Question
What part of the XR development is causing the biggest problems for developers?
Answer
- 3 out of the 5 developers we talked to said that developing for multiple platforms is "easy enough" to quote one user.
- 1 or 2 showed us their flow and we learned that they had a misunderstanding of how certain features work in Unity.
- Based on this, we learned that talking to junior developers does not get us what we need. We are now only interviewing developers with 5+ years of experience.
- However, we did talk to one developer with 20+ years of experience who said that developing for multiple platforms is not as complicated as we thought. From talking with Scott, we realized there might be something we are missing multi-platform. Perhaps that Scott and Kyle's experience is unique due to the difficulty of their projects.
Interviews
- Scott asked Adam, "What if you wanted to make it for another device?" Adam said, "I would effectively have to start from scratch and rebuild everything."
- I asked whether he could reuse things. He said assets he could reuse, but most of the code was a throw away.
- After the interview, Scott said Adam is "exactly who we are building this for."
- Adam started out the interview very reserved, but opened up as things went.
- When we asked what was the hardest part, he said development. We did not have a ton of time with Adam, so we couldn't ask many follow ups to that. But
- Adam is currently in an accelerated programming program at his University (we did not ask where).
- He is also working for what sounds like an on campus project where he is developing XR programs.
-
- Answering the question about switching to a different headset: "In the short term assuming that it is still an android device, transitioning the project is easy enough. The issue comes in testing. We have to do all of the live testing to make sure it works. What is more likely is that it goes back to the foundation."
- About testing, what he said is the hardest step: "The more variables you add the more complicated your testing is. Hardware testing because of optimization. Things don't run stable. I've run into many issues. The really minor things that you wouldn't catch during dev testing. Issues with scale is an example."
- "Making functions happen in VR code is really the same as desktop or mobile. But the biggest difference is taking into account your hardware. Your user isn't looking at a flat screen anymore. The strength of the hardware is different. I can make the Quest lag out if I want to. But on a hardcore PC, it is hard to do that."
- The Unity store has a lot of things in the store that help with using different headsets. However, it did not sound like he had done this before.
-
- Works with the Unity engine, mostly for school.
- Currently working on a project for his first job in school. He is making a full VR dental training and education application for Quest II.
-
- Hayden said that the hardest part of XR dev was bug fixing. Which goes into the testing.
- "Bug fixing is always hard, but it is super hard in VR. I have to be in VR to test, so I have to make sure it is set up. I have to set it up. I have to get out of my desk. While I'm in VR, I can't see the Unity editor and go over to the computer while I still have the headset on. It is very annoying and can make me sick."
- When we asked about switching hardware. "That is pretty easy. Unity has plugins that help with this. I go to XR plug in management. I click the Open XR platform that will work on any VR headset." She shows her screen at 22:30 and shows how this works. However, she has not done this.
- Meeting with clients is also hard. "It is hard to make sure what I'm making is exactly what they want."
-
- She studied programming in college but graduated during the pandemic. Started working in data entry. Got an opportunity to work as a programmer after a few years and has worked there for a few months.
- Hayden works as an entry level company. She makes training programs for different colleges, schools, and businesses. They are almost exclusively VR programs on the Quest 2.
- She works with another developer, but it doesn't seem that they work together often. They are on a completely different project than Hayden.
- Biggest takeaway by far: Daniel did not believe that developing for multiple platforms is overly difficult. Scott clarified this point multiple times during the interview with follow up questions.
- When we told him about what we were working on, the thing he was most interested in were Sparks (contextually aware items) and real time game play.
- Real time game changes could be due to the fact that he is a programmer and thinks that building that would be cool. I do not believe his excitement demonstrates demand for that solution.
- Chris found Daniel through personal outreach.
- Without question, so far he is the best person we have talked to.
- He has over 20 years of experience in development, with I believe 10 years of it in Unity and Unreal.
- He is a boss and should be hired immediately.
- Angus does not have much experience with AR/VR/MR. He did one tutorial a while ago. Most of his Unity development is around iOS and desktop apps. To be honest, not sure why he is using Unity. Seems like most of it is because it was an inherited app.
- To be honest, most of what we got out of this interview was pretty high level server/backendy stuff. Ask Scott.
- When we did tell him about our idea, his reaction was: "I would want to see it first." Which I think is a good reaction. From this, Scott and I talked and we believe that might be necessary to get good information out of future interviewees.
- Worked at a dev shop but was unfortunately recently let go.
- Has 10 years development experience, most of which was in Unity.
- Phil told us, "It would be really hard to build for all different platforms."
- In his map, Phil focused on asset formatting as a huge problem. "I have to talk to artists and figure out their format. Then oftentimes it doesn't work. So I have to go back and forth."
- Most of Phil's map spoke to the problems a business owner deals with in XR.
- Phil owns a few companies that build MR experiences around his home town of NYC.
- It does not seem that he is a developer, however we still had a good conversation.
