Amir Ebrahimi of Unity3D's talk on developing interactive experiences for VR using the Unity3D engine. Amir Ebrahimi, Unity3D

2. Eyes Wide Open
(VR Practicum)
Principal Software Engineer, Labs VR Dude, Creative Content Studio

5. http://bit.ly/EyesWideOpenGDC

6. To save you time gathering info:
• Business / market
• Technical
• Design
• Marketing

8. John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity Technologies
from Vision Summit 2016 Keynote

9. Julien Lynge, ArchVirtual
at Vision Summit 2016

10. Paul Lee / Duncan Stewart, Deloitte
from TMT Predictions 2016

11. Neil Schneider, Executive Director of ITA
from “Reality or Delusion?” Gamasutra article

13. Kevin Joyce, VRFocus

14. Devices
Mobile
Google Cardboard
Premium Mobile
Samsung GearVR
Desktop-class
Oculus Rift
HTC Vive
Sony PlaystationVR
Tween-range
OSVR Devices
Sulon Q

15. Release Date / Price / Units
Category Devices Release Date Price Units Shipped / Estimated
Mobile
Google Cardboard Available now on many mobile devices $14.99 - $119 5M (Actual)
Premium
Mobile
Samsung GearVR Available now $99.99 <100K / 3M (2016)
Tween-range
OSVR Devices Available now (many vendors) $299.99 ???
Sulon Q Spring 2016 ??? ???
Desktop-class
Oculus Rift March 28, 2016 $599 150K - 3M ???
HTC Vive April 5, 2016 $799 150K - 1M ???
Sony PlaystationVR Nothing official (rumored to be in April) Nothing official 1.4 - 3.5M ???

16. Features
Category Devices Head Room Scale Tracked Unity 5 Integration Storefront
Mobile
Google
SDK Download
(Soon to be native)
In-app + App Stores
Premium
Mobile
Samsung Native + Optional In-app + App Stores
Tween-range
OSVR Devices w/ some some support SDK Download
Sulon Q ??? ???
Deskto-class
Oculus Rift
w/ multiple
trackers
coming soon Native + Optional Oculus Home
HTC Vive Native + Optional Steam
Sony Native

17. Cardboard / GearVR – Gaze

18. Cardboard – Single Button

19. GearVR – Touchpad

20. GearVR / Oculus Rift – Gamepad

21. Vive / PlaystationVR - Tracked Controllers

23. • Baked Lighting / GI
• Occlusion Culling
• Batching – built-in or MeshBaker
• Share materials to reduce draw calls
• LOD - Simplygon
• Full Screen image effects are expensive!!
• VR Specific Optimizations

24. Render thread
Main thread
14.3
10.65.3
5.3
5.4 7.4
11.05.4
5.4+DW 4.0
7.35.4+DW
5.4+DW+RL 1.9
7.25.4+DW+RL
Time in MS
DW: Double
wide
rendering
RL: Render
Loop Jobs
(Experimental)

25. • World Space UI
• Camera Distance for best 3D is 2 to 3 meters from action
Sound Spatializers (HRTF)
• RealSpace3D from VisiSonics
• Oculus Spatializer
• Phonon from Impulsonic

26. • VR augment or VR native?
• Our opinion – VR First!
• You must try it out to see what works
• More resources in PDF

27. Design for:
• Widest reach?
• Potential Sales?
• Studio Survival?
Build for comfort / avoid motion-sickness

28. • Frame Rate is KING!
• Dropped frames are not worth better graphics
• “Toon” graphics are accepted by the brain
• Optimize early and often
• Avoid CPU spikes on complex math or physics
• Reduce poly count and texture size
• Every optimization has a benefit, no matter how marginal!

29. • Be close to the action and any UI
• UI should fit in the players viewport
• Pausing the game should allow user to look around still
• Do sane things (i.e. fade the colors) if the user leaves tracking
• Help them find their way back! Sound may help
• Don’t rely on pure stereo parallax – add other cues
• Keep your world self-contained – no gaps in geo

30. • Made With Unity! http://madewith.unity.com
• VR forums (even one at forum.unity3d.com)
• UploadVR, RoadToVR, reddit, other sites
• Oculus Share, Steam
• Have as many people try it as possible; conferences / expos
• Join the community of VR developers. We love to share!

31. • Authoring VR in VR
• HRTF still not ubiquitous – yet!
• Apple and Google are worth watching, along with “little guys”
• Impact of AR? (Hololens, Meta, Magic Leap)

32. • Deloitte says VR in 2016 will be the year for experimentation
• Few buyers of games at first
• Enterprise adoption will start
• No time to waste! Get to it!

33. Amir Ebrahimi / Pete Moss
Download Resources at:
http://bit.ly/EyesWideOpenGDC