Dec 17, 2017  VR and Unity How to create and run a macOS VR app using Unity: Part 1. 17 Dec 2017 0 If you've been eying the latest trends in game development you couldn't possibly miss the recent hype (deserved in my opinion) around VR and AR applications. We've also spoken at length about installing and running an HTC Vive VR headset on your Mac running.

If you've been eying the latest trends in game development you couldn't possibly miss the recent hype (deserved in my opinion) around VR and AR applications. We've also spoken at length about installing and running an HTC Vive VR headset on your Mac running macOS High Sierra.

With an eGPU development kit offered by Apple or with the newest iMac Pro running a powerful AMD Radeon Vega GPU, you can create and then run VR applications directly on a connected HTC Vive VR headset. Here's part 1 of our 2 part series on how to create and run a simple VR application on macOS and HTC Vive! Check out part 2 here!

This tutorial was written following the video tutorial provided by VRGameDev on Youtube so be certain to check out their channel!

Install Unity Engine

If you haven'y already done so, you'll need to install a VR ready development engine such as Unity. Unity Engine Personal Edition is free for your personal use and tutorial purposes. Once you become more proficient and start selling your VR applications, you can then get one of Unity's commercial licenses. You can [follow our guide to install Unity](/how-install-unity-engine-macos-vr-application-creation} if you need help, or follow the following summary.

1. Navigate with a browser to https://unity.com/.
2. Click on Get Unity.
3. Click on Try Personal.
4. Check the box to agree to the Terms of Service.
5. Click Download Installer.
6. Double click the UnityDownloadAssistant dmg file you just downloaded.
7. Double click the Unity DownloadAssistant** icon.
8. Click Continue.
9. Click Continue again.
10. Select the Components you wish to Install. This can be left as default.
11. Click Continue.
12. Select the installation Destination.
13. Click Continue.
14. Once the installation is complete click Close.

How to start a new project

Once installed we're ready to get down to business and start and name a new project.

1. Click New project.
2. Enter a Project name
3. Make certain that the project is set to 3D.
4. Enter a save Location..

5. Click Create project.

You should now have an empty project 3D project ready to go!

How to start building the VR application

Make the floor

1. Select File > Build Settings.
2. Click Player Settings.

3. Check XR Settings to be Virtual Reality Supported.

4. Click the Oculus Virtual Reality SDK.

5. With Oculus highlighted click the - to remove it (It's not needed as OpenVR works on all VR platforms).

6. Select File > Save Scene as.
7. Enter a Save As name for the scene.
8. Click Save. A New Icon will appear with the name of your scene.
9. Under Hierarchy, click Create > 3D object > Plane.
10. Click on the Plane we just created.

11. Under Transform, change the scale of your plane to X=1000, Y=1, Z=1000.

12. Under the Project menu, click Create > Material.

13. You'll see a sphere appear in the assets. Rename that to Floor.

14. Click on the square next to Albedo and select a color such as green to represent the floor in your VR app.

15. Once again select Plane and rename it to floor.

16. Drag the asset Floor onto the hierarchy Floor to make it the color you selected.

17. The floor of your VR world in now green.

Make the interactive object

It's great to have a VR world to stand in but it's better to have object to interact with. Here we'll be creating a simple cube that we can manipulate in the VR world.

1. Under Hierarchy again, select Create > 3D object > Cube.
2. Select Cube.
3. Under Transform, change the scale to X=0.2, Y=0.2, and Z=0.2.

4. Set the position under transform to X=0, Y=0.1, and Z=0.

5. Under the Project menu, click Create > Material.
6. Rename the material to Cube.
7. Click on the square next to Albedo and select a color such as red to color the cube in your VR app.
8. Select Cube in the assets and drag it to Cube under Hierarchy.

9. The interactive cube is now red.

Stay Tuned

To make things more digestible we'll be posting how to create hands, apply interaction on objects, and finally build and run your VR application on macOS using the HTC vive on a subsequent how-to so keep an eye out! Let us know how you've fared thus far in the comments!

Apple is now redirecting (PRODUCT)RED purchases to COVID‑19 relief fund

Now through September 30, Apple is redirecting 100% of a portion of (PRODUCT)RED purchases to the Global Fund’s COVID‑19 Response.

The Mac has plenty of games, but it'll always get the short end of the stick compared to Windows. If you want to play the latest games on your Mac, you have no choice but to install Windows ... or do you?

There are a few ways you can play Windows games on your Mac without having to dedicate a partition to Boot Camp or giving away vast amounts of hard drive space to a virtual machine app like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Here are a few other options for playing Windows games on your Mac without the hassle or expense of having to install Windows.

GeForce Now

PC gaming on Mac? Yes you can, thanks to Nvidia's GeForce Now. The service allows users to play PC games from Steam or Battle.net on macOS devices. Better still, the graphic power of these games resides on Nvidia's servers. The biggest drawback: the service remains in beta, and there's been no announcement when the first full release is coming or what a monthly subscription will cost.

For now, at least, the service is free to try and enjoy. All supported GeForce NOW titles work on Macs, and yes, there are plenty of them already available!

The Wine Project

The Mac isn't the only computer whose users have wanted to run software designed for Windows. More than 20 years ago, a project was started to enable Windows software to work on POSIX-compliant operating systems like Linux. It's called The Wine Project, and the effort continues to this day. OS X is POSIX-compliant, too (it's Unix underneath all of Apple's gleam, after all), so Wine will run on the Mac also.

Wine is a recursive acronym that stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's been around the Unix world for a very long time, and because OS X is a Unix-based operating system, it works on the Mac too.

As the name suggests, Wine isn't an emulator. The easiest way to think about it is as a compatibility layer that translates Windows Application Programming Interface (API) calls into something that the Mac can understand. So when a game says 'draw a square on the screen,' the Mac does what it's told.

You can use straight-up Wine if you're technically minded. It isn't for the faint of heart, although there are instructions online, and some kind souls have set up tutorials, which you can find using Google. Wine doesn't work with all games, so your best bet is for you to start searching for which games you'd like to play and whether anyone has instructions to get it working on the Mac using Wine.

Note: At the time of this writing, The Wine Project does not support macOS 10.15 Catalina.

CrossOver Mac

CodeWeavers took some of the sting out of Wine by making a Wine-derived app called CrossOver Mac. CrossOver Mac is Wine with specialized Mac support. Like Wine, it's a Windows compatibility layer for the Mac that enables some games to run.

CodeWeavers has modified the source code to Wine, made some improvements to configuration to make it easier, and provided support for their product, so you shouldn't be out in the cold if you have trouble getting things to run.

My experience with CrossOver — like Wine — is somewhat hit or miss. Its list of actual supported games is pretty small. Many other unsupported games do, in fact work — the CrossOver community has many notes about what to do or how to get them to work, which are referenced by the installation program. Still, if you're more comfortable with an app that's supported by a company, CrossOver may be worth a try. What's more, a free trial is available for download, so you won't be on the hook to pay anything to give it a shot.

Boxer

If you're an old-school gamer and have a hankering to play DOS-based PC games on your Mac, you may have good luck with Boxer. Boxer is a straight-up emulator designed especially for the Mac, which makes it possible to run DOS games without having to do any configuring, installing extra software, or messing around in the Mac Terminal app.

With Boxer, you can drag and drop CD-ROMs (or disk images) from the DOS games you'd like to play. It also wraps them into self-contained 'game boxes' to make them easy to play in the future and gives you a clean interface to find the games you have installed.

Boxer is built using DOSBox, a DOS emulation project that gets a lot of use over at GOG.com, a commercial game download service that houses hundreds of older PC games that work with the Mac. So if you've ever downloaded a GOG.com game that works using DOSBox, you'll have a basic idea of what to expect.

Some final thoughts

In the end, programs like the ones listed above aren't the most reliable way to play Windows games on your Mac, but they do give you an option.

Of course, another option is to run Windows on your Mac, via BootCamp or a virtual machine, which takes a little know-how and a lot of memory space on your Mac's hard drive.

How do you play your Windows games on Mac?

Let us know in the comment below!

Updated October 2019: Updated with the best options.

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Run Unity Game Mac Wine Lipstick

Apple is now redirecting (PRODUCT)RED purchases to COVID‑19 relief fund

Run Unity Game Mac Wine Color

Now through September 30, Apple is redirecting 100% of a portion of (PRODUCT)RED purchases to the Global Fund’s COVID‑19 Response.