Unity to Add visionOS 2 Support in Coming Weeks, Announces New Features
TapTechNews June 17th news, Unity officially announced that Unity 6 Preview will add pre-release support for Apple's visionOS 2 in the coming weeks. Unity 6 is the latest version of the Unity game engine, which is often used to produce VR content. Currently, this version is still in the preview stage and is not recommended for formal project development. The stable version is expected to be released later this year.
This week, Unity announced that the forthcoming 2.x version of the visionOS package will require Unity 6 support and add support for some of the core functions of visionOS 2:
Rendering Metal with passthrough: This feature enables developers to add passthrough functionality to their content while also leveraging Unity graphics features compatible with Metal 5.
Resizable volumes: Helps developers better control the size of objects within a defined range.
Dynamic lights and shadows: Enhances the immersion and realism of the mixed reality experience.
Custom hover effects: Allows developers to better control the visual hover interaction effect when the user gazes at an object.
Improved shader support: Enables more diverse visual effects such as the glass-like appearance in the SwiftUI interface.
The Rendering Metal with passthrough feature means that developers will no longer be limited to using the functionally limited PolySpatial solution when making AR applications.
In addition, the 2.x version of the package will bring the following improvements for both versions of visionOS:
Support for blendshapes: Enables more extensive geometric applications such as deformations, smooth and natural animations, etc.
Stereo render targets: Helps users achieve various effects such as stereo windows and holographic 3D projections.
Hybrid Apps: Supports mode switching between hybrid reality and fully immersive experiences.
Support for multiple volumes: Enables more diverse interactive content.
Support for entities graphics: Enables more diverse visual experiences.
Shader debugging: Helps developers create and customize shaders more efficiently.
It should be noted that the 2.x version of the Unity visionOS package will initially be released in a pre-release form. Unity officially stated that they will continuously carry out performance optimizations and overall stability improvements, and developers are advised not to use it in formal projects for the time being. However, since visionOS 2 itself is currently in the testing stage and the stable version will be released in the fall this year, this should not have a significant impact.
The Unity visionOS developer package still requires the use of Unity Pro, which costs $2040 per year (TapTechNews note: currently about 14843 Chinese yuan). For independent developers and users who want to try visionOS, this cost is indeed not low, especially considering that they also need to spend $3500 for the head-mounted display device itself.