Installation

Pre-Setup

You will have to perform a couple of simple steps before getting started with arc-vr:

For your arc-vr project to run smoothly, make sure that you're using Unity 2020.3.21f

In addition, I highly recommend setting your fixed timestep to be 90Hz (standard refresh rate of most HMDs). To do this, head on over to Edit > Project Settings and under Time > Fixed Timestep set it to 0.01111111.

No further steps are required to make your project arc-vr compatible. However, if you are planning on using SteamVR (HTC Vive or Valve Index) you will have to make Unity's XR Plug-in Manager compatible with the SteamVR input system (see next step).

SteamVR/HTC Vive Compatibility

Arc-vr uses Unity's XR Plug-in Manager as a general API. Unfortunately, the XR Manager does not include a default plug-in for the HTC Vive or Valve Index. If you plan on using either of these (or using SteamVR in general), you'll need to perform a couple of extra steps before everything is in place.

You can try using Valve's own OpenVR plugin, but I recommend to use Khronos' OpenXR instead, as it supports a wider range of devices and generally has more features. The following steps will describe how to set up a project intended for the HTC Vive with OpenXR:

Open Windows > Package Manager. Display all packages from the 'Unity Registry', then find and select 'OpenXR Plugin'. Click 'Install'.
Open the Edit > Project Settings, and select XR Plug-in Management. Enable the 'OpenXR' option.
Under 'XR Plug-in Management' you should now be able to select 'OpenXR'.
Select 'OpenXR > Features' and tick 'HTC Vive Controller Profile' to enable compatibility with HTC Vive Controllers.
The OpenXR Plugin will likely be displayed with a red exclamation mark. Click on it to open the OpenXR Project Validation Window. Here, OpenXR will ask you to change a few project settings. You can click 'Fix All' or manually change these one-by-one.

Note: If these steps are out of date or you're having trouble with OpenXR, refer to their official 'Getting Started' documentation.

Note: If your project uses custom shaders that are not single-pass compatible, you will have to set 'Render Mode' to 'Multi-Pass'. Note that this will dramatically reduce performance, so only do this if you know that you have to. All shaders included in arc-vr are compatible with single-pass instanced rendering.

Installing arc-vr packages

Your first step should be to choose which arc-vr packages you require for your project. Look at the overview for a feature-list.

Once you've chosen which packages you need, head over to the github release tab and download the respective .tgz files.

Under Windows > Package Manager click the plus sign and select 'Add package from tarball'. Browse to the downloaded '.tgz' file and select it.

Note: All arc-vr packages have arc-vr-core as a dependency. Install arc-vr-core first.

Note: At the moment arc-vr-ui uses the old Unity InputSystem, while OpenXR uses the new one. If you are using the ui-package, you will have to set Project Settings > Player > Active Input Handling to "Both", for it to work as intended. There are plans to migrate arc-vr-ui to the new InputSystem in the near future.