How to Get Started with Virtual Reality (VR) Development?

Here, you’ll get to know about Virtual Reality and how you should step by step start developing a VR Application and keep your first foot in the VR Development aura.

What is Virtual Reality?

The term virtual reality is a combination of Virtual: ‘Near’, Reality: ‘That we experience daily’. This states that Virtual Reality takes you near reality, i.e. close to the reality via various means.

For instance, the game launched recently named ‘Pokemon Go’, it took a gamer close to the reality by demanding the player to search for various pokemons in real, but the existence of the Pokemons were virtual (on the screens of the phones).

Another example is the VR Set that enlarges the experience of gaming, music, movies or other entertainment options by providing a three-dimensional experience.

According to Yariv Levski the CEO of AppReal-VR- a virtual reality development agency, the VR gaming will increase its business everywhere, the survey’s result depict that from AR & VR gaming, Virtual Reality will dominate the market.

Virtual reality is presently the most demanding technology as it is being used in military, healthcare, education and architecture.

How to Get Started with Virtual Reality (VR) Development?

Firstly you need to choose the appropriate engines that are available to provide platform to create VR Apps.

There are two specific engines that provide the environment to build a platform for VR app development namely: Unity and Unreal.

One has to learn either C# or C++ as this will help in speeding up the creation process. If you have the knowledge of both the technologies, it’s great!

Starting up with an Online Course/Workshop

Initially you can take some Virtual Reality Workshops that will help you in smooth product designing, 3D modeling, video game design and animation. You can also engage yourself in various studies or projects or video tutorials related to Virtual Reality Development, you must have apt knowledge so that a strong knowledge foundation is constructed.

Time to Choose the Suitable Engine

As mentioned above there are two engines to choose from:

Unity: if you’re efficient at coding in C#, you can choose this engine, as this require more coding than the other engine.

Unreal: Whereas, Unreal engine requires less coding, therefore if you’re new to the coding world, you must choose Unreal engine.

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If we compare both the engines, you get an advantage with Unity engine as you can customize your workspace, therefore the application will be created with you having the main control over creative aspects.

Even if you choose Unreal engine, at least basic knowledge of coding is required to develop any VR applications.

The Former Game Developers have Advantage

If you’ve developed various games through the traditional programming techniques, you’ll surely have an advantage of having wider knowledge than the people who’re new to the Virtual Reality world.

The one who directly decides to learn Gaming in Virtual Reality Development has to first learn the standard techniques of the traditional game development, as this will create a base for further developing a VR application.

Time for Resource Management

Unity engine offers free tutorials for the new-bees or we can refer them as beginners in the VR world.

Now one has to add the suitable Assets of Sound and Art, as this plays the most vital role in the VR application development, as the experience of the VR platform must seem real or close to reality for a satisfied experience.

One can use the pre-created assets available on the Unreal Marketplace and Unity asset store that are developed by experienced artists, you can drop these directly into your choice of engine and they are ready to use.

You can also choose from other options like Mixamo or Turbo Squid, or other audio sites to acquire the perfect sound effects for your game or other VR App.

We suggest you to add three key tools: user attribution, matrices and advertising. These tools can help you know the users, i.e. what they are actually performing in the application; this can be achieved by Google Analytics.

Example of attributions: Adjust or Tune.

Adding these tools might take few minutes extra but the output will be worth all the extra efforts as this will create user interface.

Implementation Time

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We recommend you to start with the basics, by creating a mobile VR.

You can firstly use various app development platforms that offers you to create VR apps without any coding, these mobile apps will not be as effective, but it will be good to start your VR development journey with it.

After creating a mobile VR app, you can now try building a next level game or other application by bringing together all the required resources discussed above, we suggest you to take up an easy project and try not to develop roller-costar applications or endless running games.

You must believe in your ideas and find ways to execute it, if you don’t think you have the required skills for developing or executing your ideas, you can always take help from other VR developers, there is no harm in consulting the more experienced one.

In the End, Keep Updated

As we all know, technologies keep on changing with time, thus you need to discover the latest technologies by keeping yourself updated by following news, subscribing to various podcasts or reading amusing articles on the technology changes. As there is a lot to learn even if you think that you’ve acquired all the knowledge about a topic.

Also be ready to learn new things and extend your boundaries, you’ll make several mistakes and you might end up creating non-functional applications, but never lose hope.

Tip: If you’ve a team of VR developers working together on developing a single project for a particular organization, you can always distribute work accordingly as per their interests or specialization in various streams.

The process of creating a Virtual Reality Application might consume a lot of time, but the results will always be satisfying!

Do share your thoughts about above virtual reality development article by commenting below.