Gaia supports a special XR player controller that allows you to quickly explore terrains you made in Gaia using your VR / Augmented Reality headset. This player controller can be an easy entry point to see your work in VR, or can be used as a basis to develop more complex VR/AR rigs.
The XR player controller is based on Unity's XR Interaction toolkit package which contains components that allow you to create usual XR interactions (movement, grabbing objects, etc.) independently of the actual hardware used.
If you want to activate the XR controller, please follow these steps:
1. Make sure your XR hardware works with Unity and your headset can display a basic terrain in an unity scene without Gaia being involved. Depending on your hardware you might need to activate developer mode in your headset, and / or install additional software on your PC. Your hardware manufacturer should provide resources / instructions on how to set up your device for development in unity.
Please Note: The Stereo 3D rendering of XR headsets can be achieved in multi-pass rendering or single-pass rendering. This setting plays a huge role in rendering compatibility. For instance the standard unity terrain will not render in the built-in pipeline when single pass rendering is selected. Please switch to multi-pass rendering for best compatibility if you experience any issues.
2. Install the Plugin for your XR hardware under Edit > Project Settings > XR Plugin Management.
After the setup has finished, you might need to activate additional settings depending on your hardware. You can find more information about setting up the XR Plugin in the Unity Manual.
3. Install the XR Interaction toolkit package from the package manager window. Please note that the package currently is marked a preview package - this means you need to have preview packages activated for display in the package manager in order to find and install it. The method to activate preview packages can be different between the individual Unity Versions:
Displaying preview packages in Unity 2019.3 / 2019.4:
Displaying preview packages in Unity 2020.1:
Displaying preview packages in Unity 2021.3:
4. Activate the XR Support in Gaia from the XR Setup Panel by clicking the button in there:
Please note that you must have the XR Interaction Toolkit installed before pressing this button, otherwise you will see error messages in the unity console. If you did activate the XR support early accidentally, you can still install the package to fix these errors. If you want to to undo the activation you can remove the entry
5. Create and design your Gaia scene as usual from the Gaia Manager window. When setting up the runtime objects, you can now select the XR controller as player controller type:
It is not a problem if you have already set up the runtime objects in your scene, you can just perform the step in the Gaia Manager again to update the runtime objects with the chosen settings. An existing player controller will be replaced with the XR controller then.
6. Start your scene. The project should run in your XR headset and you should two red lines indicating the position of your hands / controller hardware in the scene.
You should be able to navigate the terrain with teleportation movement by pointing at the terrain and pressing the interaction buttons on your XR hardware controllers. This allows you to navigate the terrain using your XR headset.
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