XR encompasses augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies. This is a promising industry that can be good to get into. An XR enthusiast can be of 2 types:

1. developer
2. Designer

It depends on the thought process of the enthusiast.

This article lists some of the skills that will help you grow in XR, as well as serving as an answer to “How do I become an XR developer?”

Like many other technologies, there is no perfect roadmap for learning XR. However, I have tried my best to come up with a generalized learning process for it.

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Skill 1 — Programming

Basic programming experience in languages ​​like Java, C#, Swift, Javascript, etc. is essential to developing any piece of software. Get a good understanding of any of these languages. Concepts like loops, control logic, OOP principles like inheritance, abstraction, encapsulation, etc. should be at your fingertips before moving on.

If you already have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, you have a good foundation. If you don’t, who cares? Learn programming from YouTube, Udemy, Udacity and a thousand other free platforms.

Skill 2: Software Development

Once you’re done with programming, your thinking will automatically shift toward building things instead of practicing problems.

There are 3 types of software development that are quite conventional:

1. Web development
2. Mobile application development
3. game development

You must have a basic idea of ​​at least one of them. There are tons of resources online to learn this.

Please note that once you choose a domain, you must keep it for at least 6 months. It’s 6 months of committed learning.

All that knowledge you’ve accumulated in the last 6 months is useless if you don’t apply it to a real-world project. If you want to turn this into a career, you need to spend an additional 6 months applying your learning to a real-world project through an internship or job.

The more time you spend working on a real-world project under one organization, the more your domain knowledge will improve.

Depending on your pace of learning, you can shorten the 6 month learning process + 6 months of real-world project experience into a shorter period. I’m just giving you a rough estimate.

In these 6 months you are expected to know things like:

1. UI/UX development based on a given model. If you are given a design, you can develop that design using code. Naturally, the code depends on the domain you have chosen. For web development, you need to be familiar with HTML, CSS, and JS. Then you can dive into a UI framework like React.
2. Connecting your client side application to some API to display dynamic data using JSON parsing techniques.
3. Adding third-party libraries so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I’m not pointing to any particular library because that again depends on your domain and application requirements.

Also, I’m not delving into things like code architecture, testing, security, and fixing memory leaks in your mobile apps. These skills are necessary to improve the quality of your application, as well as to extend it.

If in the future you are working on an XR app that requires reaching a billion users, then you cannot ignore these quality aspects. To develop small AR/VR prototypes, you can compromise on the quality aspect.

The more knowledge you have in your domain, the more you can think about how to combine things and think outside the box. This is one of many ways to flex your creative muscles.

Skill 3: General Knowledge of XR

Now is the time to explore XR. Familiarize yourself with basic XR terminologies. Understand the limitations of this technology. The goal behind this step is for you to become familiar with XR terminologies and comfortable with words that are loosely used in the XR domain.

There are 3 domains that are under the umbrella of XR

• AR, that is, Augmented Reality
• VR, i.e. Virtual Reality
• MR i.e mixed reality

Here is a course from the University of Michigan. Covers introduction to AR/VR/XR technologies, applications and issues.

developer mindset

Most XR developers tend to use a legacy SDK to build custom XR experiences for consumers.

For those who are interested in building custom SDKs and libraries that can help other XR developers build those custom XR experiences, please pay close attention to Skill #4!

Skill 4: XR SDK

SDKs like ARCore, ARKit, ARFoundation, Vuforia, and Wikitude are renowned for creating AR experiences for mobile platforms, i.e. Android and iOS. In addition to these, there are dozens of SDKs present. Based on your application’s feature requirements and your current code architecture, select an SDK and then proceed with development.

Most SDKs are still evolving. Once you start using any SDK, there is a high probability that you will run into issues that require a larger investment on your part to resolve. This is the XR landscape at the moment.

In VR, there is an SDK for each VR headset. Oculus headsets have the Oculus SDK. HTC Vive headsets have their own SDK. So, again, it depends on the headset you are going to use to develop your virtual reality experiences.

This University of Michigan course focuses primarily on developing XR applications with WebXR, Unity, and Unreal.

Skill 5: machine learning and machine vision

XR works on underlying computer vision algorithms that are abstracted into existing SDK methods and functions. There is a lot of research going on here in terms of plane search optimization, depth mapping, occlusion functions, etc. These functions can be incredibly difficult to develop. To some, it may even seem like reinventing the wheel.

designer mindset

Those who are interested in developing consumer-facing XR apps and want their experiences to look better than others fall into this category.

This is the same as saying, “Both A and B are note-taking apps. I like app A better than app B because I feel it is easier to use. I wonder why app B doesn’t have this cool interaction that solves such-and-such a problem.”

Additionally, there are several design issues in XR Experiences.

If you have mobile development experience, it’s similar to getting the UI design mockups for your Android app from your designer, rather than designing and developing the screens yourself.

Skill 6: UX design knowledge

If you’re not that interested in making your XR experiences look beautiful or brainstorming how to solve design problems, skip to the next skill.

For those who are interested in transforming good XR experiences into great XR experiences by incorporating interactions, studying users and understanding where an XR experience falls short, and studying UX design first. Understand topics such as interaction design principles, usability, design thought process, storytelling, HCI, accessibility, etc.

Once you’re done with UX Design, think about how you can apply the design principles in XR.

I’ve gone much deeper into this in my eBook: Introduction to UX Design for Augmented Reality Experiences.

Here’s another course from the University of Michigan that delves into the UX design process behind XR Experiences.

Skill 7—3D Modeling and Animation

Tools like Blender, Maya, and Cinema4D are great for prototyping experiences with animated 3D models and environment designs. These prototypes serve as a good starting point to show a concept to your potential clients.

Many times, you will find yourself in a position where you will not be able to communicate your thought process to someone. If developers start working on something that doesn’t meet the requirements, precious time and energy is wasted. This is exactly why a prototype can be incredibly useful to project stakeholders. Once the general design is finished, you can continue with the rest of the development.

Additionally, 3D models must be optimized and have certain file requirements before being added to any XR experience. Failure to do so can cause performance issues. For example) Take a look at the file requirements for ARCore.

Check out my Blender compilation video 😉

Are you interested in both XR design and development?

Skill 8—Graphic Representation

Shader programming languages ​​such as Metal, HLSL, and GLSL help developers customize the appearance of models, animation effects, and visual effects in their XR experiences. This skill lies at the cross intersection of design and development.

If you’ve taken a computer graphics course in your bachelor’s degree, you’ve got a head start here. If not, then you have a learning curve.

Here is a great YouTube playlist to help you, if you have no idea about Shader Development.

Anyone with the ability to think in terms of design and development is a UX engineer. There are multiple roles where design and development play a vital role. I’ve seen creative technologists, technical artists, AR/VR developers, AR/VR researchers, etc. in many XR job postings. I think the focus should be more on the skill set and responsibilities you get, rather than the name of the role itself.

Marginal note

There are so many platforms like Lens Studio and SparkAR that allow you to develop XR experiences without code, but there is a limit to the amount of customization. XR experiences built with these platforms run on their own platforms (Snapchat and Instagram) rather than on their own platform. You will not be able to incorporate the XR Experiences developed with these platforms into your own mobile application.

There are already plenty of drag and drop platforms for web development and mobile app development. Why do you think developers keep writing code to develop web apps and mobile apps?

Soft skills

Skill 9 — Social Networks

I firmly believe that it is good to always be up to date with the next trends in any field that interests you. Your social media feed shows you what you’ve liked in the past. If you can trick the algorithm into only showing you XR stuff by liking, sharing, and commenting only on XR content, then you will surely absorb a lot of information revolving around XR. You find out about the events (which are mostly webinars, due to the pandemic these days!), courses, news, tips from industry experts, jobs, community contests, and much more.

conclusion

The above skills should be enough to become an XR Designer or XR Developer. I understand that the learning curve is steep, but if you are passionate about this field and ready to invest your time in it, then go for it. XR is growing. It may take some time to become stable for end users, but as a tech you can surely invest your weekends in XR.

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Also published in https://medium.com/@knightcube/9-must-have-skills-to-become-a-an-ar-vr-developer-with-course-recommendations-6f18b9b18b94