About this course: This course will begin your journey to creating Virtual Reality experiences. A Virtual Reality experience is a new world that you step into and are entirely immersed in. Creating a VR experience means creating that world and all the objects in it. In this course you will learn the basics of 3D graphics: how we create objects and how to lay them out to create an environment. You will learn techniques like materials and texturing that make your objects appear realistic. You will also learn about audio techniques to ensure that your experiences sound great as well as looking great. In all of these topics we will pay attention to the particular requirements of Virtual Reality, including pitfalls and performance issues: making sure your environment runs fast enough in VR. You will learn all of this using the professional game and VR engine, Unity3D. Unity is one of the most used game engine and is a relatively easy, but fully featured, introduction to 3D development. The course will culminate in a project in which you will create your own VR scene. VR development is something you can only learn by doing it yourself, so working on your project will be the best way to learn.
Who is this class for: This class is for people who are interesting in become Virtual Reality Developers. You don't need any particular experience of development, but some experience of digital creative work (e.g. photoshop, illustrator, digital music) will be helpful. If you are completely new to VR you might want to first follow our course "Introduction to Virtual Reality", which covers the basic concepts. We don't assume you have any experience of work in 3D graphics or unity. If you already have some experience, then some of the topics will be familiar to you, but we will also cover some VR specific aspects.
Taught by: Dr Sylvia Xueni Pan, Lecturer, Department of Computing
Goldsmiths, University of London
Taught by: Dr Marco Gillies, Senior Lecturer
Computing Department, Goldsmiths, University of London
| Basic Info | Course 2 of 5 in the Virtual Reality Specialization |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Commitment | 4 weeks of study, 3-5 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| Hardware Req | You will need a virtual reality device, e.g. a smartphone VR device, Oculus Rift or HTC VIVE |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
- Discussion Prompt: Content Creation in VR
- Practice Quiz: Reflection on Your Skills for VR Work
- Reading: Course Blog
- Video: What are 3D Graphics?
- Discussion Prompt: Your Favourite VR Environment
- Video: Introduction to Integrated Development Environments (IDE)
- Video: Why Use A-Frame?
- Reading: Learning To Use A-Frame
- Video: Open VR with Lance Putman
- Video: Unreal Engine
- Video: Introduction to Unity
- Reading: Learning Unity
- Practice Quiz: Choosing Game Engines
- Discussion Prompt: Which Engine Will You Use?
- Reading: Setting Up Unity
- Discussion Prompt: How Was Setting Up Unity?
- Video: 3D Space
- Video: Unity User Interface
- Video: Navigating in Unity
- Video: Objects and Meshes
- Video: Creating Objects in Unity | Primitives
- Reading: Unity Basics
- Video: Creating 3D Assets
- Video: The Asset Store
- Video: Importing Assets From Unity and Other Places
- Reading: Importing Assets
- Discussion Prompt: Share Your Work
- Video: VR Environment Project
- Reading: VR Project Brief
- Practice Quiz: Planning your project
- Video: Transforms
- Video: Compound Objects
- Video: Positioning, Scaling, and Transforming Primitives in Unity
- Video: Cameras in VR
- Reading: Transforms and Cameras
- Video: Unity VR Mode | Setting Up Cameras | Standard and VR
- Reading: Setting up VR mode
- Discussion Prompt: Setting up Unity for VR
- Video: Keyframe Animation
- Video: Keyframe Animation in Unity
- Reading: Unity Animation
- Video: Introduction to Materials
- Video: Lights in VR
- Video: Lights in Unity
- Video: Materials
- Video: Materials in Unity
- Video: Textures
- Video: Textures in Unity
- Reading: Graphics in Unity
- Video: Working on Your Project
- Video: What is Sound?
- Video: How Do Humans Perceive Sound?
- Video: What is Digital Audio?
- Video: How is Sound Useful?
- Discussion Prompt: Examples of the Use of Sound
- Video: How Do We Use Sound in VR?
- Video: General Guidance for Using Sound
- Video: How Do We Use Filters in VR?
- Discussion Prompt: Using Audio in your Project
- Video: Audio Formats, Sources and Listeners in Unity
- Video: Audio Effects in Unity
- Video: Unity Audio Clips and Files
- Video: Audio Mixers in Unity
- Video: Audio in Unity | Additional Resources
- Reading: Learning More About Audio in Unity
- Reading: Now It's Your Turn!
- Video: Summary
- Video: Polygons to Pixels
- Video: Motion to Photon
- Video: Global Illumination
- Reading: Unity Shaders
- Practice Quiz: What Works in VR?
- Video: Why Do We Need Different Graphics Techniques for VR?
- Reading: Techniques for Optimising a VR Experience
- Practice Quiz: How is VR Content Creation Different?
- Discussion Prompt: How is VR Content Creation Different?
- Video: Further Learning
- Reading: Further Learning in Unity
- Video: Unity Resources
- Video: Unity Examples
- Discussion Prompt: Share a Useful Resource
- Video: Learning VR Content Creation
- Video: Summary| Creating VR Worlds
- Video: Project Advice
- Reading: Final Project Requirements
- Reading: Thank you
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| Purchase Course | |
|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Available |
| Receive a final grade | Available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Available |
The course comprehensively covered the intended topic and gave me the skills I was expecting of it. The only reason I did not give it 5/5 stars was that much of the material was presented purely verbally with no visual examples. This was luckily not true of the unity workflows, which were easy to follow along with.
Great review. Good introduction to Unity. However, there did seem to be a reliance on a lot of outside materials at times.
Thanks for this well explained course.
It covers many critical aspects of 3D VR environments.
Lovely course, thank you