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A Glance into Virtual Reality Development Using Unity

Article in Informatica Economica · September 2018

DOI: 10.12948/issn14531305/22.3.2018.02

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14 Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018

A Glance into Virtual Reality Development Using Unity

Cosmina ISAR
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
[email protected]

Coming from the 2D and 3D games that everybody is very familiar with, these days the world
has been taken by storm with the introduction of virtual reality technology. In this paper I cov-
ered the essence of this new empowering technology through things like: a short representative
definition and classification, the hardware requirements for stepping into the VR world, and
the most important aspect which is the applicability of this technology in the society that we
live in. Also, the main purpose of this paper was to identify which VR game engine a beginner
should be using for their first project. Through the research that has been done in this article,
I come to the conclusion that the most suitable game engine in this case is Unity. To further
prove my statement, I developed a small project that consists of a 3D VR maze which shows
how easy it is to learn and develop using Unity.
Keywords: Virtual reality, Unity, Game engine

1 Introduction
Nowadays, virtual reality is known as the
technology that allows for replacing the real
people can explore and interact, thus making
them feel like they are there, both physically
and mentally.
world by a synthetic one, inducing users the In other words, virtuality represents a world
feeling of being in another world [1]. The that is:
most representative type of application that  Computer-generated – this part of the equa-
truly makes someone feel that way, is known tion represents a very important factor in
as a VR game. Thus, virtual reality and digital generating a 3D world, because only pow-
games are two area which share many similar erful enough computers can make the expe-
characteristics among which the most im- rience more immersive and believable;
portant are: both of them exploit the techno-  Believable – for the VR experience to be
logical breakthroughs of several fields like induced, users really need to feel like they
electronics, computer power etc., and also, are in that generated world, so the illusion
they focus on creating the best possible realis- of virtual reality will fade to back;
tic 3D environments [2].  Interactive – to mimic the reality that we
My contribution on this paper is to help some- live in, users of virtual reality should be
one who has never developed a VR game able to interact with the elements that are
choose the best game engine and, at the same present in the computer-generated world,
time, because of the higher demand in this so the experience gets fulfilled;
technology, to widespread the interest in this  Immersive – to assure a great connection
area. Furthermore, to prove the easiness of de- between believable and interaction, virtual
veloping in virtual reality I will describe, reality has to engage both body and mind
based on an example, the steps necessary for of users. Even though VR promises a very
making a simple VR game. realistic alternative to our real world, in the
current state it faces some limitations like:
2 Overview of virtual reality smell, fell and taste;
Virtual reality (VR), also known as virtuality  Explorable – as we can explore the sur-
[3], is a technology that involves experiencing roundings in our world, the VR should give
various things through our computers, things us the same level of freedom. In other
that don’t actually exist. In other words, vir- words, the VR scene should embrace the
tual reality also represents a believable, inter- same level of complexity and detail as the
active 3D computer generated world in which real world.

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Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018 15

At the same time, there are several types of user’s movement.

virtual reality:
 Fully immersive – Three main things are 3 Necessary hardware for virtual reality
necessary for a completely VR experience. For everybody that is willing to step into the
First, a computer-generated world that is world of virtual reality, a specific set of hard-
highly detailed and complex. Second, a ware accessories is needed to made it possible.
powerful computer that knows where we The set mentioned above might consists of:
are heading and who is capable of adjusting  Head-mounted displays that consists of two
the experience accordingly. Third, hard- small screens, one for each eye, a material
ware accessories like head-mounted dis- that is used to stop the light that is coming
play, stereo sound and sensory gloves from the real world and a pair of stereo
which virtually creates the virtual world. headphones with the role to give users the
 Non-immersive – For example, a highly re- awareness of surroundings.
alistic driving simulator on a PC could be  Immersive rooms which represents an al-
classified as non-immersive virtual reality, ternative for head-mounted displays, con-
particularly if it uses peripherals like: a sists of areas that contains special projec-
wide screen, surround sound headphones tors which turn the walls into displays. This
and a realistic wheel. highly advanced room also contains a set of
 Collaborative – Games like Minecraft and specialized sensors who can track people
Second Life who are about “virtual world” that are inside, thus moving the projected
do not count as virtual reality, because they images according to their movement.
only meet the following criteria: computer-  Data-gloves that are used for giving people
generated, believable, interactive and ex- the ability to interact with the virtual ob-
plorable. Besides all of this, a complete VR jects making the experience more lifelike.
experience should be fulfilled by a strong This technology involves strapping highly
collaboration between players, which rep- sophisticated sensors on to ordinary gloves.
resents an important fact that virtual reality
tends to lean in the future. 4 Uses of virtual reality
 Web-based – In the late 1980s and early Being able to simulate real world scenarios,
1990s, virtual reality was one of the fastest- we can say that virtual reality has a very wide
growing technology, but the popularity of range of uses, from education to Medicine.
World Wide Web has minimized the inter-
est in VR. Even though computer scientists 4.1 Education
developed a way of building virtual worlds Learning to pilot a plane, for example, can be
on the Web, the vast majority of people a very dangerous activity for an untrained per-
were much more interested in the way the son. But in the last few years, because the VR
Web gave them new ways to access real re- technology had become better, more and more
ality like: new ways to find and publish in- academies started to implement virtual reality
formation and share ideas and experiences simulators for this activity, and thus making
with friends through social media [4]. With the process of learning to fly safer. And also,
Facebook's growing interest in the technol- because there are no lives at risk, students can
ogy, the future of VR seems likely to be learn complicated maneuvers faster.
both Web-based and collaborative.
 Augmented reality – This technology rep- 4.2 Science
resents a combination between virtual real- VR can help scientists visualize their work in
ity and real world. Basically, AR means a natural way free of any tools like micro-
adding holograms into the real world which scopes, computer screens. It also helps them
the user can interact with. All of this is pos- make rapid prototyping, because they can see
sible by using spatial tracking sensors the final result being placed in the real world
which move the holograms according to the

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16 Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018

through the use of augmented reality technol- different places to join in a more complex op-
ogy. The first project of this type was called eration and collaborate together to resolve the
“GROPE” and it was introduced in 1960s at case.
the University of North Carolina and it was
about exploring the interactions between pro- 5 Virtual reality in gaming
tein molecules and drugs [4]. In the past few years, because of the higher
demand for VR games, more and more com-
4.3 Games and entertainment panies started to invest in developing specific
When it comes to gaming and entertainment, gadgets for this technology. Right now, in the
VR has become more widespread than the VR game industry there are two main compet-
other categories mentioned above. At the itors Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. For a visual
same time, in these domains, virtual reality is representation of them see Figure 1 and Figure
rapidly evolving compared to the others, 2.
mainly because there is a higher demand and The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset de-
also because these types of applications are veloped and manufactured by Oculus VR
easier to develop. which is a division of Facebook Inc. It was re-
leased on March 28, 2016. This device has a
4.4 Medicine Pentile OLED display with the resolution of
Since 2009 with the introduction of daVinci 1080x1200 for each eye, a refresh rate of 90
surgical robot, VR has extended it’s uses to Hz and a field of view of 110 degrees. At the
medical world. This robot is basically a pair of same time, it has a pair of audio headphones
four arms that are controlled by a surgeon re- which are tuned to provide a 3D audio effect.
motely through special VR equipment. This Oculus Rift also has a positioning tracking
make it possible for other surgeons situated in system and two ergonomically designed con-
trollers [5].

Fig. 1. Oculus Rift headset (source: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/oculus-rift-touch-virtual-

reality-headset-bundle-for-compatible-windows-pcs-black/5989502.p?skuId=5989502 )

The HTC Vive is also a VR headset developed Oculus Rift with the only different factor be-
by HTC and Valve Corporation and it was re- ing the ability to allow users to move in a
leased on April 5, 2016. It has almost the same larger area [6].
configuration of hardware accessories as the

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Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018 17

Fig. 2. HTC Vive headset (source: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1337110-

REG/htc_99haln002_00_vive_vr_system.html )

Using all this technology some major compa- ers. First of all, the main programming lan-
nies have already released a great collection of guage that Unity uses is C#, a language that is
VR games, among which: easy to learn, versatile, object oriented and
 Oculus Rift: Eve: Valkyrie, Lone Echo, complex. When it comes to Unreal Engine or
Wilson’s Heart, The Unspoken, Feral CryEngine, the programming language that is
Rites, etc. used for developing on these platforms is C++
 HTC Vive: Arizona Sunshine, Superhot, which is more sophisticated and harder to
Fallout 4, L.A. Noire, Project Cars, The learn being especially used by professional
Gallery, etc. developers who want a certain level of flexi-
bility.
6 VR games development Alongside having a friendly user interface that
To develop a VR ready game, a developer is easy to use and explore, Unity also provides
should take into consideration one of the fol- its users with high quality tutorials as well as
lowing game engines that fully support this a structured documentation which can be
type of technology: Unity, Unreal Engine, found easily on their website. In addition, for
CryEngine, AppGameKit VR, libGDX, Aper- a beginner, finding assets for their projects can
tusVR, Torque3D, Urho3d, CopperCube and represent a difficult task, but this game engine
Skyline. Three of the most popular VR game has an integrated Asset Store in which the
engines from the list above are Unity, Unreal community can share assets that they create.
Engine and CryEngine. Another advantage of using Unity over an-
For a complete beginner in VR gaming world other game engine is that it has the ability to
the most suitable game engine from the enu- compile the games for a large variety of plat-
meration above can definitely be Unity. Mov- form such as: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear
ing along this chapter we will discuss the ben- VR, Daydream, etc. In Figure 3 are presented
efits of using Unity game engine over the oth- all the platforms supported by Unity for vir-
tual reality.

Fig. 3. Unity supported platforms (source: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/XR.html )

7 A small glance into VR development in which the player is able to move forward,
Through this paper we will see how a small stop and turn left or right, are presented below.
VR game can be created with ease by using First things first, we will import the Google
the Unity game engine. The steps necessary VR for Unity plugins into a blank Unity pro-
for realizing a basic virtual reality 3D maze, ject. Then, we are going to delete the default

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18 Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018

camera object and replace it with GvrMain added a simple plane as our ground and a sky-
from the imported plugins. Moving along, we box which we took from the Asset Store (see
Figure 4 and Figure 5).

Fig. 4. Unity scene view (plane and skybox)

Fig. 5. Unity game view (plane and skybox)

For creating the maze, we downloaded a maze by simply changing their dimensions accord-
template from the Internet, we applied it on ing to the template.
the plane (see Figure 6) and we started creat-
ing the walls (see Figure 7) using simple cubes

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Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018 19

Fig. 6. Unity scene view (plane, skybox and maze template applied)

Fig. 7. Unity scene view (plane, skybox and maze template applied with constructed 3D
walls)

At the same time, we downloaded a grass tex- walls and the plane (see Figure 8).
ture from the Internet and we added it to the

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20 Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018

Fig. 8. Unity scene view (the final maze game scene)

Next up we added a “Rigidbody”, a Capsule store the staring position, so if the player fin-
Collider and a C# Script named Controller ishes the maze he will be positioned at the
(see Figure 10) to our GvrMain object, so we starting point (see Figure 9). Figure 11 shows
make it behave like a character. In the added the final result of the project.
script we made the character walk automati-
cally and stop if it looks down, and also, we

Fig. 9. C# script for character movement and reset

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Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018 21

Fig. 10. The components added to the character in the Inspector Panel

Fig. 11. Unity scene and game view of the final result

What has to be made from now is to export the

game to one of the supported platforms. 5 Conclusions
In this paper, we conclude that virtual reality

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 22 Informatica Economică, vol. 22, no. 3/2018

represents a powerful tool who can empower 2018. [Online]. Available:

people by allowing them to create astonishing https://www.researchgate.net/publica-
projects. Therefore, anyone who is willing to tion/236260040_Cross_Benefits_Be-
develop a virtual reality game can easily start tween_Virtual_Reality_And_Games
by using the Unity game engine, because it is [3] N.R. Raajan and S. Gayathri, “Augmented
simple to use, learn and has all the documen- Reality Based Virtual Reality,” Interna-
tation well organized on their website. At the tional Conference on Modeling, Optimiza-
same time, being so popular it has a lot of third tion and Computing, Tamil Nadu, India,
party support from the entire community 2012, pp. 1559-1565.
which makes it more accessible. [4] C. Woodford, “Virtual reality,” May 2018.
[Online]. Available: http://www.explain-
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[1] C. Cruz-Neira, M. Fernandez and C. Por- [5] Oculus.com, “Rift | Overview,” Oculus,
tales, “Virtual Reality and Games,” Re- May 2018. [Online]. Available:
searchGate, May 2018. [Online]. Availa- https://www.oculus.com/rift/#oui-csl-rift-
ble: https://www.researchgate.net/publi- games=star-trek
cation/323418731_Virtual_Real- [6] Vive.com “Products | Vive,” Vive, May
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[2] P. Bouvier, F. Sorbier, P. Chaudeyrac and https://www.vive.com/us/product/vive-
V. Biri, “Cross benefits between virtual virtual-reality-system
reality and games,” ResearchGate, May

Cosmina ISAR has graduated The Faculty of Cybernetics, Statistics and Eco-
nomic Informatics from The Bucharest University of Economic Studies in
2016. Currently she is studying for a Master degree in Economic Informatics
at The Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Her current research fo-
cuses on game development using the Unity game engine. Other fields of in-
terest include mobile devices, IoT and multimedia.

DOI: 10.12948/issn14531305/22.3.2018.02

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