About the Course

Get an overview of the course and learn why virtual reality is fundamental in shaping the internet of tomorrow.

We'll cover the following

Overview

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the emerging technologies in modern times equipped with the power to change the world. Back in 2007, mobile phones transformed how we go about our lives. The smartphone disrupted the internet and unlocked a new era of possibilities. Today, VR comes with a similar promise of abundant opportunities. VR technology has evolved to become one of the key drivers of Web 3.0The next iteration of the internet. Recent advances in computer graphics and networks have further catalyzed humanity’s shift to the metaverseA virtual space in which the users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other characters and phenomenally changed how we experience and interact with the internet.

VR is a powerful technology that allows us to think about our space in novel ways and solve problems with a fresh perspective. The idea of VR is to mimic some aspects of the real world. The user is immersed in a simulated computer-generated environment and gets to interact with the objects and characters (avatars) within that environment. While immersed in VR, the user experiences powerful place, plausibility, and embodiment illusions. Their brain is tricked into believing they’re part of the environment (i.e., they’re present in it), are actually experiencing whatever is happening to them, and that they own the virtual body they embody as part of the VR experience.

Why learn VR?

We know that VR is great, but why should we invest our time learning about VR development? Here are three strong reasons to get ready for this world of new possibilities:

  • Applications: From healthcare interventions to cinematic masterpieces, VR has immense potential to revolutionize a wide range of industries. VR is catalyzing the next digital wave: metaverse, Web 3.0, and NFTsCryptographic assets based on blockchain technology. The excitement around these technologies has harnessed a great deal of interest in VR development. They’re shaping the landscape of how we do business, healthcare, gaming, and virtually everything in the near future. To truly understand these technologies and navigate our way into this other reality, we need to learn the skills and components that go into building these worlds.
  • Market size: According to Fortune Business Insights, the worldwide total market of VR is forecasted to grow by $165.91 billion by 2030. The founder of Facebook, now Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, famously said in 2017 that he wanted a billion people to use Oculus headsets. After Meta’s deep interest in AR/VR headsets, other consumer tech players, including Google, HTC, Samsung, and Sony, have joined Meta in a race to bring consumer-ready headsets to market. With the boom in VR, developers can use this opportunity to upskill their craftsmanship and earn more.
  • Creative expression: VR gives us an opportunity to experiment with our ideas. People from diverse career backgrounds, such as education, healthcare, and technology, can harness metaverse technologies to improve their thinking by giving life to their ideas/concepts in 3D. This skill is specifically crucial for creators who are curious about game design and want to enter the gaming market.

Intended audience

This course is for individuals who want to learn about VR. Whether you are a developer creating games, an artist exploring new forms of expression, a filmmaker interested in creating immersive worlds, or a psychologist seeking to develop self-administered and scalable digital therapies, this course is for you. The course suits beginners, but having some programming experience, particularly with C#, will be beneficial. The course will provide the skills needed to create VR experiences.

What is unique about this course?

This course will teach you the fundamentals of creating your own virtual reality experiences. We’ll demystify some of your preconceived notions about VR technology and help you understand how it works. The course will use popular tools like Unity and Plastic SCM and cutting-edge devices like the Meta Quest 2 to teach you how to develop VR applications. The course is structured to give you a solid foundation in VR development and then allow you to apply your knowledge to your own specific context. We’ll start by setting up our development environments, learning the basics of Unity, creating our first basic VR game, and then delving deeper into the XRXR stands for extended reality and is an umbrella term used to refer to augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). interaction toolkit for VR development.

Unity and Meta Quest Developer Hub (MQDH)

In this course, we’ll be using the 2021.3.6f1 version of Unity to develop VR applications. The next section provides a walk-through of setting up our development environment. We’ll also use the Meta Quest Developer Hub (MQDH) to help with our VR development process. This includes casting the scene on our local machine and using Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to connect the headset over WiFi.

VR headset

We developed this course using the Meta Quest 2 to create VR experiences. Additionally, we’ll use OpenXR to enable our VR application to run on a wide range of hardware platforms without requiring any code porting or rewriting. This allows us to create VR experiences that can be accessed on various devices. In the Unity VR Concepts section of the course, you can directly visualize the output in your VR headsets.

Educative’s XR widget: Our unique widget allows in-browser VR interactivity, enabling you to launch your AR/VR experiences directly onto your headset. Educative is the only platform to offer a seamless AR/VR development experience via our XR widget.

Eventually, by the end of the course, you’ll have a thorough understanding of VR development and be able to create your VR applications.