15+ books to help you design amazing AR/VR experiences
1. The VR Book — Human Centered Design for Virtual Reality by Jason Jerald
“Jason Jerald’s The VR Book is probably one of the most comprehensive sources available to understand the past and the future potential of virtual reality. This book provides and in-depth look at the human element of virtual reality and the main principals of creating the best VR experiences rather than just a technical implementation.”
2. Learning Virtual Reality: Developing Immersive Experiences and Applications for Desktop, Web, and Mobile by Tony Parisi
“Learning Virtual Reality is a great hands-on guide for basics of virtual reality. This book helps you to get a better understanding of UI design, 3D graphics and Unity 3D. It also provides valuable information for building apps for Oculus or Samsung Gear VR, as well as browser based applications using WebVR and WebGL.”
3. Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice (Usability) by Dieter Schmalstieg & Tobias Hollerer
“This book explains the basic principles of augmented reality technology and the best ways to apply it into different applications. It is a great source of information for those who wants to understand the dynamics of this interesting technology.”
4. Unity Virtual Reality Projects by Jonathan Linowes
“Unity is a cross-platform gaming engine to develop games and VR experiences. The book “Unity Virtual Reality Projects”, written by Jonathan Linowes helps readers to build their own VR games or applications. It provides step by step instructions for creating virtual reality environments and games.”
5. Practical Augmented Reality: A Guide to the Technologies, Applications, and Human Factors for AR and VR (Usability) by Steve Aukstakalnis
“Practical Augmented Reality is a guide for AR and VR bringing together a comprehensive coverage of technologies and tools that are already commercially available or will be soon. The book presents revealing case studies of real-world applications from gaming, entertainment, big data, engineering, aeronautics, defense, medicine, telerobotics, architecture, law enforcement, and geophysics.”
6. Unity in Action: Multiplatform Game Development in C# with Unity 5 by Joe Hocking
“Unity in Action teaches you how to write and deploy games with the Unity game development platform. With this book you can master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Each sample project illuminates specific Unity features and game development strategies. As you read and practice, you’ll build up a well-rounded skill set for creating graphically driven 2D and 3D game applications. You’ll need to know how to program, in C# or a similar OO language. No previous Unity experience or game development knowledge is assumed.”
7. Oculus Rift in Action by Brad Davis, Karen Bryla and Alex Benton
“Oculus Rift in Action teaches you how to create 3D games and other virtual reality experiences for the Oculus Rift. You’ll explore the Rift hardware through examples of real applications using the Oculus SDK and both the Oculus C API and the Unity 3D graphics engine. Along the way, you’ll get practical guidance on how to use the Rift’s sensors to produce fluid VR experiences. Experience with C++, C#, or another OO language is assumed.”
8. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell
The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology.
9. Holistic Game Development with Unity: An All-in-One Guide to Implementing Game Mechanics, Art, Design and Programming by Penny de Byl
“Holistic Game Development with Unity is an authoritative guide to creating games in Unity. Taking you through game design, programming, and art, Penny de Byl uses a holistic approach to equip you with the multidisciplinary skills you need for the independent games industry. With this book, you will master essential digital art and design principles while learning the programming skills necessary to build interactivity into your games.”
10. Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard A. Bartle
“Designing Virtual Worlds is a comprehensive treatment of virtual world design to-date. It’s a tour de force of VW design, stunning in intellectual scope, spanning the literary, economic, sociological, psychological, physical, technological, and ethical underpinnings of design, while providing the reader with a deep, well-grounded understanding of VW design principles. It covers everything from MUDs to MOOs to MMORPGs, from text-based to graphical VWs.”
11. The Immersive Worlds Handbook: Designing Theme Parks and Consumer Spaces by Scott Lukas
“Whether or not you are involved in designing a theme park, cultural museum, shop, or other entertainment space, you will benefit from the insider tips, experiences, and techniques highlighted in this practical guide. The book features informative sidebars addressing possible design issues and current trends; case studies and interviews with real-world designers, and further reading suggestions. Make your themed spaces come to life and become true, immersive worlds.”
12. Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications by Alan B. Craig
Understanding Augmented Reality addresses core conceptual issues regarding the medium of augmented reality as well as the technology required to support compelling augmented reality. By addressing AR as a medium at the conceptual level in addition to the technological level, the reader will learn to conceive of AR applications that are not limited by today’s technology. At the same time, ample examples are provided that show what is possible with current technology.
13. Unreal Engine VR Cookbook: Developing Virtual Reality with UE4 (Game Design) by Mitch McCaffrey
World-renowned VR developer and instructor Mitch McCaffrey offers tested “recipes” for performing each common VR task and overcoming many complex development challenges. McCaffrey’s recipes contain step-by-step instructions, while also empowering you with concise explanations of the underlying theory and math. You’ll get immediate results, as you gain as much knowledge of the “big picture” as you desire.
14. Virtual Reality and the Built Environment by Jennifer Whyte
Virtual Reality in the Built Environment is a guide to the practical uses of virtual design, construction, and management. Providing an overview of industrial applications for virtual reality and exploring relevant research, this book is an accessible and innovative resource for architects, designers and built environment professionals — bridging the gap between technological vision and current practice.
15. Virtual Reality (VR)-Based Learning Environment: Design, Develop, Evaluate by Chwen Jen Chen
This book proposes an instructional design theoretical framework that prescribes instructional and design methods for virtual reality (VR)-based learning environments. It provides a thorough description on how to use a constructivist instructional development model to guide the process of designing, developing and evaluating VR-based learning environments. A learning environment that focuses on the understanding of traffic rules for various road scenarios is used to illustrate the feasibility of the instructional design theoretical framework and the instructional development model.
16. Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications, Second Edition by Kelly S. Hale, Kay M. Stanney
The second edition of a bestseller, Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications presents systematic and extensive coverage of the primary areas of research and development within VE technology. It brings together a comprehensive set of contributed articles that address the principles required to define system requirements and design, build, evaluate, implement, and manage the effective use of VE applications. The contributors provide critical insights and principles associated with their given areas of expertise to provide extensive scope and detail on VE technology and its applications.
17. 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice by Doug Bowman, Ernst Kruijff, Joseph J. LaViola Jr., Ivan P. Poupyrev
As 3D technology becomes available for a wide range of applications, its successful deployment will require well-designed user interfaces (UIs). Specifically, software and hardware developers will need to understand the interaction principles and techniques peculiar to a 3D environment. This understanding, of course, builds on usability experience with 2D UIs. But it also involves new and unique challenges and opportunities. Discussing all relevant aspects of interaction, enhanced by instructive examples and guidelines, 3D User Interfaces comprises a single source for the latest theory and practice of 3D UIs.
Do you know other VR/AR design books to recommend? Leave a comment below.
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