Custom Oculus Environment (Tutorial)

Mandy He (May 2022)

Intro/Motivation
One of the biggest benefits of VR is that it offers immersive experiences. One of the most straightforward ways to create immersive experiences is through customizing your surrounding environment in VR. Whether it's scrolling through an academic journal about marine animals while sitting underwater surrounded by fish and coral or watching horror movies while sitting in a haunted house, customizing your oculus environment can allow for more immersive experiences.

Technology required: Quest 2 headset, Windows (THIS METHOD DOES NOT WORK FOR MAC), charging cable

Coding experience needed: None (Note: This tutorial shows one of the easiest ways to create a custom home environment, so no 3D modeling experience is needed either)

Turning Panorama into Virtual Environment

Step 1. Take a panorama 

Step 2. Quest Home Discord

Step 3. Open Environment Converter and Builder

Step 4. Upload your Panorama 

Step 5. Select your environment on your headset














Done!!

Credits/Additional Resources:

Most helpful and in-depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bskTulpEtto

Other helpful videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRfIqspSW7A&ab_channel=ElinH%C3%B6hler -> using Blender and the Home Environment Converter/Builder


Note: The Home Converter/Builder is quite actively updated and the quest 2 itself has it's software updating quite consistently as well, so be sure to try to find more recent videos. For instance, even when following the first linked video which was created a few months ago, some things had already changed (the parts about uploading home environments from SideQuest replacing current home environments).