what to do if you want to get into virtual reality

How to Get a Job in VR

I've seen a couple articles in the past month on finding work in the VR industry, and every bit I read them I've realized a few things:

1. They don't provide action items you tin can start on immediately to learn relevant skills, nor do they recommend any resource for people new to 3D software projects.
2. They never mention incredible local meetups, community groups, or grassroots organizations where people tin can larn more.
3. Their advice boils down to already existence a talented designer or developer, or but quitting your mean solar day task and forming your own VR startup.

But what if you don't want to institute a VR visitor? What if you lot just desire to make a career transition out of your current field, or yous just graduated from college but don't accept work feel yet, or y'all experience like you have an "irrelevant" background and might not be valuable in VR considering of that?

I'm going to offer some insight into the kinds of skills yous volition demand to build, how your local VR community can help you go started, and what job openings are in the field right now. Everything below is communication that I requite to people who ask me how to get started in VR or AR — and even though I will be speaking more directly to the VR side of the industry because that's where most of my experience is, everything below is also applicable to AR.

Chore Simulator, a VR game from Owlchemy Labs

Build your skills

What skills you should learn depends on what area you would like to focus on. If you desire to make your own VR experiences from scratch, you'll demand to know a piffling bit of everything beneath, or if you already know which role you want to have, feel gratuitous to skip downwards to that section.

Gaining the noesis you demand to do work in VR and so demonstrating your skills with modest self-driven projects is the best way to prove a potential employer what you're capable of doing. There's no demand to work for anyone else for free — you lot tin can tailor your own learning experiences to the projects you desire to piece of work on. Hands-on experience edifice VR prototypes on your ain (or with a grouping of people) might exist the most fourth dimension-consuming approach, but correct at present it is also the fastest mode for anyone in any bailiwick to get hired.

Engineering

Your ability to build a prototype in VR will come up from a working knowledge of a 3D engine similar Unity or Unreal. If you lot don't take any feel with either of those, a background in C# or C++ will exist key. If yous come from a 2D medium like mobile or web, learning to "remember in 3D" and plan for spatial environments is a skill that can take some time to build. Prototyping in VR benefits from having a "tinker & experiment" mindset, as well every bit reading upward on all-time practices.

Pattern

Your understanding of topics similar embodied cognition, spatial processing, cerebral load, proprioception, human being factors and ergonomics will all be essential. VR user experience design in particular has a wealth of resources available online. Since bodies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and abilities, you will want to read up on some of the VR accessibility resources out in that location. You can too sentinel Google's VR experiments with UX, UI, and multiplayer interactions. Making good pattern decisions in VR will come from experience, being familiar with what other people have already tried, and critically evaluating whether those approaches piece of work.

Fine art

You will benefit from knowing how to use a 3D modeling/blitheness tool (eastward.g. Blender, which is free, or 3DS Max), every bit well as understand how to import 3D assets into an engine similar Unity or Unreal. Sites like Turbo Squid have tons of free pre-made avails that you tin can download and modify. In that location are also online courses available already that tin walk you through the asset import pipeline from start to end. Some audacious VR artists have begun creating VR-native 3D art using tools like Tilt Brush, which they export into Zbrush, 3DS Max, etc and and so rig & breathing equally y'all would a traditional 3D model.

Sound/Music

Audio is essential to VR experiences. You volition want to read upwardly about 3D audio spatialization and the physics of sound, likewise equally think about how object materials or the structure of a virtual 3D environment impact the sound feel. If you're particularly interested, you tin can also explore sound middleware like Wwise or FMOD and try implementing those into your VR projects, likewise as the costless Oculus Audio SDK.

Characters, narrative design and writing

One of the least-explored areas of VR, virtual spaces tin can often require characters as a means of entertainment or guidance, and information technology'south up to narrative designers to determine who those characters are and how they interact with people. You will want to pay shut attending to how torso language and "stage presence" directs the attention of your audience, every bit well equally middle contact and the use of sound cues. There are also some very absurd VR storytelling apps that have been appear similar the Limitless Creative VR Environment and Mindshow that enable y'all to act out your own storylines natively within VR.

Web VR

Y'all can also utilise some of your traditional web skills to brand VR applications, which take advantage of the front-end and dorsum-end tech many of us are already familiar with.

Try playing around with A-Frame, which uses regular HTML and an entity-component-organisation to create VR experiences compatible with several popular VR headsets. Web VR requires you to think critically about how websites could benefit uniquely from existence in VR, and expands our understanding of what a good 2D web user feel could exist.

Effort everything!

You'll desire to become into a VR headset and try new experiences out as often as possible. Think about how much you use web browsers, or play video game: your feel with technology has shaped your sympathise of what it's capable, and VR is no different.

Accept advantage of every chance y'all get to try out VR demos. Going out to local events where you can experience a lot of unlike types of content will help you larn what works and doesn't work. Wait for inspiration in existing VR experiences from other creators.

It will serve y'all well to have an understanding that everything yous think y'all know about interfaces is wrong, and that you will need to iterate heavily. The more than exposure to VR content you get, the faster you will build an understanding of how VR environments and interfaces piece of work together to create a seamless immersive feel.

Pep talk: This sounds like a lot of work because it is

I am not a programmer, simply I did come into VR with a huge do good from having worked on games using 3D engines earlier. If you lot don't have that kind of experience, the entire cosmos process in VR can feel daunting. It'due south a new world with weird rules, every prototyping tool requires you to know some programming, and the hardware you need is expensive. And unfortunately, there are very few academic programs out there teaching the skills you'll need.

Some of you might feel you don't take the "right" degree or background to practice meaningful work in VR. I call back it's hard to have a truly useless background when it comes to working in engineering, and even more so for VR. My undergrad caste is in Linguistics, and I work with a CTO who has a caste in Psychology. The benefits of beingness an interdisciplinary creator, specially from the humanities, will help you bring some much-needed empathy and useful perspective into VR.

It's easiest for me to speak from my experiences equally a designer. The majority of my piece of work is acting equally a communicator using the language of UX, I create interactions and wireframes in society to convey my ideas. Merely how do you mockup a virtual reality interface if you don't know the first damn thing near VR? Unfortunately, VR doesn't accept whatsoever prototyping tools fabricated specifically for designers withal. Simply what nosotros do have is Unity, and so that'south where my skill focus is right at present.

And remember, it's not merely y'all who is new to this! The same learning curve goes for web developers, or mobile app designers, or anyone else coming from second interfaces. Game developers who are already familiar with 3D engines (and who may already been working in Unity) volition have a much easier time, which is why a lot of them are able to go jobs in VR correct now.

Learn Unity

VR is a 3D medium, which means it uses 3D engines. Unity is a 3D engine that will allow you lot to prototype for VR. It is the easiest entry point we have correct now, so my proposition is to acquire Unity. Information technology is the most widely used 3D engine available, there are millions of people effectually the world using it, and it'south adequately easy to get it working with VR software/hardware.

You lot tin can think of picking up Unity like learning Photoshop: the interface is dense, information technology will exist hard and scary at first, merely there are a ton of resource online to help you larn, and the payoff is priceless. (And yes, you lot will demand to acquire some programming — right now, anyone who wants to prototype a VR experience will need to write some code.)

Here are the starting time few steps you tin can take to start with Unity from scratch:

1. First learning the nuts of Unity using this tutorial that Liv Erickson wrote. Once you lot have Unity installed and become through some of these not-VR nuts, you will exist equipped with knowledge y'all need to showtime making experiences for virtual reality.
2. Download and open the Kitten VR project in Unity. This project (as well made by Liv Erickson) is a great primer for what a VR projection looks like under the hood, and you can endeavor altering or reusing the code & art assets.
3. Await through the Unity asset store for costless art assets. It can exist hit or miss, just using pre-fabricated objects to start will aid simplify your prototyping procedure. You tin use these objects as placeholders until you're able to make your own.
4. Optional: Download and use NewtonVR. Full disclosure: I helped create NewtonVR to brand VR creation easier for newcomers like yourself. When you become started on a VR project, the environments and objects don't automatically take good working object interactions and physics past default. Using NewtonVR will requite yous a physics-driven interaction framework that makes concrete object interactions realistic and easy to implement. It likewise supports both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive with just the click of a button.

Eventually you will want to effort out what you're working on in a VR headset. If y'all don't already accept a VR headset, get-go with something cheap and approachable, similar Google Fantasize or Samsung Gear VR. Every bit you lot starting time making things, you volition want to be able to test your experience out in the headset, checking to run across whether what yous're making is working the fashion you intended it to work.

I of the bonuses of deciding to work in Unity is a brand new plugin called EditorVR. Information technology'due south an add together-on to Unity that lets y'all create virtual spaces and animations inside VR natively, so you tin build your VR space naturally and place or move objects wherever you want them to go. EditorVR is however in the works, but should exist released shortly to brand content creation much, much easier for folks who just want to prototype something quickly.

Other things you lot can do to aid yourself in the learning process:

• Look up this VR Unity course on Udemy. While I oasis't gone through information technology personally, this course was made by the creators of Udemy's best-selling online Unity grade and comes highly recommended.
• Attend a hackathon or Startup Weekend event for VR/AR, learn from the folks around you and use the project you piece of work on as role of your portfolio.
• Go to local meetups and partner up with other people who want to work on a project together. (More on this below.)
• Enquire around in your network or grouping of friends to find out who is familiar with Unity & enquire them for help.
• Are you in San Francisco or Los Angeles? The ARVR Academy runs in-person classes on VR where you tin can learn from scratch.
• If a cocky-guided learning procedure doesn't work for you, there is a degree programme specifically for VR at University of Idaho, or you can check into any of the related HCI (human being-estimator interface) programs at your local university.

Get involved

At that place are a ton of VR and AR groups located all beyond the globe where people are gathering together to share knowledge, evidence their demos, and come across people in their local community. If you've never even experienced VR or AR, you can go to a local meetup and try them out for the first fourth dimension.

Local meetups are a bang-up run a risk to ask questions, make industry connections, and connect with local artists, designers and developers who will be happy to share their process and methods with yous. The people you come across at meetups in your surface area volition be the most helpful and most accessible grouping to learn from. If you want to focus on i aspect of VR (e.g. audio), or you adopt to piece of work on teams, meetups are a bully style to discover other people yous tin can collaborate with.

I can't speak for everywhere else, only where I'one thousand from in Seattle, our local VR organizations have done a ton of work toward making our local meetups mature, inclusive, and beginner-friendly. If yous're in the Seattle surface area, please come terminate past i of our six (!) monthly VR meetups and introduce yourself to our community.

Here is a long and notwithstanding very incomplete list of VR and AR meetups that you can find on Meetup.com:

U.s.

Seattle VR
VR/AR Collective** (Seattle)
Eastside VR (Bellevue WA)
Seattle VR Audio
Portland Virtual Reality
SFVR (San Francisco)
AR VR Women (San Francisco)
SVVR (Silicon Valley)
Utah Virtual Reality
Boston VR
NYVR (New York City)
NYC Women in VR
NYC VR University
Chicago VR
ChiVR (Chicago)
Madison VR
Houston VR
VR Austin
NashVR (Nashville TN)
RTP Virtual Reality (Due north Carolina)
OVR (Orlando FL)
DC Virtual Reality
AZ VR Meetup (Arizona)

** Disclosure: I founded the VR/AR Collective.

Canada

MTLVR (Montreal)
VanVR (Vancouver BC)
Virtual Reality Toronto

Europe

Virtual Reality in Belgium
Irish gaelic VR (Dublin)
Virtual Reality Berlin
Cologne Virtual Reality
VRNL (Amsterdam)
Barcelona VR
3City Virtual Reality (Poland)

Middle E

Abu Dhabi VR (United Arab Emirates)

South East Asia

Taiwan Virtual Reality Meetup
AsiaVR (Singapore)

Australia

Virtual & Augmented Reality Sydney
MVRM (Melbourne)

Online communities

Of grade there are as well groups on Facebook, Slack, etc. These communities share links to resources, assist each other with bugs and providing feedback. Depending on where you are located, online groups offer support that might not otherwise be available to yous in person.

• Women in VR (Facebook)
• VR Creators Network (Slack)
• Seattle VR/AR (Facebook)
• Seattle VR (Slack)
• Spatial Audio in VR (Facebook)

(If you don't run across your organization or meetup above, please tell united states of america all about information technology in the comments below.)

Make a portfolio

This is a critical step that will help you prove off your skills in a format that lets potential employers learn more than about how yous work. Hither is an instance from 3D artist Christian Van Meures that showcases his virtual museum. Yous should provide both still images or gifs for 2D screens, every bit well every bit a mode for people to preview your experiences in a VR headset and see it for themselves.

Ideally, y'all will also explain the background of the projection, what your role was in creating information technology, and what it was trying to accomplish. Providing this kind of breakdown volition help requite context to your work for recruiters or hiring managers who haven't met you earlier and are learning about your procedure for the start fourth dimension. For a more in-depth project breakdown, I accept an old Gear VR project in my online portfolio that y'all can scan through.

Apply for jobs in VR

Accept a look through job listings and read through the expectations to go a feel for what companies are looking for. Don't feel too discouraged when you lot meet things like "5+ years of feel needed". For one, a lot of tech job descriptions inflate their requirements, only in case the mythical perfect candidate stumbled beyond their job posting. Secondly, it'south even so early days in VR. Very few people really have the experience in VR that companies say they're looking for.

Focus on showing off your projects, tell them you desire to work in VR, and bear witness them what you've washed to get yourself there. Once you have built up some experience and created a couple of projects for your portfolio, yous should be ready to apply for jobs.

Below you will find an incomplete listing of the opportunities from people I know who are hiring for VR, where they are located, and what roles they are looking to fill up.

NormalVR

San Francisco
Hiring: Artists, designers, technical writers, producers, network developers, frontend and backend developers

VREAL

Seattle
Hiring: Software engineers, backend engineers

Squanchtendo

Los Angeles | Wake County, NC
Hiring: Designers, artists, producers, animators, programmers

Pluto VR

Seattle
Hiring: Software engineers with empathy

Baobab Studios

Redwood Shores, CA
Hiring: CG generalists, FX developers, render engineers

Make Real

Brighton, England
Hiring: UX designers, game designers, user researchers, artists, sound engineers, producers, projection managers, Unity developers

VoyagerVR

Los Angeles | Remote
Hiring: Unreal developers and animators of all skill levels

Cloudhead Games

Victoria, BC
Hiring: Artists, QA

Valve

Bellevue, WA
Hiring: UX designers, visual designers, software engineers, etc

Google

Seattle | San Francisco | Mountain View | Los Angeles
Hiring: Technical artists, user researchers, UX designers, UX engineers, product managers, etc

Crytek

Frankfurt
Hiring: 3D environment artists, technical artists, animators

HTC Creative Labs

Seattle
Hiring: UX designers, prototyping engineers, marketing managers

Oculus

Seattle | Redmond | San Francisco | Menlo Park
Hiring: User researchers, UI engineers, industrial designers

(Are you in the VR industry and hiring too? Tell u.s.a. about your task openings in the comments below.)

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Source: https://virtualrealitypop.com/how-to-get-a-job-in-vr-fff5c9d56a13

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