Look, I get it. You are excited and eager to build the next applications and games for AR or VR environments. Chances are you’ve been wanting to get started months or even years ago but the sheer complexity (whether real or perceived) prevented you from opening up your game engine and getting your feet wet with XR development and design.
No matter who you ask, the best way to learn a development skill is to start on actual projects. Just like learning a new (human) language - the people who were immersed and forced to use it learned the fastest. The “learn-by-doing” approach is also a way we are engaging our students in XR courses. And yes, we give out homework assignments and challenges as well for Lisa Simpson-type of students.
Building real world projects is also way more interesting than studying dry code (who does that today anyway) or messing around with a visual script editor.
If you’re studying something like AR or VR development, you’ll want to grab your headset immediately to test it out in “real life”.
To get you pumped up, you can choose a number of tutorials written by our XR instructors. Whether you’re learning augmented reality or virtual reality - you should find something of use here.
We’re going to add future tutorials to the list over here and separate them based on the theme.
These mini projects are great to get you started. If you do want to get a stellar portfolio, solid development fundamentals and an industry-recognized certification of achieved skill requirements, check out the 10-week XR Development with Unity course.
Before you Get Started
Every Unity tutorial on this list will give you a step-by-step instruction on how to develop a project from start to finish.
However, you still have to prepare a working environment to develop these projects. And by this I don’t mean cleaning your desk of cheetos dust, and making sure you’re well hydrated before you start (although that’s not a bad idea either).
To get you fully ready you will need:
Latest long-term support (LTS) version of Unity (previously known as Unity 3D) - Get it Here
Understanding of Basics Terminology of AR/VR Development (what is a prefab, gameobject, or eventsystem?). Download the PDF of common terms here.
Set your Device for development. Before you run Unity (the 3D game engine you're going to be using for these tutorials), you need to make sure to set your AR/VR device for development work. We have instructions on how to setup your device:
A Git /GitHub account. Actually you don’t need it. But just set it up anyway so you can prove your future self that you are serious about this and will make your life easier following best practices.
What is Git / Github you may ask? Imagine a folder on your hard drive where you have all documents for a specific project. Well Git/GitHub repository (or 'repo') contains all the source files, game objects and 3D models from Unity Asset Store, and even pre-written scripts so you don’t have to worry about programming from scratch.
But if you do want to become a developer, C# programming is something you should get familiar with. Luckily we do have Learn C# for Unity: A Beginner’s Guide to Unity XR Programming asset where you’ll learn scripting, logic, functions, data types and other good stuff through 7 free lessons.
With this out of the way, here are the beginner AR and VR Unity Tutorials. Our instructors have provided you with source files and assets for each project? You will also find access to the live recording for each lesson and workshop in case you like to co-build the apps alongside our instructors.
If you're an absolute beginner or just looking to see how life is on the XR side of development - these lessons and tutorials are going to be of superb value to you! The tutorials are presented in random order so just pick and choose the ones that excites you the most looking by its title.
Unity XR Tutorials
Augmented Reality Tutorials
AR Business Card / AR Christmas Postcard ↗
Turn a plain ol' printed card into a digital 3D presentation.
Build an AR Face Filter App ↗
Use your phone’s camera to turn your face into an Instagram/Snapchat like filter.
Create an AR Enabled T-Shirt↗
Build an app that turn the graphic on your T-shirt into a neat-looking hologram!
Virtual Reality Tutorials
VR Meditation App ↗
Ohmmmmmmmm.... Build your own zen sanctuary in virtual reality!
VR Escape Room ↗
Learn about player movement (read more about VR locomotion), basic physics and interactions by building an Escape Room in virtual reality.
Quick F.A.Q
What if I want to learn game development?
XR isn’t your thing (yet)? Unity has a lot of free tutorials on basic game development. The other area you should look at is, you guessed it, YouTube. There are new tutorials from YouTube creators every day.
Some are produced on a very high level. Here are a couple of suggestions:
2D Game Design & Development
Jason Weimann Beginner Tutorial (Build an Angry Birds game!)
Brackeys’ How to Make a 2D Game in Unity (learn about sprites, textures and implementing objects)
Unity Game Development Basics with the focus on Unity’s Interface
C# Scripting and Programming
Learn C# for Unity - 7 Lessons to get your started with C# (from code hierarchy, variables, loops, to integrating the code to Unity’s Environment)
Circuit Stream Live 4-week C# Scripting Fundamentals (Paid Course)
Game Design by leveraging Shaders
Tyrell’s Lewin’s XR Happy Hours (3 hours of advanced shaders that build on top of the previous workshop)
If you want to join any of our future live workshops check out our workshops page. As an attendee you will receive all project files used in the live webinar and you can ask the presenter any question you may have about XR design or development in real time.
Alternatively, check out Circuit Stream’s YouTube channel.
I am more interested in development using Unreal Engine.
You might be pulled toward Unreal instead of the Unity Game engine. I get it, Unreal is one of the two most popular choices when choosing a 3D engine platform. The principles on how to build an XR project are the same, you will just have to learn the behavior, interface and Unreal’s programming language.
The best place to start is Unreal’s official documentation website.
GLHF!!!
