Hello, VR World! How To Get Your First Unity Cube Running On Meta Quest (Part 4)

Welcome back to part 4 of the VR series! Four articles in, and we have yet to put a single object in front of anyone's eyeballs. I had some issues setting this up myself, but eventually I was able to figure it out. If you've missed any of the previous parts, click here.

Alright, this is the Unity Meta Quest Hello World article. We're going to get one cube, spinning slowly, into your headset. That's it. No gameplay, no hands, no fancy shaders (yet).

Your Unity Game Stutters Because You Keep Destroying Bullets: Object Pooling Explained

Welcome to another blog post about the trick that stops your game from stuttering every time the player holds down the fire button: object pooling in Unity. If you've ever built a shooter, a bullet hell, or anything that spawns lots of short-lived objects, you've probably felt it. Everything runs smoothly, and then the action heats up and the frame rate starts hiccuping.

Let's see what it is and how we can implement it to improve your frame rate!

The Meta XR SDK Alphabet Soup Explained: Which Packages Do You Actually Need? (Part 3)

Welcome back to part 3 of the VR series! If you've missed the other articles click here. This one took me a little while due to its complexity (and boringness - but it's all stuff we need to know in order to make our first game in Meta Quest VR!). 

Alright, so your environment should be all set up, your headset is in Developer Mode, and ADB can finally see your Quest. Time for the fun part, right? Well...

Why Your Unity Object Moves The Wrong Way: Transform, Rotation, And Scale Decoded

Welcome to Munnica, where I'm doing a series for beginner Unity developers! If you have missed my previous posts, check them here. 

This blog post is about the one component EVERY GameObject has, and the one you'll touch more than any other: the Transform in Unity. If you've ever told an object to move forward and watched it sail off sideways, or tried to set just the X position and been yelled at by the compiler, this one's for you. Understanding exactly what the transform is and how it behaves can really help you in the beginning of your Unity career.

Let's dive in!

Change It Once, Fix It Everywhere: The Unity Prefab (And Variant) Trick Every Beginner Needs.

Welcome everyone! This time we're going to talk about the Unity feature that saves you from the worst kind of busywork: prefabs in Unity. Understanding how they work can save you a lot of time! There are some rules to prefabs though (what they can and can't do). For instance, prefabs can't reference scene objects. And there's more. That's what we're going to elaborate on.

Let's dive in!

Your Code Comments Are More Important Than You Think: When To Write Them And When To Delete Them

Welcome everyone to another blog post about the only part of your code the computer completely ignores: comments in C#. They're free, they're easy, and believe it or not, they're still one of the most misused tools in a beginner's toolbox. Some devs comment every single line, others never write one at all, and both groups end up equally confused six months later. I was not even going to write an article about it until I realized the importance of comments, and I wish I knew about it when I started out coding.

Let's untangle this!

Naming Conventions Decoded: How To Name Things (And Why)

Welcome to another blog post about most likely the least exciting topic in programming that will quietly save you the most time: naming conventions in C#. You'll notice that over time, you'll adhere to your own naming convention; however, there is a general guideline for naming variables, etc. Also, naming is how past you leaves notes for future you, so let's make those notes readable!! 

Let's dive in!

Unity Build For Quest? Step By Step Guide To Set Up Your VR Dev Environment The Right Way (Part 2)

Welcome back to the VR series! In Part 1 we talked about whether Quest development is for you. Now it's time to find out whether your computer, your headset, and Unity are on speaking terms!

This is the Unity Meta Quest setup article, and I'll be honest with you: it's not glamorous. Nobody ever finished a VR game and said "The best part was configuring Android modules." (Well, maybe some - who knows) Skip a step here, and you'll spend an evening staring at a build error that has nothing to do with your actual game. Been there. Don't recommend it. It's frustrating as hell!

So let's do this once, do it right, and never think about it again.

Deciphering Your Unity Console: The Anatomy Of An Error Message

I know Mondays can be rough - but also a great day to talk about the skill that separates "it's broken, and I have no idea why" from "found it, fixed it, moving on": debugging. Every Unity dev has stared at a wall of red text in the Console and felt their stomach drop. Here's the secret, though. That red text is usually telling you exactly what's wrong; you just need to know how to read Unity error messages. 

Let's figure out some errors!

Your Unity GameObject Is Basically An Empty Box: Here’s What Actually Runs Your Game

Welcome everyone to another blog post about the one idea that makes everything else in Unity click: GameObjects vs components in Unity. If you've ever wondered why a cube with nothing on it just sits there, or why every tutorial says "just add a component" like it's the most obvious thing in the world, this one's for you. 

Let's try to figure this one out.