š©āš« Start Mentors: Your Expert Guides in VR/MR Development
Start mentors are experienced community leaders with deep expertise in VR/MR development and education. Theyāre here to help both new and seasoned developers level up across all aspects of building immersive apps and experiences. You can connect with mentors through our community forums, the Meta Horizon Start Discord server, live workshops, written resource guides, and on-demand videos. Donāt miss our weekly live Performance Clinics and 1:1 mentor sessionsāget direct support on app optimization, troubleshooting, and more. Meet your Start mentorsāShane, Quentin, Sidney, and Tevfikāin their Meet the Mentor posts below!App Discovery - Start Town Hall Q3
Want to learn more about App Discovery on the Meta Horizon Store? The Start community voted to learn more about āApp Discoveryā during the Start Town Hall (Q3 2025), so we invited Thomas Gratz to share more about how you can optimize your app's distribution on the Store. In addition to this video, we recommend checking out this blog post on Unpacking Discovery.
[Workshop] Diegetic User Interfaces
Hi All, angelsinā here, and I want to talk to you about Diegetic User Interfaces. I hosted a workshop about the topic for Start members, and you can watch the recording here: If text is more your speed, here's a summary of what we talked about: Diegetic User Interfaces in Virtual Spaces User Interface (UI): The interface features through which users interact with hardware and software. Diegetic: Existing within the fiction of the story. Spatial: Existing within the virtual space. Game UI to gameplay spectrum: How integrated into the play is the UI. Traditional UIs are the most straightforward to make, and the tools available are designed to build this type of UI. In flat applications these are typically overlay menus. Spatial UIs are the bread and butter of VR/AR applications, they are traditional UIs brought off the overlay plane and into the virtual space, these are your typical laser pointer wall menus, or floating player menus. The key here is that they do not exist in the game's fiction. Even if themed to match the game's art style if the UI does not exist in the fiction then it is not diegetic. A diegetic UI both exists spatially AND exists within the fiction. Diegetic UIs enhance immersion by making the interface feel like part of the virtual world rather than an external tool. They can be particularly useful in immersive attractions and VR/AR applications where users need to interact directly within a simulated environment. These require some amount of buy-in from the player in the form of belief, and tend to be bespoke to the application they are made for thus requiring a larger development and design effort. Meta UIs exist in a weird space because they largely exist due to limitations of the technology. These UIs exist within the fiction, but are not accurately represented within the virtual space, the best example of this would be something like a ScrollView on a sign, the sign exists in the virtual space, and the information exists in the fiction, but the ScrollView only exists for the player, and moreover only exists due to the need to enlarge text due to resolution. Benefits of Diegetic UI Increase Immersion: Users feel more immersed as they interact with the simulated environment. Increase Embodiment: The interface feels like part of the virtual world, enhancing the user's sense of being present in the simulation. Reduce Obstruction to the Narrative: Diegetic UIs can help keep the narrative flow smooth by not interrupting the immersive experience. Reduce Menu Time: Users spend less time navigating menus and more time engaging with gameplay. Diegetic UIs blend seamlessly into the gameplay, making it feel like part of the virtual world rather than an external tool. This can enhance user engagement and immersion by reducing the need for separate interfaces during gameplay. Exploring Virtual Spaces, some ideas of ways to go further Multi-modal Hands: Users can put down their weapons or use controllers to define a surface or window. Mixed Reality: Bring UI into the userās physical space Align UI with virtual representations from physical space Designed environments that blend seamlessly with the simulated environment. Diegetic user interfaces are an essential tool for enhancing immersion and engagement in virtual spaces. By making the interface feel like part of the fictional space, users can have a more immersive experience without being interrupted by separate tools during gameplay. As always I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What are some interesting examples of UI that made an impact on you? Were they Traditional, Spatial, Meta, or Diegetic?Introduction to Profiling & Optimization
Hi All, angelsinā here. In my first workshop āIntroduction to Profiling and Optimizationā we did a bit of a live demo. Here's a recording of the session, but if you want a quick summary of the information, keep reading! Profiling in Unity refers to the process of analyzing how your game performs. It helps developers identify bottlenecks, optimize code, and improve overall performance. The key takeaways are: Profile first Profile often Profile on device Why should you profile before optimizing? Identify Bottlenecks: Profiling helps you pinpoint exactly where your game spends most of its time and resources. Avoid Premature Optimization: Without profiling data, it's easy to optimize parts of the code that don't actually contribute significantly to performance issues. Set Clear Goals: Profiling provides concrete metrics to measure against when optimizing. Why should you profile after making changes? Verify Improvements: Profiling allows you to see if the optimizations you made actually improved performance, or if they introduced new issues. Iterative Improvement: By regularly profiling and analyzing results, you can iteratively improve your game's performance over time. Avoid Over-Optimization: Continuous profiling helps prevent developers from getting carried away with optimization efforts that don't provide tangible benefits. Why should you profile your game on the actual device? Real-World Performance: Editor profiling provides a different environment from the real device, which can lead to discrepancies between performance metrics. Device-Specific Issues: Profiling on the device helps identify issues that may only occur on specific hardware or software configurations. Hitting your VRC targets: Meta is going to do their testing on device, and you should too. If you notice that your game's frame rate drops significantly during certain scenes or gameplay modes, using the Profiler Window to analyze CPU and memory usage can help identify whether itās due to heavy script execution, excessive asset loading, or inefficient rendering techniques. This insight allows developers to make targeted optimizations. To get started with profiling in Unity, open the Profiler Window and begin analyzing your game's performance. Experiment with different scenes and gameplay modes to identify areas for improvement. Utilizing the Timeline tab, as well as the Hierarchy tab is important because each can give you insights that the other does not. Additionally if it seems like its hard to track down where exactly problems are coming from, then enabling deep profiling can really help you dig into exactly what methods are causing the biggest problems After making changes, always profile again to verify if the optimizations were effective or introduced new issues. Finally, ensure you are profiling on the actual device rather than just in the editor to get accurate performance metrics and avoid hardware-specific issues. The editor is great for getting the shape of the problem, but your computer is probably many times more powerful than the device, and you might be using different graphics libraries as well. It often makes sense to start out profiling in the editor and then verify problems on device. For more detailed guidance, consider checking out Unityās official documentation or online tutorials on best practices for optimization. If you want a more hands on approach I do host a performance clinic on the Start program discord once a week and I am happy to go over these profiles with you. -Sidney
Free-to-Play Spotlight: Developer Interview w/ GRAB
Hi everyone, Iām Quentin, XR Developer, creator of Valem Tutorials, and Meta Start Mentor š Monetization is always a tough subject in VR. Choosing between Pay-to-Play (Premium) or Free-to-Play (F2P) isnāt just about pricing, it affects game design, player experience, and can make or break the success of a game. To help make sense of it, I hosted my first AMA & Community Spotlight focused on Free-to-Play. Hereās what we covered: ā¢ Introduction to Free-to-Play Monetization: Key differences between Pay-to-Play and Free-to-Play in VR, plus a spotlight on great F2P projects from the Start community. ā¢ In-App Purchasing Tutorial: A 10-minute step-by-step guide to implementing IAP in Unity with the Meta SDK. ā¢ Developer Interview: A deep dive with Nils Daumann, creator of Grab, on building and monetizing a successful F2P VR game. If youād like to know more, I highly recommend watching the recording of the workshop and joining the Meta Start community as we continue to share insights on this subject. š„ Watch the full workshop here: https://metahorizondevelopers.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/42533098539283--Mentor-Workshop-Unlocking-Free-to-Play-w-Quentin-Valem-Nils-GRAB š Download the In-App Purchasing example project: https://github.com/ValemVR/Meta_Start_F2P_Tutorial š Check out the F2P Meta Start Community Showcase: https://youtu.be/Vc5rgKaqDAA I hope this session helps anyone exploring the best monetization model for their VR game. If you try out the IAP example Iād love to hear your feedback and experiences. š Interested in more exclusive mentorship and resources? Apply to the Start program to connect with experienced mentors, access special workshops, and join a global community of VR/MR developers.
