The VR Developer and ARkit Nanodegree Programs are here to help feed the growing market need for educated developers. 

Various industries, from entertainment to healthcare, have begun investing a significant amount of their resources in virtual and augmented reality.  As a result, companies are now clamoring for talented developers in these rapidly growing fields. 

So to assist those looking to take advantage of this desperate thirst for VR and AR developers, massively popular cross-platform game engine Unity has teamed up with celebrated online learning company Udacity to create their VR Developer Nanodegree Program as well as their all-new Learn ARkit Nanodegree Foundations Program. 

By participating in these two cutting-edge programs, students are educated on the fundamentals of designing and engineering captivating immersive experiences using the power of Unity on the Udacity online learning platform. 

“Augmented and virtual reality are the future—so much so that the most influential companies in technology are betting big on their potential,” said Jessica Lindl, Global Head of Education at Unity Technologies. “ It’s a great time for seasoned developers and newbies alike to sharpen their skills.  We’re proud to work with Udacity to help equip developers today with the skills to create the apps of tomorrow.” 

The six-month VR Developer Nanodegree Program is a massive instructional series designed to provide you with anything and everything you’ll need to enter VR development at a professional level.  Depending on your level of expertise at the start, you’ll either enter the program at Term 1 or Term 2.  You’ll then choose your specialization in Term 3, which upon completion grants you your Nanodegree credentials. 

Here’s what you can expect out of the program in more detail:

Learn the foundations of VR including programming and scene creation including tracking techniques, history, 3D scene creation, materials, textures C# programming, control structures, events, the entity-component model, procedural animation, and shader programming. 

Develop an understanding of the graphics pipeline, performance analysis and optimization. 

Learn VR design principles and industry applications including ergonomics, personas, viewing angles, GUIs, locomotion, sketching and prototyping, user testing, spatialized audio, presenting your work, emerging technologies, and industry applications. 

Develop skills for mobile phone-based VR and Desktop VR, game engines, VR design and user interaction, 360 video and spatial sound, performance and ergonomics, VR platforms. 

Learn 360 pre-production and post-production techniques and build an interactive 360 video experience in Unity. 

Despite having an overall much shorter program, the Learn ARkit course is still a comprehensive dive into augmented reality development, specifically with Apple’s ARKit platform.  Here’s what you’ll be getting into:

Build a variety of ARKit applications that allow virtual objects to be placed on the ground, on tables, or other horizontal flat surfaces. 

Develop an understanding of visual inertial odometry, and discover the underlying computer vision mechanisms that enable ARKit. 

Add basic shadow effects to the scene. 

Learn to add dynamic lighting effects that change the color, direction, temperature, and intensity of ambient lighting. 

Master the skills to effectively “sell” the illusion of a synthetic object set in a real-life scene, in real-time. 

So if this sounds like exactly the sort of kick-in-the-ass you need to transform yourself from enthusiast to professional, then you might want to take a look at the VR Developer Nanodegree Program and ARkit Nanodegree Foundations Program over at Udacity.