Hardware

The first significant characteristic of virtual reality is that to experience it you need special equipment. The range of the available hardware products ranges from Oculus Rift available at $399 to Google Cardboard that you can get for $7-$15.

The more expensive, sophisticated headsets connect to your PC and run extremely rich, fully immersive VR applications, while simple models work with applications downloaded to a smartphone and offering more basic experiences.

Movement in the VR

One of the key features of virtual reality applications is the movement within the virtual space. A fully immersive app should allow the user to move freely in the virtual world.

There are two main approaches to support movement in the VR – passive movement and active one.

With passive movement, the user makes movements and other actions via a controller by using a joystick or a similar device. In this case, the user will “see” the movement with their eyes, while the body remains still.

With such technology, a certain “disagreement” between the vision and the vestibular system remains, thus the experience will not be 100% immersive.

Active movement, however, involves the actual movement in the space. The user wearing a headset can walk, jump, squat, turn – and all these movements will be recreated in the virtual reality generating utterly realistic sensations.

Building VR with active movement requires some complex hardware, as in addition to the headset, the application also requires a set of sensors that are placed in the space where the VR will be running.

For example, Oculus Rift offers sensors that can be used together with the headset to turn your room into a true VR space.

The most basic VR applications, such as virtual tours, involve very little active interaction with the virtual space. The user simply turns their head around and moves by the preset markers.

It is what you will often find in the mobile applications viewable through simple devices, like Google Cardboard.

VR building technologies

In addition to the special hardware, the VR developers should also create the applications that are viewed through it.

In other words, they need to make that realistic three-dimensional world that the users will see when they put on the headset.

With VR, developers can recreate an actual place, so that you can walk through the Amazon rainforest without leaving your room. Or, they can build a totally imagined world of science fiction or fantasy with strange landscapes and creatures.

There is a number of special platforms, which the developers use to create virtual reality. In most cases, the choice of the hardware determines the platform that should be used.

For example, if you intend your VR app to run via the Oculus Rift, you should write the application in Unity3D or Unreal Engine. At the same time, Unreal Engine does not support VR for Xbox One. Thus, in such cases, you are left with Unity3D only.

Generally, Unity3D is the most powerful of all VR building tools, as it allows creating apps for all kinds of platforms, such as Google VR, Facebook Gameroom and a lot more.