| Unity and XR |
|---|
Resources by Subject |
Unity is an engine that is built around modularity. Some of it is built in, but there are many other plugins that can be imported via its Unity Asset Store, a repository of paid...wait for it...Assets. Assets are not limited to plugins but include models, particle systems, audio effects, graphic icons, and other things. If a capability is not native to Unity, there is a good chance someone has rolled their own solution which can be found in the Asset Store. Unity is always prioritized by vendors when it comes to emerging tech en lieu of other game engines, which means we can use more experimental devices.
I also have my own framework for development, which is a system that contains all of the assets in separate scenes, or a collection of entities within Unity. This mean each member can work independently and everyone's work will be aggregated dynamically. The framework, however, will be described in another document.
Unity Interface, in section Using the Unity Interface, steps 1-6.
Then Essential Unity Concepts:
Git, a version control system that we will use for collaboration.
-
VR Book by Jason Jerald
-
Deep insight on the history of VR, and UX through Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience.
-
-
Meta
-
Meta has had an interesting combination of one of the pioneers of AR ( Steve Mann ), as well the designer behind Iron Man's helmet HUD.
-
Spatial Design Guidelines
-
-
Microsoft Hololens
-
Microsoft has had a head start on everybody due to it's tracking algorithm (SLAM) first developed with the Kinect, providing a limited, but capable product that dominated the market
-
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/design
-
-
Leap Motion
-
Magic Leap
Learning C# Programming with Unity 3D by Alex Okita
A robust scope of programming within Unity
Holistic Game Development by Penny De Byl
A little dated, but is a good scope on not just programming but also learning Unity.
Shaders used for materials have had major changes in Physically Based Rendering. Most of the properties Unity's Standard Shader will look familiar to those coming from a 3D Kit, however the way things are rendered is different. This is mostly due to the lack of Raytracing, a process that really makes things look life-like is too resource intensive. The process usually involves baking and progressive baking, light estimation, reflection probes.
Graphics, overview the Intro, skip to Light Types. Go through the playlists 1-6 in Rendering and Shading in the graphics manual.
Go through this manual page.
Shaders within Unity can support all types of textures used in film: normal, reflective, detail, etc.
From the Graphics page, section Rendering and Shading: Materials, The Standard Shader, and Textures.
While a vital part of film, the only thing Unity has that resembles Compositing is the Post Processing Stack ( I advise checking out the development build ). In the author's opinion, the analogy in compositing within game engines is Rendering.
As of 2018.1 Release, Unity takes on a different approach with the High and Light Definition Pipelines, giving you full control of builds cross-platform.
Designing directly in Unity instead of Illustrator or Photoshop allows flexibility in creating graphic components, and prevents redundant labor of development implementation. Unity easily allows implementation of responsive design, skinning, and is well suited for 3D or 2D content.
Learn modules 1 - 8 in UI Components.
I'm not sure why the lessons are so granular in segmentation, but each module is simply a part of Unity's "Canvas", or a plane that defines the UI elements.
Learn the basics of mecanim for more advanced animations: Animate Anything with Mecanim
Image Targets: Guidelines for Designing Image Targets by Vuforia.
Unity has a very robust animation system which comprises of two parts: Mecanim and Timeline. Mecanim includes a key functionality of retargeting of humanoid subjects, meaning that a walkcycle for one subject can be used for another mesh. It is also a way to structure animations that may be invoked by trigger. Timeline is a sequence editor which can animate any object in the scene.