3.1 - Comfort and Accessibility

3.2 - Optimization

3.3 - Lighting

3.4 - Building and Sharing

Challenge 3 - Training Simulation

Lab 3 - Personal Project Ergonomics & Optimization

Quiz 3 - VR Ergonomics & Optimization

Submission 3 - Share your Work

In this unit, you will focus on ergonomics and optimization

In this unit, you will focus on ergonomics and optimization for VR in order to make your app as accessible and comfortable as possible..In these tutorials, you will:

In the Challenge for this unit, you will apply your skills in an industrial training simulation prototype. Then, in the Lab, you'll implement the core functionality of your personal project. Finally, in the Quiz, you will test your new knowledge.This unit is part of the 

3 - VR Optimization and Lighting

VR Software Setup

1.1 - VR Project Setup

1.2 - VR Locomotion

1.3 - Grabbable Objects

1.4 - Sockets

Challenge 1 - Architecture Review

Lab 1 - VR Personal Project Basics

Submission 1 - Share your Work

2.1 - Audio and Haptics

2.2 - Activation Events

2.3 - Direct and Ray Interactors

2.4 - User Interface

Challenge 2 - 3D Painting

Lab 2 - Personal Project Events & Interactions

Submission 2 - Share your Work

VR Next Steps

Quiz 1 - VR Basics

Quiz 2 - VR Events & Interactions

In this unit, you will learn the basics of setting up a VR project and implementing simple interactivity

In this unit, you will learn the basics of setting up a VR project and implementing simple interactivity.In these tutorials, you will:

Set up a VR-ready project with the room of your choice

Implement locomotion so that users can move around the scene

Add grabbable objects users can pick up and throw around

Set up sockets that objects can snap into

In the Challenge for this unit, you will apply your skills in an architectural review prototype. Then, in the Lab, you'll fill out a design document to lay out a concept for your own project, and then begin working on it. Finally, in the Quiz, you will test your new knowledge.

1 - VR Basics

In this unit, you will implement more complex interactions in VR based to make the experience more immersive

In this unit, you will implement more complex interactions in VR based to make the experience more immersive.In these tutorials, you will:

Apply new functionality to specific objects

Allow the user to toggle between multiple types of interactors

In the Challenge for this unit, you will apply your skills in a 3D painting prototype. Then, in the Lab, you'll implement the core functionality of your personal project. Finally, in the Quiz, you will test your new knowledge.This unit is part of the 

2 - VR Events and Interactions

Create with VR Educator Materials

Educators who want to bring this curriculum into their classroom should refer to 

Designed for post-secondary and K-12 educators at accredited academic institutions teaching Unity in the classroom, the 

 provides you with free access to the same real-time 3D development tools used by professionals to support your students.

Included in this plan are Unity Pro, cloud-based collaboration, cloud build, free Unity assets, and much more!

This course assumes you have at least a basic understanding of the Unity Editor. If you have never used Unity before, we recommend that you complete the 

In addition, you’ll get the most out of this learning content if you have some previous basic experience using VR applications and hardware. But you do not need any experience developing for VR to use this learning content.

This course will help you learn to design and develop your own Virtual Reality (VR) applications in Unity through tutorials, challenges, quizzes, and the creation of your own unique VR project.

In this official course from Unity, you will learn to design and develop your own Virtual Reality (VR) applications. You will create prototypes, attempt challenges, and complete quizzes to build and solidify your skill set. At the same time, you will be guided through creating your own unique VR project from start to finish, beginning with a blank design document and ending with a fully functional project. Whether you want to create an interactive walkthrough of an ancient ruin, a product configurator for a car manufacturer, a simulator for operating dangerous machinery, or any other experience, this course will help you bring those ideas to life in VR.

 YouTube channel, for collaborating with us on this course. 

Create with VR

7d10496a-41bf-4de9-ad41-5894d1461d12:18d4ac046205

Experiment with your lighting settings

Prepare and bake your first lightmap

Adjust scene lighting and re-bake

Add mixed lighting

Add light probes

Finalize lightmap

Recap

Extension Activities

Comp-L3-Prog.VRp: Intermediate VR Development

Intermediate VR Development

aaron.sharp@unity3d.com bCXcG*RnEp9O!6@q

3_3_recap_v1.mp4

3_3_1_v2.mp4

3_3_4_v2.mp4

3_3_3_v2.mp4

3_3_2_v2.mp4

3_3_5_v2.mp4

3_3_6_v2_edited.mp4

In this lesson, you will learn how to use light modes, lightmapping, and light probes in order to optimize the lighting for VR. By the end of this lesson, the lighting in your scene will be both beautiful and performant. 

This lesson is part of the Create with VR course. 

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

Understand the differences between real-time, mixed, and baked lighting in order to select a lighting strategy that makes sense for your app.

Take the necessary steps required for lightmapping in order to bake the lighting in your scene, (i.e.setting light mode to baked and setting objects as static). 

Add basic environmental lighting using point lights and spot lights in order to give your scene the desired appearance. 

Understand the effect that mixed lighting has in a scene in order to achieve specific real-time lighting effects (e.g. real-time shadows). 

Implement Light Probes in order to create optimized real-time lighting effects from baked lights. 

VR Developer Pathway Facilitator Kit.zip

VR Developer Pathway Facilitator Kit (Google Drive)

Unity Educator Hub

The VR Developer Pathway Facilitator Kit includes everything you need to successfully bring this Pathway into your learning context including a syllabus, complete lesson plans, standards alignment, teacher preparation guide, and more.  

Games

Film

Automotive

Skill-L3-Prog.VRp-4: Optimize the performance of an app in order to meet headset framerate requirements.

o-L3-Prog.VRp-4.1: Recall approximate frame rate performance targets for popular head-mounted displays.

o-L3-Prog.VRp-4.2: Demonstrate techniques for optimizing lighting for performance.

o-L3-Prog.VRp-4.3: Select appropriate profiling tools to identify the sources of performance problems in an app.

o-L3-Prog.VRp-4.4: Apply graphical optimization techniques within Unity to improve polycount and draw calls.

Optimize the performance of an app in order to meet headset framerate requirements.

VR Ergonomics & Optimization

Unit 4: VR Optimization and Lighting

Ergonomics and Optimization

Before you start editing the lighting of the scene, you will create a new Lighting Settings asset and get familiar with the settings at your disposal.

In the Project window, search for and select the “UniversalRenderPipelineAsset”. 


2.  Experiment with the render pipeline settings:

In the Inspector for the URP Asset, in the Lighting section, play with the settings. 

Be sure to include experimenting with the Per Object Limit slider to appreciate the limitations it places on complex lighting. 


3.  Create new Lighting Settings for your scene:

Click Window > Rendering > Lighting to open the Lighting window. 

Dock the window next to the Inspector, then click the New Lighting Settings button to create a new profile.


4.  Experiment with the environmental lighting in your scene:

At the top of the Lighting window, select the Environment tab

Experiment with the settings to see the impact they have on your scene.

You should now be able to locate and adjust the lighting settings from within the Lighting window and the URP Asset.

Note: In Unity 2022.3, the New lighting settings button is in a different position than what is shown in the video. 

In the Inspector for the Universal Render Pipeline Asset, the Additional Lights Per Object Limit is set to 4.

In the Lighting window, in the Scene tab, the Lighting Settings property is set to “New Lighting Settings”.


The time has come to attempt your first lightmap bake. There are just a few steps you need to take beforehand.

1.  Allow all of your lights to be baked:

Locate and select each light in the scene that will not move or turn on and off. You can do this by searching “t:light” in the Hierarchy search bar.

In their Light components, inside the General fold-out, change the Mode setting from Realtime to Baked.


2.  Allow objects in your scene to have light baked onto them:

In the Hierarchy, select all non-moving, static objects.

At the top of the Inspector, make sure the Static check box is selected.

Note:  Remember to select the objects in your Lighting section (e.g. lamps, sconces, chandeliers, etc)


3.  Remove the background and foreground objects from your lightmap to reduce bake times:

In its Mesh Renderer component, for the Lightmapping section, reduce the Scale in Lightmap property to 0.

At the bottom of the Scene tab, click Generate Lighting.

Note: if baking freezes or seems to crash, try changing the Lightmapper baking system to Progressive GPU instead of Progressive CPU.


5.  Temporarily minimize the time to generate your lightmap: 

Reducing the Lightmap Resolution to a value between 5-10.

Reduce some of the other values which contribute to lightmap quality (samples, bounces, etc).

You should now have a low resolution baked lightmap in your scene.

Note: In Unity 2022.3, the Scene Display settings button is now an icon and in a different position than what is shown in the video. 

In the Light component, the Mode is set to Baked.

In the top-right corner of the Inspector, the Static property is enabled.

In the Scene view, the Background_Buildings object is selected. In the Inspector, in the Mesh Renderer component, the Scale in Lightmap property is set to 0.

Now that you have attempted your first bake, you can take some time to properly light your scene and try again.

1.  Clear your lightmap and view lighting changes in real time:

At the bottom of the Lighting window, click the dropdown next to Generate Lighting. 


2.  View the effect of as many lights as possible:

Temporarily increase the Additional Light Per Object Limit to the maximum.


3.  Remove the default lights that came with the Room prefab:

In the Hierarchy, expand the Room_[style] prefab.

Note: you will have to open the room prefab in order to delete the lights.


4.  Add more realistic lighting from actual light sources in your scene:

From the Course Library > Prefabs > Lighting folder, make sure you have enough light-emitting objects to light your scene.

To add child Light objects to those lighting elements, right-click them in the Hierarchy and select Light > Point / Spot Light. 


5.  Get more even, balanced lighting in the room:

On your Directional Light, try increasing the Intensity and Indirect Multiplier values.

In your Lighting settings, try increasing the Indirect Intensity value.

If you have time, increase the Lightmap Resolution and other Light settings values to see how it might look in its final state. 

Note:  if you are getting splotchy, pixelated shadows: from the Lighting settings, set the Lightmap Compression property to None.

You should now have rough lighting baked into your scene looking approximately the way you want.

Scene view showing baked lighting in the room, including baked lighting and shadows from sconces and chandeliers.

If you want your objects to cast shadows in real time, but also get the benefits of the performance from baked lightmaps, you can use “Mixed” lighting.

1.  Get real-time shadows on top of your baked lightmaps:

Change the Mode of your Directional Light to “Mixed” (instead of “Baked”).


2.  See the new mixed lighting take effect:

In the Lighting window, click Generate Lighting to re-bake your lighting 

Notice what effect the mixed light has on the lighting and shadows of your dynamic objects.

You should now have real-time shadows on your dynamic objects coming from your directional light.

Light component with the Mode property set to Mixed.

In order to get more realistic real-time lighting from all of your baked lights in the scene, you need Light Probes.

1.  Add a new Light Probe Group as a child of the Room object:

In the Hierarchy, right-click the Room_[style] object and select Light > Light Probe Group.


2.  To be able to edit the light probes:

Make sure Gizmos with 3D Icons are enabled from the top-right corner of the Scene view.

Click the Edit Light Probes button in the Inspector of the Light Probe Group. 


3.  Duplicate and reposition the light probes around the room:

Drag selection boxes around probes to select them.

Use the Move tool to position the probes.

Use Ctrl/Cmd+D to duplicate selected probes. 

Note:  It may be helpful to switch to Isometric view by clicking on the small icon below the axis gizmo in the top-right corner of the Scene view.


4.  To position your light probes properly:

Make sure you have probes in areas where lighting changes drastically either in color or intensity. 

Make sure your probes are not inside objects.


5.  See the effect of your light probes:

From the Lighting window, re-generate your lighting and test to see the lighting on your dynamic objects.

You should now have approximate dynamic lighting in your scene based on your baked lighting calculated by your light probes.

Note: In Unity 2022.3, the Edit Light Probe button is in a different position than what is shown in the video. 

In Scene view, yellow light probes are shown distributed evenly throughout the room. In the Inspector, in the Light Probe Group component, the Edit Light Probes button is highlighted.

Now that your lighting is configured approximately the way you want, you are ready for a more final higher resolution lightmap.

1.  Make sure your lighting is optimized appropriately for your target device: 

Test your app in the manner you expect it to be used by users (i.e. if you are targeting a mobile device, test it on the standalone device, not connected to your computer). 

Make sure you’re hitting your target frame rate.

For instructions on how to build and run your app on the actual device, refer to the instructions in the VR Project Setup tutorial.


2.  Generate a single lightmap file rather than several smaller ones:

Increase the Max Lightmap Size to 4096.  

It is recommended to have a single lightmap file rather than several smaller ones.


3.  If you are getting splotchy or pixelated shadows: 

Set the Lightmap Compression property to None.


4.  If you are happy with the general appearance of your lighting and are ready to generate your final lightmap:

In the Lighting window, increase the Lightmap Resolution to somewhere between 20 and 80.

If you want, continue to adjust other lighting settings (samples, bounces, etc) to get the desired result.

Your lighting should now look the way you want and be optimized for performance.

If you want to further develop your skills, explore new concepts, and improve your project, check out some of the optional extension activities below. 

Each one is tagged as [Easy], [Medium], [Difficult], or [Expert] and will also include a [Requires Programming] tag if some coding is required. 

Create or download a new skybox to enhance the look of your scene: 

You can download skyboxes on the Unity Asset Store - search for Free assets

Add your skybox from the Lighting window in the Environment tab

Warning: if you have a high resolution skybox, and have your skybox set as the Source of your Environment Lighting in the Environment tab, Lightmapping may take a very long time. You can change your Source to a Gradient to avoid this.

Continue to fine-tune the lighting in your scene and the lighting settings to make it as beautiful and performant as possible:

Try adjusting values in the The Lighting Window to see what kind of results you get.

Add reflection probes into your scene in order to get more realistic reflections from metallic objects: 

3.3 - Lighting

Overview Video

1. Experiment with your lighting settings

2. Prepare and bake your first lightmap

3. Adjust scene lighting and re-bake

4. Add mixed lighting

5. Add light probes

6. Finalize lightmap

7. Recap

8. Extension Activities

Complete this tutorial