Move to Unity 2020.x

[billyquith]

As of June 2020 OpenBrush is on Unity 2019.4 LTS. It would be preferable to upgrade to 2020.3 because we could get the Unity OpenXR XR plugin. This change may mean that the SteamVR SDK is no longer required.

There may be a considerable amount of work in this change because the UnityEngine.VR namespace (which is currently deprecated) has been removed.

Branch for this: feature/unity2020.

[billyquith]

This article explains the current issues with moving to Unity 2020 wrt to SteamVR support. Basically Valve aren't supporting SteamVR for Unity. They are pressing ahead with OpenXR and Unity are writing a Unity OpenXR XR plugin that will support OpenXR compatible devices, hopefully including Valve devices.

Unity say the OpenXR plugin is compatible with Unity 2020 LTS+. Devices support seem to include the Index.

[billyquith]

The Unity Blog has some information on the Unity XR plugin framework.

Officially supported platforms

“Build once, deploy anywhere” continues to be our core principle, and we work directly with our strategic partners to ensure that all creators are fully supported when developing for these platforms. This involves deep platform integration, improvements to our engine, and optimizations to our XR tech stack for the platform. As of 2019.3, Unity officially works with and supports:

• ARKit
• ARCore
• Microsoft HoloLens
• Magic Leap
• Oculus
• Windows Mixed Reality
• PlayStation VR

Other platform updates

• Gear VR is no longer supported in 2019.3 and beyond, as Oculus focuses on their current generation of hardware.
• Google VR is no longer supported in 2019.3 and beyond due to Google ending sales of Daydream View and the launch of the Cardboard Open Source Project.
• As part of our shift to the new plugin framework, Valve has used our XR SDK to develop their OpenVR Unity XR plugin for 2019.3 and beyond. The latest version can be found here.

Note: Gear VR, Google VR, and OpenVR will remain supported by Unity in the 2018 LTS release.

OpenBrush 2019 supported platforms

• GoogleVR: Android (Cardboard?)
• Oculus: Android: Oculus Quest 1/2.
• Oculus: Win: Rift
• SteamVR Win/Linux: Valve Index, Vive.

Moving to OpenXR (& Unity 2020) means GoogleVR support may be dropped (as relies on old Unity VR API and deprecated audio). We will gain more platforms from OpenXR but may lose one.

[mikeskydev]

Now upgraded to 2021 LTS during XR integration work