XR Step-by-Step 2023! Hololens 2: Installing the Tools you need! Unity 2022 + MRTK 2.8.3 + Visual Studio 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 2 / Pro.

In this specific blog post series we will focus on Hololens 2 in the latest Unity and Visual Studio!

Want to see the other blog articles in this (and other) series?
Click here to see all of my XR Step-by-Step blogs separated by device and version!

Welcome! I love the Hololens!! It can solve real-world problems by bringing computational vision to industries that have never had anything as immersive as this before…

We need to get more developers working and comfortable with the tools — so together we’ll be doing just that. Buckle up, and welcome to the future of XR!

We’ll start by getting all the tools setup and configured.

TL;DR -> Quick Reference summary FOLLOWED BY the detailed Step-by-Step with images!

Full Step-by-Step Instructions!

  • Download Unity Hub
    • Unity is constantly releasing new versions of their tools (very exciting to see the investments they’re making in our favorite XR tools) – so Unity Hub is the best way to keep up to date with the newest versions and manage your projects!
    • https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download
  1. Click Installs
  2. Click Install Editor
  3. Click Install next to the latest version of 2022
    • IMPORTANT As of the writing of this blog, Unity 2022.2.9f1 is available BUT it has a known issue with OpenXR, so install 2022.2.5f1 for now! The joys and pains of living on the edge 🙂
  • Check Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 (if you don’t have it installed already)
  • Check Android Build Support
  • Check OpenJDK
  • Check Android SDK & NDK Tools
    • Note, for Meta Quest development the above are required, for Hololens development these are optional but as I do both (and hopefully you will as well) I always check all of these
  • Check Universal Windows Platform Build Support
  • Check Windows Build Support (IL2CPP)
  • Check “I have read and agree…” and click Install
  • Unity will install…
  • You can have many versions of Unity installed at the same time, I often keep at least one installed version from each of the version years, i.e. 2019, 2020, 2021 and now 2022
  • You’ll see several version, the ones with LTS next to them are the “Long Term Support” versions – we however are using the latest version of Unity 2022.2.9
  • Run Visual Studio Installer (for example, in your Windows Start menu type “visual studio installer” and click it)
  • Click Modify
  • Verify that each of these components are installed, if not then check each and click Install
    • Check Desktop development with C++
    • Check Universal Windows Platform development
    • Check Game development with Unity
    • On the right hand side, check USB Device Connectivity
  • Click Next
  • Click Accept
  • Click Install
    • Note, I installed everything here, but you could potentially uncheck some of the options
  • Click Download
  • Check MixedRealityFeatureTool.exe
  • Click Next
  • You’ve now got the Mixed Reality Feature Tool for Unity installed!

  • Download the 5 MRTK (Mixed Reality Toolkit) Unity packages – which we’ll be adding to our Hololens 2 Unity projects in the future – as of now the current version is 2.8.3
  • Woot! We now have everything downloaded and configured for our next Hololens article!

Love any feedback and see you in future XR blog posts.

Build something amazing in XR! — Lance

Want to see the other blog articles in this (and other) series?
Click here to see all of my XR Step-by-Step blogs separated by device and version!

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