I built a project about 6 months ago and used XR Interaction Toolkit 2.2 I believe. Had things working like I wanted and life was good.
I started a new project this week after being away from VR for a while. I used the VR template and the new version of the XR Interaction Toolkit installed is version 3.0.
Everything is changed, nothing I “knew” is there, completely different.
I work with Autodesk products all day and they make changes and updates but nothing like Unity.
My question is this:
How do you guys keep up? I am literally stumped on simple stuff that was so easy to work like distance grab of an object. A few months ago it t was so simple and now I can’t even get it to work.
It’s a challenge, but software has never been a static target.
Languages change, engines change, libraries change, even your own code changes when you’re not looking at it, or don’t realize you changed it.
This speaks to the importance of understanding what you are doing at a semantic level, as in have meaningful correct names for ALL the things you use in a program.
Why is this important? If for instance you know you rely on X, Y and Z in an old library, and when you come to the new library none of those things are present, now you can meaningfully search for “what is the new replacement(s) for X, Y, and Z?”
The core user-side function of non-DOTS Unity as a collection of GameObjects with Components giving you access to the underlying systems (assets, input, display, sound, etc.) has really not changed at all in the past 12 years. Components have come and gone, APIs have changed their names and structures, but at the end of the day, it’s still the same engine feel at the application programmer level, notwithstanding brand-new features or discontinued features.
I know the VR stuff changed sometime around 2020 and essentially 100% of what I did for Oculus Go now had to be redone for Oculus Quest 2. But all of it is still done in the same Unity game engine, just different ways of hooking up analogous but different Components and assets.
This is a good call to set aside your project and go do a brand-new tutorial for XR and any other tech you’re using in that project right now. While working through the new tutorial, make sure you identify the services your original game needs / needed, so you can begin to build a mental map of how things changed.
NOTE: there is no timeline guarantee that any of this can be completed by anyone in any particular amount of time. Everybody learns at a different rate and what one person immediately understands may prove infuriatingly baffling to another person.
Two steps to tutorials and / or example code:
- do them perfectly, to the letter (zero typos, including punctuation and capitalization)
- stop and understand each step to understand what is going on.
If you go past anything that you don’t understand, then you’re just mimicking what you saw without actually learning, essentially wasting your own time. It’s only two steps. Don’t skip either step.
Imphenzia: How Did I Learn To Make Games:
Thanks for the reply, I do struggle with fully understanding core principles. I am 60 and my mind may not be as sharp as the young guys anymore. I am a Plant designer and while the software changes and functionality added or removed, the core assets may act different but never renamed or moved for the most part. It seems like Unity with almost every update, things are moved, gone, renamed.
But I will check out the video!
Thanks you so much for the reply!!!