Welcome to the first part of a short tutorial series in which we will cover the basics of using Unity's XR

Interaction Toolkit. So what is the XR Interaction Toolkit? The XR Interaction Toolkit, or XRI for short, is Unity's native solution for

implementing VR, AR, and MR interactions across a range of platforms. The idea of XRI is to give you one

unified toolkit with which you can make use of the same components and methods, irrespective of the headsets you are

using. So, for example, your XR rig and controller interactions would be set up in the same way, regardless of whether you're

targeting the Quest, the Valve Index, or the HP Reverb. If you plan on releasing a VR app on multiple platforms, XRI would

certainly save you a lot of work over using each platform's native VR SDK. We will be using Meta Quest 2 in these

tutorials, although the platform-agnostic nature of the XR Interaction Toolkit means that you should be able to follow

along even if you have a different VR headset. Please also note we will be using Unity 2021 running on Windows 11.

Okay, so let's get to it. Open Unity Hub, click the 'New Project' button, and select the most recent LTS version of the Unity

2021 editor. I'm using version 2021.3.10 here, although it may be a higher version by the time you watch

this. Select the 3D URP template. [Music] Give your project a name. I'm simply

calling it XRI. Now click the 'Create Project' button. The editor will now load the new project. [Music]

The Unity editor has now opened, and our project is ready to start working with. The first thing we will need to do is

set up our build settings. Go to the top menu, go to 'File', and then 'Build Settings'. In the Build Settings window, since we

are targeting Quest 2. Click on Android if you are using a different VR headset, select the appropriate platform for your

device. I'm changing a couple of settings appropriate for the Quest, such as setting texture compression to ASTC. If

your Quest is connected to your PC, you will be able to target it under "Run Device". Now click "Switch Platform".

Switching the platform will cause Unity to re-import the project assets. Once this is complete, click the player

settings button. This will open the project settings window with the player settings section selected. I will now proceed to change a few

settings to ensure that our app will run smoothly on the Quest. For the sake of time, I'm going to leave

out some optimizations. If you want a more in-depth look at optimizing your app, however, please take a look at my

video called "How to optimize Unity project settings for Oculus Meta Quest 2." There's a link in the description.

First, I'm going to change the graphics API to Vulkan. [Music] Next, I'll make sure that we have a valid

package name. I'm setting the minimum Android API level to 23, also known as Marshmallow. Now I'm setting the scripting backend

to IL2CPP and I'm setting the target architecture to ARM64 only. Close the project settings window and

then the build settings window. Now, there's one component in the Universal Render Pipeline that, if left active, will have a huge detrimental

effect on our app's frame rate—at least it will on the Quest. That component is the screen space

ambient occlusion component. I will show you how to remove it. First, go to the project's Assets panel in

the bottom left. Select the "Settings" folder. Inside the folder, you will find some Universal Render Pipeline assets. Click on the "URP Balanced Renderer". This

The AR Foundation renderer is used when working with an Android platform, such as the Quest. Now, go to the Inspector panel. Notice the

screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) component is present. Click on the dropdown menu in the corner of the SSAO component; the option

to remove the component should appear. Click on it, and the SSAO component should be deleted. Now, we need to add some XR-specific

packages. Go to the top menu and click on Window, then Package Manager. In the Package Manager, go to the

packages filter menu at the top of the packages list. Select "Packages: Unity Registry". Now scroll down to the bottom of the

list, select the XR Plugin Management package, and click on the Install button. [Music] Now select the XR Interaction Toolkit,

and once again click Install. A warning dialog will appear, which essentially warns you that Unity's new Input System needs to be enabled for the

XR Interaction Toolkit to work. Click the Yes button. Another dialog will appear, warning you to make a backup before the upgrade.

Since we haven't added any interaction components to our scene yet, there should not be any issues. Click on "Go ahead".

This will trigger a restart of the Unity editor. Okay, the Unity editor has restarted, and we are back in the Package Manager.

Scroll through the package list until you find the OpenXR Plugin. Install this package also. Okay, we are finished here. Close the

Package Manager. For the next part of our setup, we need to go back to Project Settings. In the Project Settings window, make sure

that the XR Plugin Management section is selected in the sidebar. The components and settings that you are now able to access in this section are

the results of installing all those XR packages via the Package Manager. You will notice that the XR Plugin Management panel has settings that are

grouped under various tabs. Each tab relates to a specific platform. First, make sure the leftmost tab is selected.

Selected this contains XR settings for PC. Tick the "Open XR" checkbox. You may be wondering why we are changing settings

under the PC tab if we are working with the Quest, which is of course an Android platform. The reason is that we may still

want to test our app from within the Unity editor with our headset connected to the PC. Hence, we also need to

configure the XR settings for PC correctly. Okay, now let's select the Android tab once again. Click the "Open XR" checkbox.

Right now, some of you may be wondering what this Open XR is that we keep on selecting. Let me briefly explain.

Just a few years ago, numerous consumer VR devices started hitting the market. However, each manufacturer would develop their own protocols for handling

communication between their VR hardware and the software that can run on it. As the number of VR devices increased, it

started to become increasingly difficult to develop applications that supported them all. For example, the Unity game engine developers needed to code an

entirely different communication layer for each and every VR headset that they wished to support within Unity. This

situation persisted until OpenXR was introduced in 2019. So what is OpenXR? OpenXR is an open standard for

connecting VR and AR devices to the applications that run on them. It was developed by the Khronos Group, who were

responsible for developing the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs. Right now, OpenXR has achieved wide adoption across the

industry, and Unity has been quick to integrate it into their engine. The XR Interaction Toolkit has been designed to

fully support it. Anyway, I'll put a few links about OpenXR in the description. Let's get back to the tutorial.

You should still have the Android tab selected. Go to the Project Settings sidebar and expand the XR Plugin Management option underneath it. You

You should now see an OpenXR option. Click on it. In the OpenXR settings panel, we will need to add at least one interaction

profile. Each interaction profile corresponds to a specific controller type. Since we are using the Quest, you will need to add an Oculus Touch

controller profile. Without it, Unity's input system cannot receive input from your controllers. Also, we will want to tick the Oculus Quest support checkbox.

Now we should go back to the PC tab and add the Oculus Touch controller to the interaction profiles there also.

Okay, we can close the project settings window now. We are pretty much finished for this tutorial, so it could be a good time to

save your project. To do this, go to the top menu and select 'File', and then 'Save Project'. In our next tutorial, we will set up a

simple scene and get our VR headset and controllers working within it. See you then. [Music]

Introduction to Unity's XR Interaction Toolkit - Part 1: Import & Setup

Introduction to Unity's XR Interaction Toolkit - Part 1: Import & Setup

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