Short lecture on Unity and how to use Unity and SteamVR to create a simple VR scene. Taught by Mark Billinghurst at the University of South Australia on July 30th 2019

1. DEVELOPING VR
EXPERIENCES WITH UNITY
Mark Billinghurst
University of South Australia
July 30th 2019

2. INTRO TO UNITY

5. Unity 3D Game Editor – www.unity.com

6. Unity Show Reel
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPhLBZvrg8o

7. Adam – Real Time Movie
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbwoxfSBjQ

8. Unity VR Demos
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsJLAOryjUY

9. Unity 3D features
• Cross platform
• Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux, WebGL, etc.
• Fast rapid development
• Visual scene assembly, rapid prototyping
• Control over rendering pipeline
• Access to low level graphics, shader programming
• Scripting in multiple coding languages
• C#, C++, Javascript, etc.
• Asset store with thousands of contributions
• Models, behaviours, programming tools, etc.
• Very large developer/support community

10. SETUP

11. Download Unity - https://store.unity.com/
• Pick version of Unity

12. Install Unity Hub
• Download Unity Hub – pick components you want

13. Getting Started
• First time running Unity you’ll be asked to create a project
• Pick 3D, specify project name and location

14. Unity Interface

15. Customizable Interface

16. Scene View
• Where the game is constructed
• Visually place all the assets
• models, cameras, other pieces that make up the game

17. Hierarchy Window
• List of all current GameObjects
being used in the application
• GameObjects can be nested
• Can have multiple scenes

18. Project Window
• Contains at the assets
needed for application
• Drag assets into the
hierarchy window

19. Inspector View
• Configure any GameObject
• Change properties
• Add components

20. Building Scenes
• Use GameObjects:
• Containers that hold different components
• Eg 3D model, texture, animation
• Use Inspector
• View and edit object properties and other settings
• Use Scene View
• Position objects, camera, lights, other GameObjects etc
• Scripting
• Adding interaction, user input, events, etc

21. GameObjects
• Every object in Scene is a GameObject
• GameObjects contain Components
• e.g. Transform Component, Camera Component

22. Adding 3D Content
• Create 3D asset using modeling package, or download
• Fbx, Obj file format for 3D models
• Add file to Assets folder in Project
• When project opened 3D model added to Project View
• Drag mesh from Project View into Hierarchy or Scene View
• Creates a game object

23. Positioning/Scaling Objects
• Click on object and choose transform

24. Manipulating Objects and Camera
• Panning and scaling

25. Unity Coordinate Frame
• Left handed co-
ordinate system
• Select axes to
translate object

26. Rotation About Axes
• Use rotation tool, select rotation line

27. Unity Asset Store
• Download thousands of models, scripts, animations, etc
• https://assetstore.unity.com/

29. UNITY BASICS

30. Making a Simple Scene
1. Create New Project
2. Create Game Object
3. Moving main camera position
4. Adding lights
5. Adding more objects
6. Adding physics
7. Changing object materials
8. Adding script behaviour

31. Create Project
• Create new folder and project

32. New Empty Project

33. Create GameObject
• Load a Sphere into the scene
• GameObject -> 3D Object -> Sphere

34. Moving main camera
• Select Main Camera
• Select translate icon
• Move camera

35. Add Light
• GameObject -> Light -> Directional Light
• Use inspector to modify light properties (colour, intensity)

36. Add Physics
• Select Sphere
• Add Rigidbody component
• Add Component -> Physics -> RigidBody
• or Component -> Physics -> RigidBody
• Modify inspector properties (mass, drag, etc)

37. Add More Objects
• Add several cubes
• GameObject -> 3D Object – Cube
• Move cube
• Add Rigid Body component (uncheck gravity)

38. Add Material
• Assets -> Create -> Material
• Click Albedo colour box in inspector
• Select colour
• Drag asset onto object to apply

39. Add Script
• Assets -> Create -> C# script
• Edit script using Mono/Visual Studio
• Drag script onto Game Object

40. Example C# Script
GameObject Rotation
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
public class spin : MonoBehaviour {
// Use this for initialization
void Start () {
}
// Update is called once per frame
void Update () {
this.gameObject.transform.Rotate(Vector3.up*10);
}
}

41. Scripting C# Unity 3D
• void Awake():
• Is called when the first scene is loaded and the game object is active
• void Start():
• Called on first frame update
• void FixedUpdate():
• Called before physics calculations are made
• void Update():
• Called every frame before rendering
• void LateUpdate():
• Once per frame after update finished

42. Final Spinning Cube Scene

43. Resources
• Unity Main site
• https://unity.com/
•Holistic Development with Unity
• http://holistic3d.com
• Official Unity Tutorials
• https://learn.unity.com/
•Unity Coder Blog
• http://unitycoder.com

44. CREATING A VR SCENE

45. Key Steps
1. Install SteamVR platform
2. Install SteamVR Unity plugin
3. Setting up simple VR scene
4. Setting up Teleportation
5. Trying out Interactions Demo

46. SteamVR
• Platform for VR gaming and experiences
• Supports multiple VR hardware devices
• Download and instal SteamVR
• https://www.steamvr.com/

47. Run SteamVR
• Plug in HMD
• Start SteamVR and set up HMD

48. Install Steam VR Unity Asset
• Go to Unity Asset store
• Search for SteamVR plugin

49. SteamVR Unity Plug-in
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSrFZQ0J0ao

50. Install Steam VR Plugin
• Start Unity, Create new project
• Download Steam VR plug-in from Asset store
• Import plugin with default settings

51. Unity Project Setup
• SteamVR assets added to Project View

52. Basic Scene Setup
• Create a new scene and delete Main Camera
• Add player prefab to the scene
• Assets -> SteamVR -> InteractionSystem -> Core -> Prefab -> Player

53. Add Scene Content
• Create a ground plane
• GameObject -> 3D object -> Plane
• Place several objects
• GameObject -> 3D object -> Cube

54. Run Scene
• In HMD you should see two controllers
• Scene reacts as you move your head

55. Setting up Teleport
• Drag teleport pre-fab to scene hierachy
• Assets -> InteractionSystem -> Teleport -> Prefabs
• Add teleport plane to set up teleport area (Set y value to 0.01)
• GameObject -> 3D object -> Plane
• Drag teleport area script to teleport plane
• Assets -> InteractionSystem -> Teleport -> Scripts-> TeleportArea

56. Running Teleport Demo
• Use touch pad on controller to teleport to target location

57. Interactions Demo
• Load sample interactions scene
• Assets/SteamVR/InteractionSystem/ ->
Samples/Scenes/Interactions_Example.unity
• Setup SteamVR Input (first time run)
• Hit save and generate to create input bindings
• NOTE: video here www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo-9CmcKWlY

58. Features
• Wide range of user interactions
• Throwing, Grabbing, Remote control
• Teleportation, Different hand styles
• Live input data

59. RESOURCES

60. Software
• Unity 2018.4.5f1, latest version of Unity with long term
support. Works with SteamVR and VRTK.
• https://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/2018.4.5
• SteamVR HTC Vive Tutorial
• https://www.raywenderlich.com/9189-htc-vive-tutorial-
for-unity
• Getting Started with VRTK
• https://vrtoolkit.readme.io/docs/getting-started

61. Ray Wenderlich Tutorials
• Excellent set of step by step tutorials
• www.raywenderlich.com
• Introduction to Unity: Getting Started
• www.raywenderlich.com/772-introduction-to-unity-getting-started-part-1-2
• Introduction to Unity Scripting
• www.raywenderlich.com/980-introduction-to-unity-scripting
• HTC Vive Tutorial for Unity
• www.raywenderlich.com/9189-htc-vive-tutorial-for-unity

62. Simple SteamVR Tutorials
• Setup basic Scene
• https://vincentkok.net/2018/03/20/unity-steamvr-basics-setting-up/
• Teleportation
• https://vincentkok.net/2018/03/21/unity-steamvr-basics-part-2-
using-teleportation/

63. Google Poly for 3D models
• https://poly.google.com/
• Repository of user contributed low polygon objects
• Free to download for AR/VR applications

64. www.empathiccomputing.org
@marknb00
mark.billinghurst@unisa.edu.au