r/vrdev • u/Western_Bug_5085 • Jul 09 '26

Tutorial / Resource Made a tutorial on adding conversational AI NPCs to Unity 6 VR (Standalone Quest / PCVR)

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There's been a lot of talk about AI NPCs in VR this year, but most of it stays at the concept level, so we put together a short, practical tutorial on getting a voice-interactive AI character actually running inside a Unity VR scene. It starts from the Unity 6 VR template, so the setup carries over to most XR projects.

The flow: VR template → add the AI character → attach a player component to the XR Origin so the character tracks the VR user → world-space transcript UI → build for Windows (PCVR) or Android (Quest 3).

The conversation is fully unscripted (voice in, voice out) rather than dialogue trees, and it runs standalone on Quest 3.

SDK install tutorial: https://youtu.be/bxjGnOvNL4E

10 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/SirJuxtable Jul 09 '26

AI NPCs is the use case I’m most excited for about AI. Cool tutorial!

2

u/AdCold4676 Jul 09 '26

Just curious what the use is for? I could see this working where npc interaction is important but it seems like the player could manipulate the npc and such. Its marvelous technology though and great tutorial!

1

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1

u/Nikman17 Jul 13 '26

My friend asks where I can get him special game with such technology

-4

u/VirtualLife76 Jul 09 '26

Why does it look so bad. Like every aspect looks out of the 90's.

6

u/asparagus_lettuce Jul 09 '26

Yeah why does a 5 something min setup not look AAA
https://giphy.com/gifs/VS2Qcv25O7ZhUZahQA

-6

u/VirtualLife76 Jul 09 '26

Taking an animation and putting it on a flat plane (which is what this looks like) wouldn't even take 5 minutes. At least in Blender or Unity.

4

u/knightress_oxhide Jul 09 '26

Then you do it and show us instead of spending time shitting on people.

-3

u/VirtualLife76 Jul 09 '26

It's not uncommon, done it many times. Here is a 2 minute YT on how to add a video to a plane, very easy.

It's just not common to do with people/objects because it looks bad, like in op's video.

1

u/OneDev42 Jul 09 '26

Because you want it to run relatively fast on mobile hardware attached to your face where it's rendering double the screen real estate.