Mastering Oculus Rift Development

Key Features

• Create immersive 3D games especially designed for the Oculus Rift platform
• Build complex realistic virtual reality (VR) games with the Unity Engine
• Create striking VR environments with advanced graphical techniques

Book Description

Virtual reality (VR) is changing the world of gaming and entertainment as we know it. VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift immerse players in a virtual world by tracking their head movements and simulating depth, giving them the feeling that they are actually present in the environment. We will first use the Oculus SDK in the book and will then move on to the widely popular Unity Engine, showing you how you can add that extra edge to your VR games using the power of Unity.

In this book, you ll learn how to take advantage of this new medium by designing around each of its unique features. This book will demonstrate the Unity 5 game engine, one of most widely-used engines for VR development, and will take you through a comprehensive project that covers everything necessary to create and publish a complete VR experience for the Oculus Rift. You will also be able to identify the common perils and pitfalls of VR development to ensure that your audience has the most comfortable experience possible.

By the end of the book, you will be able to create an advanced VR game for the Oculus Rift, and you ll have everything you need to bring your ideas into a new reality.

What you will learn

• Increase immersion with 3D audio and intuitive interfaces
• Create group VR experiences using multi-player networking
• Design fun and engaging mechanics that utilize VR principles
• Explore the best ways to navigate and interact using the Oculus Rift
• Design intuitive ways to navigate and interact with scenes in VR
• Add stunning realism to a scene with three-dimensional audio
• Invent mechanics and features that take full advantage of VR hardware

About the Author

Jack Donovan is a 24-year-old software engineer living in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont with a BS in game programming and soon after joined IrisVR, a startup founded in Burlington to create oneclick software for architects to visualize models in virtual reality. IrisVR moved to New York City after being accepted into the startup incubator program Techstars and has since moved to an independent office in NoHo, where Jack continues to work.

Jack also wrote OUYA Game Development By Example, a book focused on the basics of developing games for the Android-powered OUYA console. Both books use the Unity3D engine for development, which Jack has been using to develop games and software in since 2010.

Table of Contents

1. Exploring a New Reality with the Oculus Rift
2. Stepping into Virtual Reality
3. Improving Performance and Avoiding Discomfort
4. Interacting with Virtual Worlds
5. Establishing Presence
6. Adding Depth and Intuition to a User Interface
7. Hearing and Believing with 3D Audio
8. Adding Tone and Realism with Graphics
9. Bringing Players Together in VR
10. Publishing on the Oculus Store