After many months of endless speculation over the mysterious augmented reality platform Magic Leap, software engineers worldwide have been waiting for any news of what development environment this amazing technology might use. Thanks to Paul Reynolds, the former Magic Leap Senior Director of SDKs and Apps, we no longer have to guess. Just like existing mixed, augmented, and virtual reality platforms, developers will be able to use their experience with Unity and the UNREAL engine.
According to a a post from Reynolds in /r/magicleap, "The Magic Leap SDK supports any modern graphics engine. There's tighter integrations for Unity and Unreal Engine in particular."
Reynolds made this clarification in response to a question about the merit of learning Unity and C#—specifically with Magic Leap in mind. After making a few starting-point virtual reality recommendations— Google Cardboard, and Gear VR—then moving into augmented and mixed reality with HoloLens, he added, "I never recommend anything other than C# on the Unity scripting side of things."
This is great news for developers creating software for these technologies. And for those looking to break into these new and exciting software spaces, Reynolds gave this ringing endorsement: "If you are new to interactive 3D development, Unity is as good a place to start as any other."
It should be noted that Reynolds left Magic Leap earlier this year and founded Vertex Labs 3D, a tool and software development house for augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. With that in mind, there was one caveat that Reynolds offered in the exchange: "This is all assuming they haven't totally changed course on the technical architecture of the ML SDK or software since May of this year."
I—and the rest of development community—are eagerly trying to find out as much as we can about Magic Leap. With information slowly leaking into the world, like Reynolds reddit comments, and job ads that indicate potential moves toward mass manufacturing, it all begins to feel a bit more tangible. Now we wait anxiously to hear what is next.
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