public bool _startInVR;
9.     public bool _setInPortrait;
10.  
11.     // Start is called before the first frame update
12.     void Start()
13.     {
14.         if(_startInVR)
15.         {
16.             Debug.Log("Starting VR");
17.             StartCoroutine(StartInVR());
18.  
19.             Debug.Log("Finished Starting VR");
20.         }
21.         else
22.         {
23.             StopVR();
24.            
25.             if (_setInPortrait)
26.             {              
27.                 Screen.autorotateToPortrait = true;
28.                 Screen.autorotateToPortraitUpsideDown = false;
29.                 Screen.autorotateToLandscapeLeft = false;
30.                 Screen.autorotateToLandscapeRight = false;
31.             }
32.            
33.         }
34.     }
35.  
36.    
37.     IEnumerator StartInVR()
38.     {
39.         Debug.Log("1");
40.         Screen.orientation = ScreenOrientation.LandscapeLeft;   // This is placed here because if it was in another script the app would crash.
41.  
42.         Debug.Log("2");
43.         yield return new WaitForSeconds(0.2f);
44.  
45.         Debug.Log("3");
46.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.InitializeLoaderSync();
47.         Debug.Log("4");
48.         XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StartSubsystems();
49.  
50.         Debug.Log("Finished Loading VR");
51.     }
52.    
53.    
54.     public void StopVR()
55.     {
56.         if(XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.isInitializationComplete)
57.         {
58.             XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.StopSubsystems();
59.             XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager.DeinitializeLoader();
60.  
61.             Debug.Log("STOPPED VR");
62.         }
63.     }
64. }
65.  

 

can't help on that but given you are using Mac can you help me understand how i control my scene when in game mode? I have asked a couple of questions on here but not got a response

https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-do-i-control-scene-in-editor-with-new-xr-plugin-manager.917423/

The problem seems to be that i have to remove the old GoogleVR tools to build the app and i can't find anything to replace GvrEditorEmulator (sorry for off topic but am desperate so i can debug my iphone version.!)

 

In short, to answer your question I used the Unity tutorial about Interactive 360 and placed the Camera Editor Control script onto a empty game object that is a parent to the main camera.

 

Hi, I am still having trouble with the app suffering a critical failure and crashing the app the second time I run VR on Android. I'll include the tombstone file. Can anyone help, please?

 

same here... manualy cardboard init like the example (https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.xr.management@3.2/manual/EndUser.html) crashes second time on android

 

Unity 2019.4.12. On the second launch of VR on Android, the application closes Is there any way to solve this problem?

 

Having same problem, crashes on second launch VR with Cardboard, Unity 2020 and Android..

Example... start app 2D, go to VR, back to 2D and when I back to VR... crash!

Working with old version of Cardboard and Unity 2019.3, but then doesn't work on iOS, so sad =(

 

Hi,
Think this did the trick. No problems at all when loading, and unloading xr.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.xr.management@3.2/manual/index.html

At least when "Initialize XR on Startup" is not checked in Project Settings/XR Plug-in Management.

 

Are you able to post the code that resolved the issue? I looked at the documentation but didn't really understand what was going on!
thanks

EDIT: I updated manifest.json so it looks like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. {
2.     "dependencies": {
3.     "com.unity.xr.management":"3.2.16"
4.    
5.     }
6. }

but that didn't resolve the problem

anyone had success in fixing this?

 

Yeah, that page must have changed.
Think this is what it said before, for loading:

Code (CSharp):

1. Coroutine StartVR()
2. {
3.     return StartCoroutine(startVRRoutine());
4.     IEnumerator startVRRoutine()
5.     {
6.         // Add error handlers for both Instance and Manager
7.         var xrManager = XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager;
8.         if (!xrManager.isInitializationComplete)
9.             yield return xrManager.InitializeLoader();
10.         if (xrManager.activeLoader != null)
11.             xrManager.StartSubsystems();
12.         // Add else with error handling
13.     }
14. }

And unloading:

Code (CSharp):

1. void StopXR()
2. {
3.   var xrManager = XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager;
4.   if (!xrManager.isInitializationComplete)
5.     return; // Safety check
6.   xrManager.StopSubsystems();
7.   xrManager.DeinitializeLoader();
8. }

And perhaps this too, if you are experiencig a distorted or stretched screen after exiting VR:

Code (CSharp):

1. camera.ResetAspect();
2. camera.fieldOfView = defaultFov;
3. camera.ResetProjectionMatrix();
4. camera.ResetWorldToCameraMatrix();

Some more common tips for Cardboard VR:
https://github.com/googlevr/cardboard/issues/140

 

thanks so much for this. It is a slight improvement as now the app crashes rather than getting stuck with 2d in a VR scene.

This is how i implemented it:

Code (CSharp):

1. public class VRTogglestart : MonoBehaviour
2. {
3.  
4.     private void Start()
5.     {
6.         StartCoroutine(StartVR());  
7.     }
8.  
9.     IEnumerator StartVR()
10.     {
11.         var xrManager = XRGeneralSettings.Instance.Manager;
12.         if (!xrManager.isInitializationComplete)
13.          yield return xrManager.InitializeLoader();
14.         xrManager.StartSubsystems();
15.         Screen.sleepTimeout = SleepTimeout.NeverSleep;
16. }
17. }

any ideas why it is crashing?
Start in 2d
Switch to 3d - works great
Switch to 2d - works great
Switch to 3d - crashes

 

The only thing different from the steps for the demo project was the setting for "Initialize XR on Startup". It has to be not checked in Project Settings/XR Plug-in Management to prevent the Engine from loading any extra instances of the XRManager.

If it's still keep crashing it's probably a good idea to add some debug.Logs, and make a Development Build to see whats going on. Or start over with a new clean project.

 

yup that box is unchecked -
have found this error which may be relevant but not sure how to resolve
Call to StartSubsystems without an initialized manager.Please make sure wait for initialization to complete before calling this API.
UnityEngine.XR.Management.XRManagerSettings:StartSubsystems()
<StartVR>d__1:MoveNext() (at Assets/MyStuff/Scripts/VRTogglestart.cs:19)
UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine:InvokeMoveNext(IEnumerator, IntPtr)

 

According to this post
https://github.com/googlevr/cardboard/issues/98
it should have been fixed but I am on a newer version (3.2.16) and get the same error. I have started a new issue on github but hoping someone might have solved this here

It seems the Unity Editor may have something to do with it, but I can't upgrade past 2019.4 as I use the old GVRreticle pointer as there is no decent replacement and gaze/pick is fundamental to my app

 

Unity 2019.4.16 is running the new XR System with no problems. Only thing missing is the stereo separation, and a proper method for recentering the headset tracking. And perhaps an option to take advantage of the full width of the display in 21:9 devices (though its a bit heavier on the processor).

 

sure i have it running and based on the github conversation this issue of not reverting to VR was fixed... but not for me!

Perhaps I will have more luck with fixing it over there given it is a Google VR issue... but if anyone here has gotten there before me, please let me know. At the moment I have to put a warning in place if someone is going to hit this problem which is a bit lame!

 

Hello, my issue happens in Unity 2020.3.15f2 after clicking on Build and Run at the end of compiling (cf.screenshot).


XR Plug-in Management is set and Initialize XR on Startup toggled off. Cardboard XR in Plugin Plug-in Provider is selected. After clicking on Play mode, here is the message in the Console:

Code (CSharp):

1. Please initialize Cardboard XR loader before calling this function.
2. UnityEngine.Debug:LogError (object)
3. Google.XR.Cardboard.Api:UpdateScreenParams () (at Library/PackageCache/com.google.xr.cardboard@d9f0aa2eb0/Runtime/Api.cs:295)
4. CardboardStartup:Update () (at Assets/Samples/Google Cardboard XR Plugin for Unity/1.8.0/Hello Cardboard/Scripts/CardboardStartup.cs:70)

After finding the script Api.cs and Cardboard.cs and their respective lines, i feel stuck. Does somebody have a clue about what to edit/do next?

the resource i used to configure: https://developers.google.com/cardb...ickstart#configuring_android_project_settings