Summary

In this chapter, we looked at what VR is and some of the ways it can be used in the real world. We talked quite a bit about immersion and presence. Let's recap for a moment here.

Presence, we said, is a physiological sensation of being in a place, and is really the point of VR. We create VR to create presence. Immersion is the means by which presence is brought about, and involves taking over the user's senses completely enough that they can begin to believe the virtual world around them.

We discussed a number of currently-held best practices for creating good VR. The most important of these was the need to keep latency as low as possible and the need to be very careful of how you move the user's viewpoint. Simulator sickness is largely caused by conflicts between a visual sense of motion and the lack of motion felt by the inner ear. Breaking up movement and being aware of the types of movement most likely to trigger simulator sickness are important for keeping your users comfortable in your experience. We also talked about safety—the need to be conscious of the kinds of movement you're asking your users to perform, about designing to avoid eyestrain, and the need to be careful about triggering photosensitive seizures.

Finally, we outlined a process for planning a VR project and iterating on its design to make the best project you can and ensure that it succeeds at what you intended it to do.

In the next chapter, we're going to dive in and start getting our hands dirty with the Unreal Engine, and from here on out, the rest of this book will be hands-on. We hope that the ideas outlined in this chapter will stay with you as you develop, and help you to succeed, not just in making running VR applications, but in making them well.

With that out of the way, let's get to work.