okay first off I am super excited that you're interested in becoming a vr developer because
it is so much fun and you get to learn so many new skills and it's such a cutting edge
technology that it's going to be huge soon in the future very very soon and oh I'm so excited that
you're getting into it what do you need to get into it how much is it going to cost you what
kind of equipment do you need computers do you need all that kind of stuff I'm going to do my
best to break it all down for you so let's get into it first off vr touches so many different
fields you have obviously programming you have art 3d modeling animation all of the you know
normal 3d game development kind of jobs that you would have to do especially if you're going to
just start out learning it you're probably not going to have a big team or any team at all maybe
just a couple friends if you're lucky to help you out you need to learn all of these skills
yourself but don't let me scare you off you don't have to learn them perfectly you don't have to be
amazing at them you just have to you know have the basic concepts of it be able to get you know
70%-80% of the way there and then once you start to touch all of these different areas
you can start to niche down on a very specific one that you like or that you're interested in
that kind of thing but how do you start let's get into some practical information the first thing I
would tell you is to just try it don't even start developing on it try vr get a headset or just use
your phone get google cardboard I think it's like 20 bucks maybe borrow your friend's headset it's
super cool and you just have to have that first vr experience and get into it play some of the games
it's super fun but it's not for everybody it is uh not for people who get motion sick easy
I think it's the greatest experience ever but if you get motion sick easy you may not enjoy it you
might not like the kind of interaction that vr provides and it might not be for you so before
you start developing games for it you need to make sure that you like it okay but what headset
I'm going to list out a bunch and put them on the screen and for all of the things that i mentioned
there's also going to be links down in the description that you can click on and go directly
to the page for current pricing and all that maybe you've tried it and you've borrowed your
friend's headset now you want to get more into it and you want to get your own headset there's
some different options you can choose there's the cheap options which use your phone and it's just
mounted to your head and a like a just a mounting device it's not an actual device it's more of just
a mounting platform and then your phone does all of the actual computing power and all that kind of
stuff these are going to be the google cardboard the google daydream and then also the gear vr
by oculus a middle ground option which is actually I might argue the best option for anyone including
people who want to get really into vr development and make it a career is the oculus quest 2 that
just came out for vr headsets it is super affordable it does not need a computer it's
standalone and it's probably the best tech out there on the market right now and then if you're
looking to go a little more premium and you have a good pc that you can plug into these headsets
might be the option for you there is the oculus rift s which is the one that i use and then there
is the HTC Vive that may be my next vr headset after you get a headset and get a couple games
play around start to like it you're going to want to start to make your own games and
the main thing that you need for that is a game engine there's two huge competitors for this space
right now it is unity which I use and there is unreal engine which I have dabbled in a little
bit and it's actually really good unreal engine is geared more towards very good looking games
like AAA quality looking games the reason I chose unity though is because I'm already proficient in
c sharp and that's the primary language for unity whereas unreal engine uses c plus or
they have a visual scripting language called blueprints which is actually pretty cool and good
for people who aren't super into coding and programming and don't know the actual code it's
super easy to just drag and drop if statements and all these complex functions and whatnot it's
very easy to visualize so if you're not super into the coding side of things I might suggest going
with unreal engine this is a huge topic and I'm gonna make a dedicated video about unity versus
unreal or other game engines just know that this is highly debated and really just pick one you'll
learn it and you'll get good at it eventually you're gonna suck at either one whenever you start
so just pick one and start playing around with it when you get into these game engines you're going
to want to learn the game engine first not vr vr is taking the game engine and game development and
taking it to a whole other level you're going to want to get in learn how to do first person
shooter style games because that's probably the most similar content that vr is some great
resources for that are Brackey's YouTube channel he's absolutely amazing he doesn't put out videos
anymore but the videos that are up there right now are absolutely incredible two other resources for
vr specific tutorials are vellum vallum i don't know how to pronounce his YouTube channel but
it's up on the screen he's a great resource and also vr with Andrew I've found his tutorials to be
very good with the programming side of things and how stuff works and I love his approach to
his tutorials and then also me of course if you uh stick around I will be putting out lots of content
in the future here comes the hard part for me it's the art side of things I can do all the coding
very well I know that's just how my brain works that's what I do professionally I can know how I
want to design something in a game aspect of how I want to achieve a goal and then I can also program
the mechanics very well but the art side of things is very difficult for me if you're an artist and
you're good at that kind of stuff then blender is a very good free option and there's also 3ds max
and there is Maya both of those are from AutoDesk and they cost a decent amount they're professional
3d creation software so they're pretty pricey but blender is amazing there's tons of tutorials out
there about that but if you're not good at art and 3d modeling and hard surface modeling and anything
like that then there are plenty of assets that you can purchase or there's plenty of assets for free
that you can use in your game so you're going to want a character you're going to want sets you're
going to want the outdoors props all there's tons of stuff that you want to put in your game
and modeling it takes forever takes a long time unless so unless you're really passionate about it
I suggest just getting some free assets and then once you start to get good you can start to pay
for some better assets that you can use in games that you actually start to sell there is of course
the asset stores for unity and unreal both of these have a lot of options for these kinds
of assets and there's also some good external sites there is Turbo Squid, Free3d, CG Trader,
and Sketchfab are ones that I've found that have some pretty good quality assets that you can get
or if you just want to go very bare bones and not even use an external software unity has a
software that's built in called pro builder that you can use and it's super easy to just prototype
levels with that and you can do a very very small amount of 3d modeling there just for like
placeholder props the next step is audio and if you're musically inclined you already know
way more than I do audio is my worst thing if you thought I was bad at 3d modeling audio is
just it's not there's nothing there the two places I use for this are free sound and epidemic sound
you can get a lot of good tracks from there and it's easy to find some ambient music sound effects
and just stuff to go into your game for more of a polish effect audio is a thing that really comes
towards the end once you've started to hone in the project and then last but not least
make some projects go ahead and start these are all the tools that you need you need the
game engine you are going to need some 3d assets and you're going to need some audio and once you
have all of those you can start to make some vr games start watching some tutorials follow
some tutorials don't go down the tutorial spiral you'll get stuck there and you're just gonna
be watching tutorials and not learning anything and not getting any better watch a few tutorials
get the basics and then go off and make your own thing go start small but just go ahead and start
watch the bowling devlog that I did where I just completely botched making bowling in vr because
I'm learning and I just thought oh bowling will be easy and it'll be cool but like along the way when
i was doing the game I actually learned like oh okay this is another thing that goes into making
a vr game that I didn't think about at first so it's things like that that'll come up
when you're building a project on your own not following a tutorial where you have to use your
brain and think oh well how do I fit this piece together or how do I accomplish this thing that
I wanted to do and you'll go off and look at other tutorials to do that specific thing and
your understanding of vr game development will happen a whole lot faster than if you were just
following tutorial after tutorial after tutorial that's my advice just go ahead and start break
things small projects just get some stuff under your belt and then you can start to uh release
projects and publish it I've found that filming helps me a ton with learning because I have to
learn it myself first and then I have to write a script about it and then I usually will find that
when I'm filming it I don't actually understand it so I have to go back and relearn it and it really
cements the understanding that I have so that's just another tool that I use to help me learn this
kind of stuff so let me know what helps you please subscribe if you're into these kinds of tutorials
or talks hang out in the comments section we have a super super good comment section throw your
ideas out there ask questions I'm always about and i will answer every single comment that you post
and be there for any questions that you have so reach out and I'll see you in the next one