Welcome to AR Development 

Configure your AR development environment

Deploy your project to iOS or Android

Welcome to AR Development Quiz

Welcome to AR Development

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.

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

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

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!

Develop AR experiences that use trackable targets in the environment

Create basic application interactions with Visual Scripting

Absolute Beginner Visual Scripting

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.

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

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.

Beginner Mobile Optimization

 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

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.

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

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Overview

What will you do in the AR Development pathway?

Who is this learning experience for?

What is AR?

The AR app landscape

AR system requirements

Computer system requirements

Next steps

Zu-UnityLearn

Unite Berlin - AR Keynote Reel

0.3.8_Spinning-cube-test (5).mp4

1A4DifficultMoreToTry (5).mp4

FinishedAppVideo (2).mp4

2A-brighton-final (1) (2).mp4

ar-game-finalized.mp4

VIDEO 1 - What is it like to work in AR Development (1)_1_1.mp4

VIDEO 4  - What_s special about AR, as a medium_1.mp4

VIDEO 6 - How do you keep up with this changing technology (1)_1.mp4

vertical-portal-fully-working.mp4

Developing AR applications is fun and exciting, but it is also a way to expand your portfolio and get your foot in the door of the XR industry.

In this tutorial, you'll learn about the field of AR, what to expect in this learning experience, and what you'll need to get started.  

Games

Get Started with AR (New)

Welcome to the world of AR development!  

Before you begin your journey in AR development with Unity, it will be helpful to hear from people who are further along in their journeys.

In the video below, a few established creators discuss what it’s like to work in the world of AR.

If you're going through this tutorial as the first step in the AR Development pathway, congratulations! You have a lot of exciting AR experiences ahead of you. Below is an overview of what you’ll be doing in this pathway. 

In this first mission, you'll build your first AR app and install it on your mobile device to make sure everything is working properly. You're on this mission right now.

In this mission, you'll learn to create your own AR face filter apps. First, you’ll make a simple filter that applies materials and 3D models to the user’s face. 

Then, you’ll create a more interactive app that allows the user to select, customize, and visualize different pairs of glasses. 

In this mission, you'll create AR apps that respond to the user’s physical environment. First you’ll make a marker-based app; the app will recognize a specific image and project an interactive 3D model on top of it. 

Then you’ll make an app that detects flat surfaces and allows the user to spawn a portal on their desk, floor, or wall. 

In this final mission, you’ll put your AR experience design skills to the test. You'll take an existing desktop game about aliens abducting sheep and adapt it for mobile AR. 

Caption: UFO icon created by Freepik - FlatIcon | flaticon.com/authors/freepik

This content is designed for anyone who wants to create mobile AR experiences with Unity. More specifically, it was designed with the following learners in mind:

People who have created AR filters with other programs but want to expand their current AR skillset and develop more customized AR experiences with Unity.

People who have already created other types of non-AR Unity experiences but are interested in developing for AR.

People who enjoy using AR apps and want to create their own.

This course does assume a basic level of Unity knowledge, such as navigating the Editor and 3D space. If you’re not at all familiar with Unity, we recommend you check out the Unity Essentials pathway first. Familiarity with Visual Scripting is not required, but would be helpful.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with AR; you may have even developed your own AR apps already. But just in case, here’s a simple definition: augmented reality (AR) overlays digitally created content onto the user’s real-world environment. 

To help visualize this, check out some of the AR applications made with Unity:

AR is part of the broader category of extended reality (XR), an umbrella term that encompasses AR, VR (virtual reality), and MR (mixed reality): 

VR replaces the user’s entire visual field with a virtual one. This is distinct from AR, where you can still see your surroundings but with virtual content on top. Check out some of these examples of VR projects made with Unity.

MR is the broadest term of the three, since it can include elements of AR and VR. It is most helpful to think about AR, MR, and VR along a reality-virtuality continuum, with the real physical environment on one end, and completely virtual environments on the other end. 

In this framework, VR is closer to the virtuality end of the spectrum, AR is closer to the reality end of the spectrum, and MR would include most of the spectrum between the two.

You’ve now learned about what AR is, but what makes it so special? In the video below, a few established creators discuss what separates AR from other forms of digital media.

A diagram depicting the reality-virtuality continuum. There is a horizontal line with arrows on either end. “Real environment” is on the left end and “Virtual Environment” is on the right end.

Before you begin developing new experiences, you should familiarize yourself with the range of AR experiences that are already out there. Awareness of existing AR applications will give you helpful context for developing something unique yourself.

Below is a list of AR experiences you can try across different categories. Try to explore one or more from each category.

These apps recognize human faces and overlay digital content on top of specific facial features:

Social media with filters (Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok)

Fun face filters (FaceLab iOS | A​​ndroid, Banuba iOS | Android)

Makeup and hair filters (YouCam Makeup iOS | Android)

These apps recognize a particular image, pattern, or QR code, then overlay content on top of that image:

Provide additional information (business cards, medical demos)

Unlike marker-based AR, markerless AR does not require any particular image in order to orient and hold content appropriately in the user’s 3D environment:

Utility (Google Translate AR demo | iOS | Android)

Unlike any of the above, these apps take into consideration your GPS location, often combined with scanning the environment, to overlay content in the scene:

Tourism (World Around Me demo | iOS | Android)

Education (Stellarium demo | iOS | Android) 

Entertainment (Pokemon Go demo | iOS | Android)

With the examples above in mind, take a moment to consider the following questions:

What are some recurring features in these apps?

For what types of experiences is AR the most appropriate solution?

What are the use cases (if any) where AR would not work at all? If not, why?

What are the affordances and limitations of AR as a medium?

In the video below, a few experienced AR creators discuss how they keep up with the constantly changing AR landscape.

There is a wide range of hardware that you can use to experience and develop AR. In this course, you'll focus on handheld AR, where a mobile device’s camera and screen are used to experience AR. 

Even though this learning experience focuses on handheld AR, there is a very important distinction between handheld AR and head-mounted AR that you should understand.

With head-mounted AR, the user actually wears a device on their head and experiences AR through lenses covering their eyes. 

Many companies offer head-mounted AR devices, each with its own distinct technology. Here are a few prominent head-mounted AR devices: 

These devices are currently prohibitively expensive for most people and are therefore more targeted towards businesses rather than individual users. 

You'll not be learning to develop for head-mounted devices in this learning experience.

With handheld AR, users hold their own handheld device (usually a mobile phone) in their hands, point the camera at something, and view the AR content on the device’s screen. 

Nearly all handheld devices run on either Google’s Android operating system or Apple’s iOS operating system. In the United States, about 50% of the population has Android devices and 50% has iOS devices. Worldwide, the split is very different, with closer to 85% using Android and only 15% using iOS. Developing apps for either of these platforms is easy with Unity, but the process for configuring for and deploying to the devices is different.

For these tutorials, you'll need one of the following devices with a cable allowing you to connect it to your computer: 

An iPhone X or later running iOS 11.0 or later (here’s the process to confirm your iOS version).

An Android device running Android 7.0 Nougat or later (here’s the process to confirm your Android version).

Hand holding a phone pointed at a side table. The phone’s display superimposes an object that is not actually on the table.

Just as most phones run on either iOS or Android, most people’s computers run on either MacOS or Windows. 

If your computer runs MacOS (any Mac computer), then you can deploy apps to both Android and iOS devices. However, if your computer runs Windows (most non-Mac computers), you can only deploy apps to Android devices. You cannot deploy apps to iOS devices with a Windows computer because the process requires a program called XCode, which is only compatible with MacOS. 

Important: If you only have access to a computer running Windows and a mobile device running iOS, you'll not be able to test your AR projects. Any other combination will work.

Diagram showing system requirements for deploying AR applications from different operating systems. iOS and Android applications can be made with the Mac operating system. Only Android applications can be made with the Windows operating system.

You now have a better understanding of the world of AR and what to expect in the rest of this learning experience. In the next tutorial, you'll prepare for AR development by downloading all the required software and opening a new Unity project.

Welcome to AR Development

1. Overview

2. What will you do in the AR Development pathway?

3. Who is this learning experience for?

4. What is AR?

5. The AR app landscape

6. AR system requirements

7. Computer system requirements

8. Next steps

Complete this tutorial