Make a VR Experience in Unity Course (7 Tuesday afternoons across term)

This 7-week course has 2-hour sessions on Tuesday afternoons across this term, starting 7th October (see below for specific dates and session outlines). We kindly ask that you sign up only if you can attend most of the sessions

Are you interested in creating your own Virtual Reality experience? Join us to learn how! Over 7 sessions, we'll work together from an initial idea to a finished VR experience. We’ll guide you through the fundamentals of VR hardware and design considerations, helping you gain confidence in using Unity to bring your ideas to (virtual) life. There will then be a chance to showcase what you've made along with those who have completed our 'Make a Tabletop Game' and 'Content Creation Essentials' courses. These sessions are open to staff and students with any level of VR or development experience.

We'll meet in the HELIX enterprise area, next to our staff office. What3Words for HELIX: https://what3words.com/arrow.vibes.lush

Please give us some feedback after you have attended a workshop or induction: https://forms.office.com/e/NpdjdFygr1

#1 VR-Experienced – Tues 7th October, 1:30-3:30pm

During this introductory session, we’ll quickly dive into using VR hardware and trying out existing experiences. Next, we’ll discuss the fundamentals of the VR development process, the essential components and mechanics in any VR experience, and how you can use them to shape your creations.

After covering these topics, we will be challenged to evaluate and "improve" the experiences we have tried.

#2 Unity Basics – Tues 14th October, 1:30-3:30pm

Game engines such as Unity can seem daunting at first. This session will demystify the Unity editor, with everyone setting up with a project that works on their PC and in VR. We'll explore the elements that enable the project to function in VR, providing you with the necessary tools to further explore on your own and begin customizing your own experience.

#3 VR must-haves: interaction & locomotion – Tues 28th October, 1:30-3:30pm

Central to immersive, believable VR experiences are the ability to interact (interaction) and to move and explore (locomotion). In this session, we’ll learn how these core mechanics are commonly implemented in VR experiences and have a go at implementing them in their experience.

#4 Making a virtual world: environment design - Tues 11th November, 1:30-3:30pm

To create a virtual reality, your experience requires a world that users can immerse themselves in. Together, we will explore and use tools to create, find, or generate an interactive 3D environment.

#5 Optimization & Performance – Tues 25th November, 1:30-3:30pm

We’ll start this session with time to test and give feedback on each other’s experiences.

As you continue improving your experience and making it more complicated, learning how to identify poor optimisation will become increasingly important. VR headsets often have limited processing power, but at the same time, VR experiences can be computationally heavy with real-time input, sensor information and intensive graphics all competing. We’ll work through some common problems and explore tools to fix them, with the chance to implement what you’ve learnt.

#6 Scripting – Tues 2nd December, 1:30-3:30pm

To have in-depth control over your experience, scripting is often needed in Unity. This session will help to demystify scripting, as we work through some fundamentals for using C# in Unity. Together we’ll create some scripts that can be used in your experience, starting with simple ones and gradually moving on to more complex ones.

#7 Final Build – Tues 9th December, 1:30-3:30pm

You've created a VR experience, but how will anyone else be able to try it? During this session, we'll guide you through the process of building and deploying your first VR experience together.

Most of our time will be dedicated to you working on your experience and creating the first build. You'll have the opportunity to seek assistance from staff and each other for troubleshooting and feedback.

Learning Outcomes

During the course you will:

1. Prototype a Virtual Reality (VR) experience with custom elements that you have created, enabling you to complete the VR development process from idea to build.
2. Use the Unity editor and Unity XR interaction toolkit to build the must-haves for VR games: grabbables, interactables, and movement.
3. Become comfortable using VR headsets, enabling you to discuss their limitations, such as processing load, interaction/locomotion types, and comfort.
4. Explore different approaches to overcoming the practical and technical challenges of VR development.
5. Develop skills to recognise good and bad development practices, by exploring different VR experiences and games.
6. Test your prototype experience with peers, developing skills in giving and utilising feedback.
7. Discover where to access resources to aid your future VR developments, including resources to aid excellent accessible VR design and resources for delving into related areas such as Mixed Reality (MR) development.