README.MD

This online book is intended to be for consolidating VR knowledge that has been scattered across discords or random guides lost to the internet. I, Rami-Pastrami, am the owner and main maintainer of this site, though I do get help from others. My hope is that by building this site, we don't lose really cool bits of knowledge, and we make VR easier to get into for everyone!

What can I do in Virtual Reality?

Quite a bit, and it depends on the person what I would recommend.

Gamers

Steam, Meta, and Pico have VR games to play from their catalogue. Generally these are broken up into action / fighting games and sim games (driving, flying). You can also mod a ton of your current 2D games to work in VR, more info here!

Social (Gamers)

One of the biggest things to do in VR is to socialize with others. The most common platform by far is VRChat, which has tons of people, lots of cool worlds, and Unity tooling to make your own worlds / games, and avatars. There are other platforms as well, such as Resonite, though they are much smaller in player count. Still though, social VR is incredible and has changed the lives of many people, including myself!

Developers

There's a LOT of nerds in this hobby. Getting involved will easily put you in contact with them, either via discord or directly in social VR spaces like VRChat. VR / AR itself is a really cool developing space to make games / experiences / tools, and personally I would recommend giving it a go!

Do I need a VR Headset to get involved?

No! I mean of course having one is pretty important to actually do VR stuff, but you can already get involved with the community via discord. Furthermore, applications like VRChat work with mouse / keyboard controls, as well as being available for Android and IOS. Lots of people start this way, and end up getting a headset later one as they want to immerse themselves further.

For information about buying a VR headset for your first time, see here.

What is VR / AR / XR?

VR - Virtual Reality

These are the headsets you think of first, systems which block your vision to fully immerse you in virtual worlds, away from reality. They may have pass through cameras for convenience or tracking, but this is not the focus.

AR - Augmented Reality

These are headsets which primarily focus on projecting virtual objects on top of the real world for you to interact with. These can take the form of enclosed headsets that use cameras to see the outer environment, or "glasses" that are transparent and project the visuals onto lenses for you to see (still early days for this).

XR - eXtended Reality

Essentially a mashup of VR and AR, as many headsets these days can do both, so you will sometimes see this term used instead to be more broad.