Part 1: Setting up third-person VR exploration with Unreal Engine 5 and Meta Quest 3

Note: This article is more than one year old.

• Quest OS, PC runtimes, and Unreal XR plugins are updated frequently. Check compatibility information in their release notes.
• Developer menus and USB debugging procedures may change with Meta's documentation updates.
• The screenshots show the HMD and PC environment used at the time. Interface names may have changed.

I will test how to set up a VR preview that lets me move freely through a world using Meta Quest 3 and Unreal Engine 5 (UE5).

I tested this on Windows through Oculus Link.

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I wanted to use the then-new Meta Quest 3 to look around and move freely through virtual spaces in a head-mounted display (HMD).

I imagine many people want to try VR with this high-quality combination of Quest 3 and UE5.

Disappointed by UE5's VR template

UE5 has a dedicated Virtual Reality template, designed to make basic VR behavior and interaction easy to implement. Its movement feels dated, though: teleportation between points and horizontal view changes in 45-degree steps. To me, it was a disappointing VR experience. Since it is VR, I want to move freely. Try the default behavior first and see how it feels.

Improving the VR template?

There are many guides to modifying the template for free movement. In first person, however, I get intensely motion-sick, and the setup is complicated. A difficult combination.

Is there a simpler, more natural way?

I investigated a simpler way to explore freely in the Quest 3 HMD. Controlling a third-person view worked with relatively less motion sickness. Here is a setup for adding a world of your choice and moving around as simply as possible. First, create a Third Person world. Once it opens, save it with a name such as main. The template itself is fine; arrange things so they are easy to work with. In the Content Browser's Add menu, choose Add Feature or Content Pack. Add Virtual Reality to the project. When prompted about missing plugins, choose to enable the missing items. This adds the plugins needed for HMD VR. Restart to apply them.

Previewing in the HMD

Set up Quest Link for the Meta Quest 3 beforehand. Prepare an Xbox-compatible controller to make movement easier. An inexpensive one around ¥3,000 is fine; official Xbox controllers cost more. The environment is now ready. Launch VR Preview. I could view VR in the Quest 3 HMD and move freely with the Xbox-compatible controller. You can enter stat fps to check the frame rate. FPS appears in the upper right. If it is low, reduce the rendering load. The test PC used an RTX 2080 Ti, already rather old. Close the preview for now.

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Exploring a richer VR environment

I added Cyberpunk - Cyber City to the project.

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/ja/product/cyberpunk-cyber-city

Open Cyber City's DemoMap, select all its objects, and copy them. Open the original Third Person map and paste the copied content. It is a good idea to remove the original Third Person lighting and other redundant settings, since two maps are being combined. The environment I wanted to see in VR was now transferred. Let's test it in VR Preview. It worked, although it was a little choppy. Next, let's optimize the settings. Open Project Settings. Click Rendering. Find the VR section. Set the stereo foveation level to Medium, or another suitable value, and enable dynamic foveation. It felt a little lighter, but I also noticed what seemed like flicker around the edges. Tricky. If performance is still poor, open Engine Scalability Settings from the upper-right Settings menu and adjust the scalability groups. You can reduce other rendering effects too. Find or add a PostProcessVolume. Set Bloom Intensity to 0. Set other potentially expensive effects to 0 as appropriate. Enable Infinite Extent so the effects apply everywhere. I could view the scene in the HMD. Strangely, however, it looked better on the monitor: quality and detail seemed lower in the headset. Next, I still wanted to try first person, so that became the next experiment. To be continued.

Part 2: Setting up free first-person VR exploration with Unreal Engine 5 and Meta Quest 3

https://riragon.com/blog/en/unreal-engine-5-ue5-meta-quest-3-hmd2/

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