Unfortunately I realize that as I’m going through this course, I realize that Unreal Engine 4 doesn’t have any official VR support so you are basically starting from scratch.
In the latest version of Unreal Engine 5 (as of this writing is 5.0.3), there is a VR game template which already has VR components setup such as teleportation and grabbing objects. So I really hoping in the future, this is an updated course so we can skip a lot of the now pre-made stuff and get into VR quicker and easier.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for your feedback.
Unreal Engine 4 does have VR Support and the VR Template in 4.27 is the same template as v5, given 5 was based on 4.27 . In fact it was developed in 4.27, released Aug '21 and showcased before the release of early access version of UE5 during their Thursday livecasts ( (5) Exploring the OpenXR VR Template | Inside Unreal - YouTube)
There was a template in earlier versions too and I’ve included a screenshot is from 4.25 - the oldest version I have installed but I do know it was supported a good while before that (Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 4.21, Oculus and Steam predates this)
The difference is the latest template uses OpenXR so you had to previously work with Steam and Oculus plugins.
Now, there is a lot of useful features in the template such as grabbing - if you want to base everything off that then you probably won’t find this course useful at all.
The course was created when the new template didn’t exist but would it change the course approach? Maybe a little. I imagine instead of focusing on SteamVR it would use OpenXR instead but still, don’t you want to know how to create your own controllers, get grip and climbing working, teleport even? The template doesn’t show you that and most changes you do will be blueprint and not C++.
The question needs to be asked why not do it yourself over the template? Simply put that using a template does get you started quickly but as soon as you need to customise the classes to do what you need to do, you’re going to have to dig into masses of code and not understand what it does. So, This course shows you how to do climbing, teleporting and so on by yourself. This is invaluable and if you then go on to use the template, it is still useful.
I know if I was working on a VR project right now, I would not use the template. It enables rapid prototyping but limits freedom to do what I want to do.
So, a long way to answering your concerns but is this course relevant - absolutely. It teaches many key theoretical pieces of information that apply to the template as well - the theory doesn’t change. Also, it shows you how to do things yourself. This is important in creating your own products/games.
