Oculus Rift in Action

Summary

Oculus Rift in Action introduces the powerful Oculus Rift headset and teaches you how to integrate its many features into 3D games and other virtual reality experiences. You’ll start by understanding the capabilities of the Rift hardware. Then you’ll follow interesting and instantly-relevant examples that walk you through programming real applications using the Oculus SDK. Examples are provided for both using the Oculus C API directly and for using Unity, a popular development and 3D graphics engine, with the Oculus Unity integration package.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Book

Virtual reality has long been the domain of researchers and developers with access to specialized hardware and proprietary tools. With the appearance of the Oculus Rift VR headset, the game has changed. Using standard programming tools and the intuitive Oculus SDKs, you can deliver powerful immersive games, simulations, and other virtual experiences that finally nail the feeling of being in the middle of the action.

Oculus Rift in Action teaches you how to create 3D games and other virtual reality experiences for the Oculus Rift. You’ll explore the Rift hardware through examples of real applications using the Oculus SDK and both the Oculus C API and the Unity 3D graphics engine. Along the way, you’ll get practical guidance on how to use the Rift’s sensors to produce fluid VR experiences.

Experience with C++, C#, or another OO language is assumed.

What’s Inside

• Creating immersive VR
• Integrating the Rift with the Unity 3D SDK
• Implementing the mathematics of 3D
• Avoiding motion-sickness triggers

About the Authors

Brad Davis is an active VR developer who maintains a great set of example Rift applications on Github. Karen Bryla is a freelance developer and writer. Alex Benton is a lecturer in 3D graphics at the University of Cambridge and a software engineer at Google.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Getting started
Chapter 1 Meet the Oculus Rift

Part 2 Using the Oculus C API
Chapter 2 Creating your first Rift interactions
Chapter 3 Pulling data out of the Rift: working with the head tracker
Chapter 4 Sending output to the Rift: working with the display
Chapter 5 Putting it all together: integrating head tracking and 3D rendering
Chapter 6 Performance and quality

Part 3 Using Unity
Chapter 7 Unity: creating applications that run on the Rift
Chapter 8 Unity: tailoring your application for the Rift

Part 4 The VR user experience
Chapter 9 UI design for VR
Chapter 10 Reducing motion sickness and discomfort

Part 5 Advanced Rift integrations
Chapter 11 Using the Rift with Java and Python
Chapter 12 Case study: a VR shader editor
Chapter 13 Augmenting virtual reality

Appendix A Setting up the Rift in a development environment
Appendix B Mathematics and software patterns for 3D graphics
Appendix C Suggested books and resources
Appendix D Glossary