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What Do I Need to Become a VR Developer? (VR Headsets, Apps, and Skills needed) - read the full article about software development 2021, Software Development and from Justin P Barnett - VR Game Dev on Qualified.One
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okay first off I am super excited that youre interested in becoming a vr developer because it is so much fun and you get to learn so many new skills and its such a cutting edge technology that its going to be huge soon in the future very very soon and oh Im so excited that youre getting into it what do you need to get into it how much is it going to cost you what kind of equipment do you need computers do you need all that kind of stuff Im going to do my best to break it all down for you so lets get into it first off vr touches so many different fields you have obviously programming you have art 3d modeling animation all of the you know normal 3d game development kind of jobs that you would have to do especially if youre going to just start out learning it youre probably not going to have a big team or any team at all maybe just a couple friends if youre lucky to help you out you need to learn all of these skills yourself but dont let me scare you off you dont have to learn them perfectly you dont have to be amazing at them you just have to you know have the basic concepts of it be able to get you know 70%-80% of the way there and then once you start to touch all of these different areas you can start to niche down on a very specific one that you like or that youre interested in that kind of thing but how do you start lets get into some practical information the first thing I would tell you is to just try it dont even start developing on it try vr get a headset or just use your phone get google cardboard I think its like 20 bucks maybe borrow your friends headset its super cool and you just have to have that first vr experience and get into it play some of the games its super fun but its not for everybody it is uh not for people who get motion sick easy I think its the greatest experience ever but if you get motion sick easy you may not enjoy it you might not like the kind of interaction that vr provides and it might not be for you so before you start developing games for it you need to make sure that you like it okay but what headset Im going to list out a bunch and put them on the screen and for all of the things that i mentioned theres also going to be links down in the description that you can click on and go directly to the page for current pricing and all that maybe youve tried it and youve borrowed your friends headset now you want to get more into it and you want to get your own headset theres some different options you can choose theres the cheap options which use your phone and its just mounted to your head and a like a just a mounting device its not an actual device its more of just a mounting platform and then your phone does all of the actual computing power and all that kind of stuff these are going to be the google cardboard the google daydream and then also the gear vr by oculus a middle ground option which is actually I might argue the best option for anyone including people who want to get really into vr development and make it a career is the oculus quest 2 that just came out for vr headsets it is super affordable it does not need a computer its standalone and its probably the best tech out there on the market right now and then if youre looking to go a little more premium and you have a good pc that you can plug into these headsets might be the option for you there is the oculus rift s which is the one that i use and then there is the HTC Vive that may be my next vr headset after you get a headset and get a couple games play around start to like it youre going to want to start to make your own games and the main thing that you need for that is a game engine theres two huge competitors for this space right now it is unity which I use and there is unreal engine which I have dabbled in a little bit and its actually really good unreal engine is geared more towards very good looking games like AAA quality looking games the reason I chose unity though is because Im already proficient in c sharp and thats the primary language for unity whereas unreal engine uses c plus or they have a visual scripting language called blueprints which is actually pretty cool and good for people who arent super into coding and programming and dont know the actual code its super easy to just drag and drop if statements and all these complex functions and whatnot its very easy to visualize so if youre not super into the coding side of things I might suggest going with unreal engine this is a huge topic and Im gonna make a dedicated video about unity versus unreal or other game engines just know that this is highly debated and really just pick one youll learn it and youll get good at it eventually youre gonna suck at either one whenever you start so just pick one and start playing around with it when you get into these game engines youre going to want to learn the game engine first not vr vr is taking the game engine and game development and taking it to a whole other level youre going to want to get in learn how to do first person shooter style games because thats probably the most similar content that vr is some great resources for that are Brackeys YouTube channel hes absolutely amazing he doesnt put out videos anymore but the videos that are up there right now are absolutely incredible two other resources for vr specific tutorials are vellum vallum i dont know how to pronounce his YouTube channel but its up on the screen hes a great resource and also vr with Andrew Ive found his tutorials to be very good with the programming side of things and how stuff works and I love his approach to his tutorials and then also me of course if you uh stick around I will be putting out lots of content in the future here comes the hard part for me its the art side of things I can do all the coding very well I know thats just how my brain works thats what I do professionally I can know how I want to design something in a game aspect of how I want to achieve a goal and then I can also program the mechanics very well but the art side of things is very difficult for me if youre an artist and youre good at that kind of stuff then blender is a very good free option and theres also 3ds max and there is Maya both of those are from AutoDesk and they cost a decent amount theyre professional 3d creation software so theyre pretty pricey but blender is amazing theres tons of tutorials out there about that but if youre not good at art and 3d modeling and hard surface modeling and anything like that then there are plenty of assets that you can purchase or theres plenty of assets for free that you can use in your game so youre going to want a character youre going to want sets youre going to want the outdoors props all theres tons of stuff that you want to put in your game and modeling it takes forever takes a long time unless so unless youre really passionate about it I suggest just getting some free assets and then once you start to get good you can start to pay for some better assets that you can use in games that you actually start to sell there is of course the asset stores for unity and unreal both of these have a lot of options for these kinds of assets and theres also some good external sites there is Turbo Squid, Free3d, CG Trader, and Sketchfab are ones that Ive found that have some pretty good quality assets that you can get or if you just want to go very bare bones and not even use an external software unity has a software thats built in called pro builder that you can use and its super easy to just prototype levels with that and you can do a very very small amount of 3d modeling there just for like placeholder props the next step is audio and if youre musically inclined you already know way more than I do audio is my worst thing if you thought I was bad at 3d modeling audio is just its not theres nothing there the two places I use for this are free sound and epidemic sound you can get a lot of good tracks from there and its easy to find some ambient music sound effects and just stuff to go into your game for more of a polish effect audio is a thing that really comes towards the end once youve started to hone in the project and then last but not least make some projects go ahead and start these are all the tools that you need you need the game engine you are going to need some 3d assets and youre going to need some audio and once you have all of those you can start to make some vr games start watching some tutorials follow some tutorials dont go down the tutorial spiral youll get stuck there and youre just gonna be watching tutorials and not learning anything and not getting any better watch a few tutorials get the basics and then go off and make your own thing go start small but just go ahead and start watch the bowling devlog that I did where I just completely botched making bowling in vr because Im learning and I just thought oh bowling will be easy and itll be cool but like along the way when i was doing the game I actually learned like oh okay this is another thing that goes into making a vr game that I didnt think about at first so its things like that thatll come up when youre building a project on your own not following a tutorial where you have to use your brain and think oh well how do I fit this piece together or how do I accomplish this thing that I wanted to do and youll go off and look at other tutorials to do that specific thing and your understanding of vr game development will happen a whole lot faster than if you were just following tutorial after tutorial after tutorial thats my advice just go ahead and start break things small projects just get some stuff under your belt and then you can start to uh release projects and publish it Ive found that filming helps me a ton with learning because I have to learn it myself first and then I have to write a script about it and then I usually will find that when Im filming it I dont actually understand it so I have to go back and relearn it and it really cements the understanding that I have so thats just another tool that I use to help me learn this kind of stuff so let me know what helps you please subscribe if youre into these kinds of tutorials or talks hang out in the comments section we have a super super good comment section throw your ideas out there ask questions Im always about and i will answer every single comment that you post and be there for any questions that you have so reach out and Ill see you in the next one
Justin P Barnett - VR Game Dev: What Do I Need to Become a VR Developer? (VR Headsets, Apps, and Skills needed) - Software Development