XR Step-by-Step 2023! Assets and Apps you need for XR! What and Where for Unity 2022

Virtual and Augmented Reality together are now referred to as XR or “Extended-Reality”.
You’re in the right place at the right time to build something amazing in XR!
XR applications can be created in Unity for many devices, our focus will be on Microsoft Hololens 2 and the Meta Quest

Check out other blog articles in this (and other) series!
Quick links to Lance’s latest XR Step-by-Step blog articles by device

What is an Asset? In Unity 3D, an “asset” is a term used to refer to any item that can be used in your game or project. An asset may come in several forms including 3D models, textures, sounds, scripts, and many more. Some are free, some are paid. Here are the places I go to get them, and my favorite ones.

Where can I search for Assets?

Unity Asset Store – Your first stop when looking for almost anything for Unity…
Free3D
CraftPix.net
TurboSquid – Generally HIGH end and higher priced 3D assets, but when you would consider how much time you’d need (or at least how much time I would need) to create these, the price could easily be worth just buying them
FreeSound – Free Sound Effects
SoundBible – Free Sound Effects

Quality of Life

AutoSave (FREE) – Saves your Unity project whenever you press play! Why is this important? For EVERYONE, Unity crashes from time to time. If you haven’t specifically saved your project – you loose at least some of what you’ve been working on… GRRRR… this simple AutoSave helps keep my sanity (what I have left) in those cases!

Applications

OVR Metric Tool – Used to provide performance metrics for applications running on Android devices, including frame rate, heat, GPU and CPU throttling values, and the number of tears and stale frames per second.

Must Have Packages in almost every XR Project