When it comes to virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) development indie studios tend to pick one of two game engines, either Epic Games’ Unreal Engine or Unity, by Unity Technologies. Today, the latter has just upgraded its system to Unity 2018.3, bring a myriad of features for standard and immersive content creators alike.
The big news when it comes to Unity 2018.3 is the new Prefab workflows, allowing developers to split up scenes and Prefabs, with the aim of offering greater flexibility and increasing productivity. In fact, the update delivers more than 2000 new features, fixes and improvements, including Visual Effect Graph (Preview), and the Updated Terrain System.
When it comes to specific VR and AR additions, Unity 2018.3 has now included native support for Daydream Controllers, haptics APIs for VR controllers, and updates to the AR Foundation as well as XR Performance Testing. The update has also focused on targeted multi-platform support, so that an app or videogame can reach the widest audience possible, including SDK’s like OpenVR, Oculus, WindowsMR, Daydream, and GearVR.
If you’re a Unity developer then head on over to the Unity blog page for a detailed rundown of the update and links to download it.
Unity 2018.3 may have just arrived but the company continues its relentless push to improve, noting that Unity 2019.1a is now available and the first Unity alpha available to everyone. As an alpha user you will get access to new features sooner, just expect to find more bugs as well.
And there’s still lots to look forward to in 2019 like Project MARS which was revealed during Unite Berlin. The experimental project aims to improve AR development, giving creators the power to build applications that intelligently interact with any real-world environment.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Unity, reporting back with its latest updates.