UFO project overview

Explore the Unity project

Begin the AR port

Selecting an orientation for your AR game

Enable the play area

Develop the AR UFO movement

Develop the AR UFO abduction action

Other AR considerations

Design your own AR app

In this Mission, you’ll port an existing desktop game to mobile and redesign it to be a fully functioning (and fun!) AR experience.

Research future AR use cases to prepare for developing new kinds of applications

Evaluate platform capabilities and limitations in order to determine whether or not a given feature will work

Absolute Beginner AR Design

Absolute Beginner AR Development

Optimize assets and application to meet mobile performance standards

Beginner Mobile Optimization

Create basic application interactions with Visual Scripting

Absolute Beginner Visual Scripting

In this learning experience, you’ll port an existing desktop game to mobile and redesign it to be a fully functioning (and fun!) AR experience. You’ll conduct research, create a design document, modify visual scripts, and regularly playtest your app. At the conclusion of this project, you’ll also design and create your own fully realized AR application.

AR experience design

Mobile AR Development

Mobile AR Development - Unity Learn

Ready to create AR experiences? In this learning pathway, you’ll develop AR apps compatible with iOS and Android devices!

Evaluate platform capabilities and limitations in order to determine whether or not a given feature will work.

Develop AR experiences that use trackable targets in the environment

Welcome to AR Development! In this learning Pathway, you'll create Augmented Reality (AR) applications that are compatible with iOS and Android devices. You’ll use Visual Scripting and Unity’s AR tools to develop a wide variety of engaging AR experiences. This pathway assumes a basic knowledge of Unity.

Welcome to AR Development

test

Configure your AR development environment

Deploy your project to iOS or Android

Welcome to AR Development Quiz

Get ready for AR development: explore the field, hear from experts, install essential software, set up a Unity project, and deploy a test project to your mobile device.

In these tutorials, you'll get ready for AR development. First, you'll learn about the field of AR and hear from established creators in the AR industry. Next, you'll download all required software to get started and configure a Unity project for AR development. Finally, you'll deploy a test project to your mobile device to make sure everything is working as it should.

Get started with AR

Set up a face tracking project

Add a face texture

Add accessories to your filter

Add animations to your filter

Add particle effects to your filter

Add post-processing to your filter

Submission: Ice cream company filter

Learn how to create a custom face filter app with fun textures, 3D models, particles, and effects. In the challenge, design a themed filter for an ice cream company.

In this mission you'll create your own custom face filter app that includes a wide variety of digital content. The face filter will include interesting textures, animated 3D models, dynamic particles, and post-processing effects. You'll also complete a challenge where you design a custom filter for an ice cream shop.

Create a basic face filter

Build a new scene with glasses

Set up the UI

Create a visual script to detect a button press

Turn on the glasses with buttons

Update your graph to switch between glasses

Configure one color button

Complete the color switching functionality

Save and load the glasses

Submission: Ocean-themed face filter

Create with AR: Face Filters Quiz

Expand on what you’ve learned with filters that add interactive elements. You’ll create an app for customizing and trying on glasses, then an ocean-themed face filter.

Now that you’ve created a basic face filter, you’re ready to develop your skills and work on a filter that involves interactivity. In this project, you will create your own interactive app that allows a user to select, customize, and visualize different pairs of glasses on their face.You will also complete a challenge where you design an interactive underwater scuba filter for an aquarium.

Create an interactive face filter

Create a new project for marker-based AR

Spawn an object on an AR Marker

Add a UI with rotation buttons

Add world space UI to your marker-based app 

Add spatial audio to your marker-based app

Submission: Bring art to life with AR

Add world space UI to your marker-based app

Learn to create marker-based AR apps, which make digital models appear over marker images in the real world. In the challenge, you’ll breathe life into a 2D work of art.

 app is an application that can recognize images (called markers) in the real world and then make content appear in the app. You may have seen applications that use this kind of technology to make AR content for movie posters, product labels, card games, and even business cards.

In this project, you’ll make a marker-based app with a user interface that lets the user control a 3D model, text, and audio.

Create a marker-based AR app

Set up a scene with plane detection

Detect the user’s touch

Detect when the user touches a plane

Instantiate the portal on a plane

Test the frame rate of the portal world

Limit the visibility of the portal world

Submission: AR friend

Create with AR: markers and planes Quiz

Make an app that detects flat surfaces and allows the user to spawn a portal on their floor or wall. Then complete a challenge to create an interactive character app.

In this project, you’ll create an AR app that makes use of plane detection technology. iOS and Android devices have the ability to detect flat surfaces — or planes — in your physical environment. This includes horizontal planes like the floor or a table, and vertical planes like the walls. 

You will create an app where the user will be able to tap on a plane in order to place a portal onto it. This portal will be a window into a virtual 3D environment that the user can peer into and explore. 

You will also complete a challenge where you design an app that allows the user to place a character on a table and interact with it.

Create a plane detection AR app

853d780c-fe48-4065-a6cc-b5a20fded342:aac1cd55adda

Overview

Create a new AR project

Create a new scene and test build

Export the assets from the desktop version

Import the assets into the AR port project

Regenerate Visual Scripting library

Run the game on your mobile device

Add an AR camera to the main scene

More things to try

Next steps

Zu-UnityLearn

AR-3.3-01-huge-default-scene.mp4

Mission2A1.6TestingOnDeviceCube (1).mp4

AR-3.3-15-ar-port-default.mp4

AR-3.3-16-huge-default-scene.mp4

AR-3.3-17-mttt-fps-overlay.mp4

You now have an understanding of the core concept of the game and have begun to generate ideas for the AR port. Now it’s time for you to begin the process of bringing the game to mobile.

In this tutorial you will do the following:

Import the existing game assets into the new project

Complete an initial test build on your mobile device

Build AR projects to mobile devices

At this point, you’ve already done some initial design brainstorming for what the AR version of this game could look like. You have also thoroughly explored the desktop project in order to understand how it was built. You are now ready to begin the actual work of porting the project from the desktop platform to AR. 

In this tutorial, you will start by getting the project to run on a mobile device. You’ll create a new AR-compatible Unity project, import the assets and scenes directly into that new project, and then test it without any modifications on your mobile device. 

By the end of this tutorial, your project will look something like the video below.

You might already have an idea of how well the game will run on this new platform, or you might not be sure. Once you actually experience the application running on your mobile device, you'll definitely notice the main problems! 

You could try to edit the existing desktop Unity project settings to make it compatible with mobile AR. However, that could get complicated and you will find it useful to have the desktop project as a working reference. The best approach is to create a brand new AR project just like you did for previous projects, then import the assets into this new project. 

Follow these instructions to create your new AR project: 

1.  Download the AR_Starter_Project zip file and unzip or extract it. This is the same starter project you used for the AR face filter and AR maker projects — you’re going to use it again to create a new project.

2.  Locate the AR_Starter_Project folder inside the zip folder and move it to a suitable location on your computer.

3.  Rename the project folder to something more appropriate, such as “[your-name] [UFO AR Port]”.

4.  Add the Unity project to the Unity Hub and open it. 

If you see a warning icon next to the Editor version of your project, that means you do not have the correct version of Unity installed. You need to install the specific required version of Unity. Select the warning icon for more information.

View of Unity Hub with warning icon due to editor version. 

Important: You should have already completed the Get Started with AR project to configure your mobile device and AR development environment.

Before you begin production on your port, double-check that the Unity project and your mobile device are properly configured for AR development.  

Follow these instructions to set up your new scene and build a test app from this project:

1. Go to File > New Scene. Select the AR scene template from the list, and select Create.

2. Save the new scene in the Scenes folder as “ARPort”.

3. Open the build settings (File > Build Settings…).

4. In the Scenes in Build section, select Add Open Scenes to add your new ARPort scene to the Scenes in Build list.

5. Disable the SampleScene in that same list.

6.  Switch the build platform to iOS or Android, depending on your testing device. This may take a few minutes.

7.  Select  Player Settings at the bottom left corner of the Build Settings window.

Note: If the Project Settings window opens with a different section visible, select Player in the left navigation bar.

8.  Change the Company Name or Product Name to something new and unique. A unique identifier is required to successfully build for iOS devices. 

Important: Your identifier cannot include any spaces or special characters. You can only use upper and lower case letters. If you include any special characters, your app will not build.

The app will load with the rotating cube visible on your device. If the app didn’t build successfully, review the Get Started with AR project for guidance on how to debug it.

The Build Settings window with the ARPort scene added to Scenes In Build. SampleScene has been deselected from the list.

The company name and project name customized in the Player settings.

You’ve confirmed that your Unity project is properly configured to build for the mobile AR platform. Next, you need to get all the assets from the desktop project into this new AR project.

Follow these instructions to export the assets from the desktop project:

2.  In the Project window, right-click the _UFO Game folder, then select Export Package. 

Important: Make sure that you export the _UFO Game folder, and not the entire Assets folder. If you export the entire Assets folder, it will include the project settings which will overwrite the AR project settings.

3.  In the Exporting package window, select Export. 

4.  Choose a location and name for your exported package, then select Save to export the assets. 

When the export process is complete, the new .unitypackage file will appear in your file browser window. 

The Export Package option shown after right-clicking the _UFO Game folder.

The export package options dialogue box with the Export button in the lower right corner highlighted.

Follow these instructions to import the assets from the desktop version into the new Unity AR project:

1.  Open the empty Unity AR project you created earlier.

2.  From the main menu, select Assets > Import Package > Custom Package...

3.  Locate and select the package you just exported from the desktop project. This will open a new Import Unity Package window.

5.  In the Project window, check that all the assets and scenes from the desktop version are now present in your AR project.

The import unity package options dialogue box with the import button in the lower right corner highlighted.

The complete list of scenes in the _UFO Game Scenes folder.

In order for the visual scripts to be linked properly in this new project, Unity needs to generate all of the required nodes and libraries. To prompt Unity to initiate this process, all you need to do is open one of the visual scripts in the project. 

Follow these instructions to resolve the errors related to the imported visual scripts:

1.  From the Project window, go to _UFO Game > Scenes, then open MainScene.

2.  In the Hierarchy, select the UFO GameObject. When the GameObject is selected, you will notice some NullReferenceException errors in the Console. These errors will appear if you select any GameObject that contains visual scripts.

3.  In the Inspector window, locate any of the Script Machine components and select Edit Graph to open the Graph Editor. 

A new progress window should appear, which will generate the required nodes and libraries for Visual Scripting.

4.  Close the Graph Editor, and clear the errors from the Console. 

5.  Select the UFO, Farmer, or Game Manager GameObjects, all of which contain visual scripts. Check that there are no longer errors appearing in the Console. 

NullReferenceException errors appear in the console with the UFO selected in the hierarchy.

 The progress bar that appears as the visual scripting nodes regenerate.

The moment has finally come when you can test the desktop version of the game on your mobile device. But first you have to configure the project’s build settings.

You may remember from the previous Explore the Unity project project tutorial that navigating between the scenes relies on the scenes’ build indices. The build index value for each scene corresponds to the order of the scenes in the Scenes in Build list. For this app to function, the scenes need to be added to the build in the following order: StartScene, MainScene, WinScene, then LoseScene.

Follow these instructions to add the scenes to the build and test the game on your device:

2.  Delete any scenes currently listed in the Scenes in Build section. You can select them and press Delete, or right-click the scene and select Remove Selection.


3.  From the Project window, click and drag StartScene, MainScene, WinScene, and LoseScene into the Scenes in Build section. Make sure they are listed in the correct order. This order is referenced in the visual script graphs, so changing it will result in the incorrect scene loading.

Note: If clicking and dragging is difficult, you can open each scene one at a time, then use the Add Open Scenes button. You can also easily change the order after the scenes have been added by clicking and dragging the scene names to reposition them within the list.

4.  Build and run the game on your device. This first build will take a few minutes. 

The buttons on the Start Screen should all work as expected, and allow you to start the game. However, once you get to the main scene you’ll be stuck with no way to move the UFO or enable the beam. 

A scene already listed in the Scenes In Build section being removed by right clicking and selecting Remove Selection.

 The complete list of scenes in the Scenes In Build section of the Build Settings, in the proper order: StartScene, MainScene, WinScene, LoseScene.

There is currently no AR functionality in the app. The most important scene to implement AR functionality in will be MainScene. Before you actually change any of the user experience, you need to implement an AR camera, which will lay the scene on top of the user's physical environment.

Follow these instructions to implement an AR camera in the main scene:

2.  In the Hierarchy, delete the MainCamera GameObject

3.  In the Hierarchy, right-click and select XR > AR Session Origin. This includes the AR Camera.

4.  In the Hierarchy, right-click and select XR > AR Session.

5.  Build and run the game to test the AR camera.

When the main scene starts, you should be able to see your physical environment as well as the farm, but the farm will be gigantic – and the controls still won’t work.

Even though it doesn’t work yet, it is still very exciting to see the UFO game in AR!

Note: The app may also ask for permission to use the device camera when MainScene opens.  If this happens, be sure to approve access. 

If you want to further develop your skills, explore new concepts, or improve your project, check out some of the optional activities below. Each activity is identified as being either Easy, Medium, or Difficult so you know what level of difficulty to expect.

These activities are entirely optional, so if you’re not interested, no problem — just skip this step. 

We do recommend attempting at least one of them in order to get the most out of this learning experience, however. Good luck!

Easy: Add more notes to your design document

Now that you’ve experienced the app on your mobile device, you have a much clearer picture of how the game will feel on a smaller mobile screen. Take some time to record any additional ideas or concerns that you have identified during this tutorial in your design document.

In the AR Portal project, you added a user interface that displayed the current frames per second (fps) while the app was running on the device. Now that you are overlaying digital content on your device’s camera feed, you should begin considering your app’s performance. It’s important that your app runs at a minimum 50fps for a positive user experience. 

Return to the AR Portal project and export the FPS Overlay UI prefab and the Display FPS script, then import them into this AR port project and incorporate it into MainScene. 

Congratulations! You have successfully begun your AR Port. In the next tutorial, you will begin actually editing and designing the project to create an amazing mobile AR experience.  

Begin the AR port

1. Overview

2. Create a new AR project

3. Create a new scene and test build

4. Export the assets from the desktop version

5. Import the assets into the AR port project

6. Regenerate Visual Scripting library

7. Run the game on your mobile device

8. Add an AR camera to the main scene

9. More things to try

10. Next steps

Complete this tutorial