This will probably be the first of a few posts I do about the use of the VRTK plugin with interactive development within Unity. The Virtual Reality Tool Kit (VRTK) by Extend Reality Ltd. is a plugin used to basically unify the disparate control schemes of the various VR software development kits (SDKs). Due to various VR setups having different input methods, it can be hard to switch between the various setups within your code as you have to adjust all your inputs accordingly. VRTK takes the inputs from all VR solutions and creates it’s own input method from them. All that you theoretically need to do with VRTK is simply change the target device and SDK within VRTK before building out your project, rather than going in and changing the inputs for all your scripts. I say theoretically cause this plugin can be rather confusing and unruly at times. For example, when just switching from Oculus Rift S to Oculus Quest, two systems that actually HAVE the same controllers, I had some issues finding the proper setup after switching to Android publishing, with the answer I eventually found being oddly enough setting VRTK to the “GearVR” setting which is a far different remote than the one used by Quest.
That said, now that I have a better idea of the implementation and setup, things are going much smoother. So here’s what I’ve figured out so far while working on my interactive exploration of the WRXR rocket from a previous post.