Game Programming

Ever felt like your VR project is running so slow it could be a snail’s day job? 🐌 Or maybe your framerate is auditioning for a role in The Matrix—dodging bullets, but also every performance standard? 😅

Well, today, we’re fixing that! I’ll show you how to take your Unreal Engine VR game from ‘meh’ to chef’s kiss smooth. Although enhancing the performance and framerate of Unreal Engine VR applications, whether running in standalone mode (Android mobile) or PCVR mode (PC streaming), can feel daunting, especially when dealing with varying project requirements, this guide breaks down practical and easy-to-implement strategies that deliver noticeable results with minimal hassle, helping you achieve smoother gameplay.

So, let’s get started before that snail finishes its coffee break!

Alright, I’m back with another video.

If you caught the last one on building Unreal Engine 5.6 from source on Windows, you already know the drill. As promised—this is the GNU/Linux edition.

We’re doing it the Linux way this time: clean, efficient, and just a bit different. Let’s dive in.

Alright… I’m back. Yes, I know—I vanished for a while. But just like the upcoming Unreal Engine 5.6 release, I’ve been quietly cooking in the shadows. And now… we’re both making a comeback.

Today’s tutorial is all about how to build Unreal Engine 5.6 from source—on Windows. That’s right, 5.6 isn’t officially out yet, but we’re not waiting around. If you’re impatient like me—or just curious to see what Epic’s brewing before the rest of the world—this video is for you.

Now, some of you patient folks out there might be thinking: “Why bother? Can’t I just wait for the release?” Fair question. But here’s the deal—I work for a company that publishes Unreal Engine plugins on the Fab Store. And they want their plugin ready on day zero when the new engine drops. The catch? Epic only allows you to submit plugins once the final version is officially released. So to stay ahead of the curve, we grab the source early, build it, test it, and make sure everything works before the launch day.

And hey, if you’re a Linux user—don’t worry—I’ve got a separate video coming soon. Just not today. Because building on Linux is like dating in your forties… not complicated, exactly—just different.

We’ll be diving into more Unreal Engine 5.6 goodness over the coming months, so buckle up, hit that subscribe button, and let’s get nerdy.

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the channel! In the last tutorial, we tackled deploying Unreal Engine projects to Android and Meta Quest in standalone mode—because who doesn’t love the thrill of watching their code actually work on a headset? But if you caught that episode, you’ll remember I dropped a little plot twist: Unreal Engine’s built-in OpenXR plugin… yeah, it’s like that friend who shows up at your party and forgets to bring their own hand-tracking support for Android. Awkward, right?

Well, today, we’re fixing that. We’re making sure the hand-tracking projects we developed together earlier in this series, have non-broken, fully functional hand-tracking and play nice on your Meta Quest and HTC Vive HMDs in standalone mode. Whether you’re team Meta or team HTC, I’ve got you covered.

Let’s jump right in and get the hand-tracking working exactly the way it’s supposed to!

All right… so… you might be wondering—where have I been? Did I fall into a virtual void or some digital black hole? Did I get sucked into a never-ending loading screen? Did Unreal Engine finally crash me for good? Well, almost.

But I’m back! Back from the digital abyss. And let me tell you, I was this close to naming this video: ‘How to Deploy Your Soul to Standalone Mode’… because burnout is real, my friends.

Jokes aside, YOU—yes, you awesome people—kept me going. I read your comments. I saw your feedback. And honestly, some of those messages… they were half encouragement, half passive-aggressive ‘Bro, where’s the next tutorial?!’ You all have zero chills. But… I like that. That’s what got me here today.

So, by popular demand and an ungodly amount of coffee, here we are. Today, we will deploy your Unreal Engine projects to Meta Quest. We’re talking Android standalone mode, baby!

And if you’ve been struggling with this process, don’t worry. I’ve suffered so you don’t have to. You’re welcome!

But, before we dive into the screen-sharing and the real stuff, you know the drill. Smash that like button, subscribe, and drop a comment. If you don’t, I’ll deploy you into an infinite loop of beginner VR setup tutorials. Trust me, you don’t want that. So, it’s your call!

All right! Let’s get into it.

Building on the Introduction to Virtual Reality, OpenXR Hand-Tracking, and Gesture Recognition in Unreal Engine tutorial, this slightly more advanced tutorial will dive deeper into the following topics:

• Transitioning seamlessly between motion controller and hand-tracking modes in Unreal Engine.
• Adding custom debugging gizmos to improve development and testing workflows.
• Visualizing debug virtual hands by incorporating the custom gizmos.
• Animating virtual hand meshes with OpenXR hand-tracking data, moving beyond basic joint representation with cubes.
• Re-using and adapting the gesture recognition code from the introductory tutorial to integrate with the new animated virtual hand meshes.

This guide will help you take your VR projects to the next level with polished and practical implementations.

Here’s a lesser-known fact about me. Once upon a time, when it was just me and the dinosaurs… Okay, maybe not that far back, but long before VR headsets, the Metaverse, and the social media craze, I used to teach people things for 8 years! I loved it so much that, honestly, I could talk for hours (don’t worry, I won’t in this video)!

Anyway, enough of my rambling! Recently, I rediscovered that passion for teaching, and I’m thrilled to kick off a VR tutorial series in Unreal Engine. That’s why, as the introductory step into this series, we’re diving hands-first into the fascinating world of virtual reality.

But, before we jump in, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any of my VR adventures.

Ready? Let’s bring those virtual hands to life!

Find the link to the video tutorial and the project repository down below.

UPDATE [2021/11/08]: For whitelisting macOS, one could simply add Mac to PlatformAllowList inside the .uplugin file. e.g.:

	"Modules": [
		{
			"Name": "ModelingToolsEditorMode",
			"Type": "Editor",
			"LoadingPhase": "Default",
			"PlatformAllowList": [ "Win64", "Linux", "Mac" ]
		}
	],

I’ve been trying to enable and make use of UE5’s Modeling Tools Editor Mode Plugin inside the editor built from ue5-main and 5.0 and struggled to some extent. According to Epic Games, this should suffice:

If you are starting up a new project, the modeling mode plugin may need to be turned on. From the Plugins window, enable the Modeling Tools Editor Mode Plugin and restart Unreal Engine.

So, I did enable the plugin from inside the editor:

To no avail and I was never able to find it inside the UE5 editor:

Despite that, I was able to figure out what’s wrong. Here’s how I fixed it on Linux and it’s an easy fix. It probably works on macOS, too. Though I have no idea why Epic Games has disabled it on non-Windows platforms in spite of the fact that it works just fine.