A brief introduction to the tools of Mixed Reality

4 minutes

To make Mixed Reality projects, you need some key tools. The two Mixed Reality projects that follow this module in the learning path inspired by Space Jam: A New Legacy will use two different frameworks:

Babylon.js
Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK)

Before you dive into these frameworks, it's good to get an idea of the types of tools you'll need to have installed and ready to use throughout your Mixed Reality adventures.

Babylon.js tools

Babylon.js is a complete JavaScript framework for building 3D games and experiences with HTML5, WebGL, WebVR, and Web Audio. Because Babylon.js is a web framework, the tools can be lightweight. The two main tools you'll need are:

Visual Studio Code
GitHub

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a code editor that you can customize. It's open source, so you can see what's being worked on, suggest ideas for improvements, report bugs, or even contribute to it.

To download and install it for free on any platform, see the Visual Studio Code website.

Visual Studio Code also has a marketplace of extensions so that you can create a developer experience that's right for you. If you haven't done so already, install the CodeTour extension from Visual Studio Marketplace. You can find more information about this extension on the open-source repository on GitHub.

GitHub

GitHub is the largest open-source community. It features source control for your code. GitHub also supports deploying applications, collaborating on small group projects, and contributing to large open-source projects.

All the starter projects inspired by Space Jam: A New Legacy are on GitHub. One benefit of GitHub with Visual Studio Code and CodeTour is that they all work together. The CodeTour for the Babylon.js Mixed Reality project is right there in the GitHub repository. You can clone your GitHub project from inside Visual Studio Code.

To get started on GitHub, create an account at GitHub.com. Accounts are free for public and private repositories.

Mixed Reality Toolkit

The Windows 10 SDK and the Mixed Reality Toolkit are powerful tools. With the power of Visual Studio and Unity, you can create a fully immersive Mixed Reality experience designed for headsets. But don't worry! Unity provides an effective testing environment, so the only hardware you need is a Windows 10 computer.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a much larger integrated development environment (IDE) than Visual Studio Code. Like Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio has a marketplace of extensions that can help you get your environment set up to be productive for you.

For this learning path, you only need Visual Studio Community Edition, which is free. The MRTK requires Windows 10, so you'll need to download Visual Studio and not Visual Studio for Mac.

Unity

Unity is a platform for creating interactive and real-time content. Unity is one of the top platforms for creating 2D and 3D games and Mixed Reality experiences. With a tight integration to Visual Studio, you can stay in Unity for most of your Mixed Reality building. You'll open Visual Studio to the exact script you need to edit to make your environment interactive.

If you're working through this learning path and want to try Unity, download the free version, Unity Personal. To learn more about Unity, try out the tutorials and sample games on the Unity download site.

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