Before You Arrive

Thanks for taking the time to learn more about building VR applications in Unity! Bandwidth at the conference site may be limited, so here's the things you should download and install in advance so you can spend you time learning instead of waiting.

Download Unity 2017.1.1f

  • (Win/Mac) https://store.unity.com/download?ref=personal
  • (Linux users should use 2017.1.3b1 or higher from http://beta.unity3d.com/download/2ca68d182788/public_download.html)

Run the Unity Installer

Once you've downloaded Unity, make sure to run the installer and include the desktop systems you want to build for and IOS or Android if you want to do mobile VR development. This will take a long time.

Download Supporting Assets

From the Unity Asset Store, download these free plugins:

  • SteamVR 1.2.2+ https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/32647 ( or git https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamvr_unity_plugin)
  • VRTK 3.2.1+ https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/64131 (or git https://github.com/thestonefox/VRTK/releases/tag/3.2.1)

Download Supporting SDKs

Optionally, download any supporting SDKs for hardware you own and want to develop on:

  • for Mobile: get GoogleVR 1.7 https://github.com/googlevr/gvr-unity-sdk/releases/download/1.70.0/GoogleVRForUnity_1.70.0.unitypackage and make sure your Android SDK or XCode are up to date
  • for Oculus: get Oculus Utilities 1.18.1 https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/package/oculus-utilities-for-unity-5/ and Oculus Avatar SDK https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/package/oculus-avatar-sdk/
  • for Vive: install Steam and SteamVR desktop app https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2001-UXCM-4439#install-steam

Download Any Additional Editing Tools

Optionally, download any additional editing tools you might want to have on hand:

Blender (useful for mesh editing and 3d file conversions) https://www.blender.org/download/

Audacity (useful for audio editing) http://www.audacityteam.org/download/

Krita (useful for image editing) https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/

Pack an External Mouse

Some people prefer using a physical mouse to a trackpad to manipulate 3D scenes - if you have an external mouse you may want to bring it along so you have the option.