Meta provides integrated support for Unreal Engine with the Meta XR Plugin. The integration makes developing XR applications that target Meta Quest and Oculus Rift headsets easy.
This section is your primary guide for targeting these headsets with Unreal Engine, although we provide cross-references for the Meta Quest Mobile SDK and PC SDK developer guides. In addition, you will find links to the Unreal Engine documentation supplied by Epic Games.
The Meta integration provides several Unreal Blueprints to make it easier to start developing using Unreal Engine. Blueprints provide a visual programming system. Here is a portion of a Blueprint script that includes Meta-specific functions:
If you are still unfamiliar with Unreal Blueprints, Epic Games provides several videos and tutorials to help you get started. Before proceeding with this developer guide, you should have a basic working knowledge of Blueprints programming.
Unreal Engine Royalty Payment Program
As an added incentive to develop VR apps with Unreal Engine, Meta pays royalties for any VR app developed using the Unreal Engine and sold through the Meta Horizon Store, up to $5,000,000 USD in application revenue. You must opt in through your Developer Dashboard to participate in this program. Read more on the Unreal Engine Royalty Payment Program page.
Sections in this Guide
We have included the following sections in this guide for Unreal Engine development.
Get Started
See one of these walk-through topics to get you started:
Meta Quest: Quick Start: Contains steps to help you get started developing Unreal applications for the Meta Quest.
PC-VR: Quick Start: Contains steps to help you get started developing Unreal applications for PC-VR applications.
Integration and Tools
This section contains an overview of release versions and the settings and tools provided in the Meta integration with Unreal Engine.
Integration Details - Settings and Development Tools
Unreal Version Compatibility Reference: This section provides version compatibility information for Unreal Engine, the OVRPlugin, and other related SDKs.
Building Unreal Engine from Source: Describes how to download, compile, and launch Unreal Engine from the GitHub repository using Visual Studio 2017 or 2019.
Hand Tracking and Controllers
To handle input events generated by Meta Quest Touch controllers and through hand tracking, see:
Fixed Foveated Rendering: Describes Fixed Foveated Rendering, a rendering technique for improving performance, and how to enable it in your applications for Quest.
Eye Tracked Foveated Rendering: Describes Eye-tracked Foveated Rendering, a rendering technique for improving performance, and how to enable it in your applications for Meta Quest headsets.
Splash Screen: Describes how to use the splash screen during application load time and Unreal Engine Level transition times.
Social Applications and Revenue: This section overviews the Meta Horizon platform’s social and revenue functions, with links to the Meta Horizon platform SDK documentation.
Mixed Reality Capture: Describes how to incorporate live video feeds into your Unreal applications.
Platform Solutions
The Meta Horizon platform supports security, community, revenue, and engagement, including entitlement checking, matchmaking, destinations and group presence, in-app purchase, VoIP, and cloud saves.
Audio for Unreal Apps
Audio is critical for creating a persuasive VR experience. The audio guide introduces tools to create an immersive audio experience with Unreal Engine apps. This guide includes spatialization plugins for Unreal Engine and other audio editing tools commonly used with Unreal, including Audiokinetic Wwise and FMOD Studio. In addition, it provides details on Lipsync and other audio resources.
Unreal Reference
For a complete reference guide to all Unreal functions, see:
