VR developer Turbo Button released an interface for multiplatform VR development in Unity. Turbo Button is the developer behind Floor Plan, Along Together, and the official Adventure Time VR game.
The studio used the interface for their two most recent titles, Floor Plan & Along Together. But TButt has also been used by other studios, most notably by Tender Claws for their hit Virtual Virtual Reality.
Turbo Button additionally stated that the interface already supports Oculus Quest, and that several in development Quest titles are already using it.
The issue TButt aims to solve is the fragmentation that exists between VR platforms SDKs of today. Without an interface like this developers have to rewrite code to achieve the same result on different VR platforms. TButt abstracts input, performance settings, tracking data, and more.
Input (handling controllers) is a core focus of the interface. Input is the most significant difference between VR platforms today. TButt handles everything from basic 3DoF laser pointers to dual 6DoF controllers. A useful feature is that it allows for emulating a 3DoF controller in the Unity editor for more rapid development than pushing a full build to a standalone headset.
TButt supports the Oculus, SteamVR, Windows MR and DayDream platforms. Crucially, it also complies with the publishing requirements of the default stores for each platform, meaning it can be used to ship real games.
TButt is free and open source, leveraging the popular MIT Licence. This lets any developer use and modify it even for commercial projects. It’s encouraging to see the spirit of co-operation in the VR development community- hopefully it lives on as VR enters the mainstream market in coming years.
