Device-specific toolkits

While built-in VR support may be sufficient to get started, you are advised to also install the device-specific Unity package provided by the manufacturer. The device-specific interface will provide prefab objects, lots of useful custom scripts, shaders, and other important optimizations that directly take advantage of the features of the underlying runtime and hardware. The toolkits ordinarily include example scenes, prefabs, components, and documentation to guide you. Toolkits include:

• SteamVR Plugin: Steam's SteamVR toolkit (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/steamvr-plugin-32647) was originally released for HTC VIVE only. It now has support for several VR devices and runtimes that have positional-tracked left and right-hand controllers. This includes Oculus Rift and Windows Immersive MR. You build your project using the OpenVR SDK and the final executable program will decide at runtime which type of hardware you have attached to your PC and run that app on that device. This way, you don't need different versions of your app for VIVE, Rift, and IMR devices.
• Oculus Integration Toolkit: The Oculus Integration plugin for Unity (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/oculus-integration-82022) supports Oculus VR devices including Rift, GearVR, and GO. In addition to the Touch hand controllers, it supports Oculus Avatar, Spatial Audio, and network Rooms SDK.
• Windows Mixed Reality Toolkit: The Windows MRTK plugin (https://github.com/Microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity) supports VR and AR devices in the Windows 10 UWP Mixed Reality family, including immersive HMD (like those from Acer, HP, and others) as well as the wearable HoloLens augmented reality headset.
• Google VR SDK for Unity: The GVR SDK for Unity plugin (https://github.com/googlevr/gvr-unity-sdk/releases) provides support for user input, controllers, and rendering for both Google Daydream and simpler Google Cardboard environments.

When you set up your VR projects in Unity, you will probably install one or more of these toolkits. We walk you through this later in this chapter.