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The fastest path to building a HoloLens mixed reality app in Unity is with the Mixed Reality Toolkit. If you're brand new to Unity, we recommend that you explore the beginner level tutorials on the Unity Learn platform before continuing. It's also a good idea to visit the comprehensive Asset Store and the Unity Mixed Reality forums to engage with the online community building mixed reality apps. You never know what cool assets or solutions you might find out in the wild. When you're ready to get started with MRTK head to the development checkpoints below!

Important

In the midst of your gaming world lies an incredible auditory journey. Unity speakers are the guide through this adventure. Game audio is distinct from home theater or any other audio types, and your speaker system must be attuned to this world. No warrior steps onto the field of combat without a weapon of resonance. This video game-related list is incomplete; you can help. This is a list of notable games using a version of the Unity engine. The main article on the Unity engine gives further details on the engine itself and its versions.

Take a look at our porting guides if you have an existing Unity project that you want to bring over to HoloLens 2. We have guides for projects that are using HTK, MRTK v1, or SteamVR.

Development checkpoints

Use the following checkpoints to bring your Unity games and applications into the world of mixed reality. If you haven't already explored the Designing Holograms sample application, we recommend downloading and using it to familiarize yourself with the basics of Mixed Reality UX.

1. Getting started

The easiest way to develop in Unity is with the Mixed Reality Toolkit. MRTK will help you automatically setup a project for Mixed Reality and provide a set of features to accelerate your development process. By the end of this section, you'll have a basic understanding of the Mixed Reality Toolkit, a properly configured development environment for Mixed Reality apps, and a working MRTK project in Unity that you built yourself.

Important

If you'd like to create a new Unity project without importing Mixed Reality Toolkit, there are a small set of Unity settings you'll need to manually change for Windows Mixed Reality. Take a look at our configuration guide for more information.

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Note

Once you've setup MRTK in your project, standard Unity game objects like the camera will light up immediately for a seated-scale experience. You can find instructions on changing the experience scale of your application on the coordinate systems page.

2. Core building blocks

All of the core building blocks for mixed reality applications are exposed in a manner consistent with other Unity APIs. These building blocks are available as standalone features and through the Mixed Reality Toolkit. You might not need all of them at once, but we recommend exploring early on. After diving into the core building blocks listed below, you'll have a toolbox full of features you can integrate into a Mixed Reality project by themselves or through MRTK.

3. Advanced features

Other key features that play a role in mixed reality applications are available through Unity APIs without any extra packages or setup. These features can be added to Unity projects with or without MRTK installed. After diving into the more advanced capabilities that Unity offers, you'll be able to build deeper, complex Mixed Reality apps.

4. Deploying to a device or emulator

Once you've got your holographic Unity project ready for testing, your next step is to export and build a Unity Visual Studio solution. With that VS solution in hand, you can run your application in one of three ways on a real or simulated device. By the end of this section, you'll be able to deploy your application on whichever device or emulator fits your development needs.

5. Adding services

At this point in your development journey you might be looking to add services or for a helping hand with commercial deployment. Integrating Azure Cloud Services and Dynamics 365 features can level up your projects in a major way. We've compiled a few starting points for you to explore and expand your Mixed Reality knowledge.

Azure Remote Rendering (ARR) is a service that lets you to render highly complex 3D models in real time. ARR is currently in public preview. It can be added to your Unity or Native C++ projects targeting HoloLens 2 or Windows desktop PC.

Azure Spatial Anchors (ASA) is a cross-platform service that allows you to build spatially aware mixed reality applications. With Azure Spatial Anchors, you can map, persist, and share holographic content across multiple devices, at real-world scale.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides is a mixed-reality application for Microsoft HoloLens that lets operators learn during the flow of work by providing holographic instructions when and where they are needed. These instruction cards are visually tethered to the place where the work must be done, and can include images, videos, and 3D holographic models.

We also have a comprehensive list of support documentation for additional Azure services that you can add to your Unity projects on a self-serve basis.

What's next?

A developers job is never done, especially when learning a new tool or SDK. The following sections can take you into areas beyond the beginner level material you've already completed, along with helpful resources if you get stuck. Note that these topics and resources aren't in any sequential order, so feel free to jump around and explore!

Porting

If you have existing apps that you'd like to port over, the articles listed below are your next stop:

Tutorials

If you're looking to add specific Mixed Reality features to your applications, we have several curated tutorials that can run you through the process from end-to-end. Our most popular HoloLens 2 and HoloLens (1st Gen) content is listed below, but you can find the entire collection by visiting the tutorials overview.

Additional resources

Before going out into the world of mixed reality on your own, we recommend taking a look at the MRTK-related documentation listed below. These articles are great jumping off points for understanding how MRTK works in greater detail and will give you insight into making your app more performant.

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Unity resources

In addition to this documentation available on docs.microsoft.com, Unity installs documentation for Windows Mixed Reality functionality alongside the Unity Editor. The Unity provided documentation includes two separate sections.

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Have feedback?

You can find us on the Unity Forums by tagging Microsoft and a combination of the following tags to help us understand what plugin you're providing feedback for:

• HoloLens 2
• Windows Mixed Reality
• OpenXR
• XRSDK
• Legacy XR

See also

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