How to Become a Unity Developer for AR and VR

From TechRepublic:

We are likely still five to ten years away from seeing compelling VR content, according to Todd Richmond, IEEE fellow and director of the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Southern California, noting that Mark Zuckerberg recently said the same. “It’s a new medium, and we don’t have a language for VR like we do for film or mobile,” he said. “But I’m seeing a definite increase in demand.”

VR content development is still difficult, and requires several different tools, Richmond said. For example, many people do 3D modeling in Maya, and write custom functions in the programming language C#. “It’s a mix of artistic and game development,” Richmond said. “VR right now feels like an offshoot of game development from a technical expertise standpoint, but VR capabilities introduce a whole new set of parameters for which we don’t have a language,” particularly for the human experience side.

At USC, before students start an AR or VR project in Unity, Richmond advises them to have a goal in mind, and to prototype their idea on paper. Developers should ask themselves who the user is, why they are there, what they can do, and where they need to look to move through the experience. Then, download the free platform and start developing in it.