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VRTK

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VRTK
Information
Type Interaction toolkit
Industry Virtual reality
Developer Harvey Ball (TheStoneFox) and community contributors; later Extend Reality Ltd
Written In C#
License MIT License
Supported Devices v3: headsets supported by the SteamVR, Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality Unity SDKs; v4: Unity XR, OpenXR, SteamVR, Oculus Integration, Pico Integration and HTC Wave XR packages
Release Date April 2016 (first code on GitHub); 3.3.0 (last v3 release) February 22, 2019; v4 beta March 2019
Website https://www.vrtk.io/


VRTK (Virtual Reality Toolkit) is a free, open-source toolkit for building virtual reality applications in the Unity game engine. Its official site describes it as "a collection of useful, reusable solutions to common problems found when building for spatial computing", released under the MIT License for personal and commercial use.[1] The toolkit supplies ready-made components for common VR tasks such as locomotion, grabbing and using objects, pointers, body physics and physical controls like buttons, levers and doors, and it places an abstraction layer between those mechanics and the headset vendor's own SDK.[2][3]

The project was started in April 2016 by Harvey Ball, a developer known online as TheStoneFox, as the "SteamVR Unity Toolkit", a set of scripts and prefabs for building SteamVR titles in Unity.[3][4] It took the VRTK name in August 2016 once it was no longer tied to SteamVR.[5][6] In 2017 GamesBeat wrote that a large group of independent creators had used it to start VR development.[3] After a failed Kickstarter campaign and a pause in development in December 2017, a grant from Oculus VR in 2018 paid for a ground-up rewrite, VRTK v4, which was released as a beta in March 2019 and later split into separate "Tilia" packages.[5][7][8]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Checked every release date, README and commit claim against the GitHub API, plus the GamesBeat, UploadVR, Meta developer blog, Ghost Howls, GDC, Frontiers, Unity Asset Store, vrtk.io and Companies House sources. About review dates.

History

SteamVR Unity Toolkit (2016)

Ball bought an HTC Vive in 2016. He told GamesBeat that he had been using Unity "for about a month just as a hobby", found Valve's SteamVR Unity plugin confusing, "realized a lot of people found it confusing" and started the toolkit "as a way to help people get into developing for VR".[3] The first commit to the GitHub repository was made on 23 April 2016.[9] The early README described the project as "a collection of useful scripts and prefabs for building SteamVR titles in Unity 5". It required Valve's SteamVR Plugin from the Unity Asset Store and offered controller button events, laser-style world pointers, player teleportation and grabbing and holding objects with the controllers.[4] Instead of donations, that README asked supporters to buy Ball's own HTC Vive game, Holodaze.[4]

On 20 August 2016 the code was renamed to the VRTK brand. The commit message explained that the toolkit was "no longer restricted by the use of SteamVR", so the SteamVR_Unity_Toolkit directory became VRTK and the README was made less dependent on SteamVR.[6] Version 2.2.0, released on 19 September 2016, was the first tagged release whose README carried the "[VRTK] VR Toolkit" title, although the SteamVR Plugin was still its only listed compatible SDK.[10][11]

Version 3 (2017-2019)

Version 3.0.0, published on 7 January 2017, added basic support for the Oculus Rift through the Oculus SDK and its OVRCameraRig, restructured the scripts so they were decoupled from the setup of any one SDK's camera rig, and required every SDK integration to follow a common interface.[12] Its README listed three supported SDKs: a built-in VR Simulator, the SteamVR Unity asset and the Oculus Utilities Unity package.[13] According to UploadVR, Facebook sent Ball a Rift and Oculus Touch controllers for free so that he could add that support, and open-source contributors added features such as climbing, new grabbing mechanics and archery physics.[5] Version 3.2.0 (23 June 2017) introduced switching between SDKs at runtime through "SDK Setups".[14]

In September 2017 GamesBeat reported that Ball worked on VRTK in the evenings while holding a day job as a web developer. His Patreon for the project raised nearly US$2,000 per month, which he said was a community budget rather than his income, and the project's Slack community had more than 2,000 members. A Kickstarter campaign launched earlier in 2017 with what GamesBeat called "a very high goal" drew more than 400 backers but did not reach its target.[3] In June 2017 the Game Developers Conference announced that Ball would give a talk titled "VRTK and How to Make Developing For VR Easier" at the Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC) Fall 2017, held in San Francisco on 21-22 September 2017.[15]

UploadVR later summarized the project's problems: because VRTK was built on top of the SteamVR Plugin, major updates to that plugin broke it, and supporting new hardware required increasingly complex abstraction layers. Ball also claimed that Valve declined to support VRTK because it considered the toolkit a competitor. Through 2017 he paid for development himself, and in December 2017 he decided to stop development.[5] The Ghost Howls reported at the time that Ball's remaining plan was to finish version 3.3.0 with Windows Mixed Reality support and then provide only bug fixes.[16]

Version 3.3.0, the final v3 release, was published on 22 February 2019.[10] Its README listed support for UnityEngine.VR, the VR Simulator, SteamVR 1.2.3, Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality, with Ximmerse, Google Daydream and HyperealVR marked as unsupported or experimental. It stated that SteamVR 2 was not supported.[2] The v3 package was also distributed free on the Unity Asset Store by Sysdia Solutions Ltd, where 3.3.0 is the latest version.[17]

Oculus grant and version 4 (2018-2019)

In January 2018 Ball received an email from Oculus VR, LLC offering funding to continue development; UploadVR described it as "a 6-month full grant with no conditions attached". The money was used to hire community member Christopher-Marcel Böddecker as a full-time developer.[5] The Ghost Howls reported the grant and the start of version 4 work on 30 April 2018, and said the project would stay free and open source and keep supporting all headsets.[18] A UK private company named Extend Reality Ltd, with Harvey Alan Ball among its directors, was incorporated on 6 February 2018 with software development listed as its business; Companies House records it as dissolved on 16 November 2021.[19][20] The project's GitHub repositories are hosted by the "Extend Reality Ltd" organization, and the VRTK repository's license names Extend Reality Ltd as copyright holder for 2018-2021.[21]

The VRTK team announced VRTK v4 on the Oculus developer blog on 29 March 2019, saying it had been released on GitHub as "4.0-beta". The post said v4 had been "re-written from ground up" and removed the SDK Manager and the need to know hardware SDKs. Components talk to each other through edit-time injection or UnityEvents, so behavior can be changed in the Unity inspector or with visual scripting tools, and prefabs replace v3's single drag-and-drop scripts. A generic action system wraps input from any SDK, which the team said would make it easier to connect other hardware such as VR treadmills. The post also introduced the VRTK Academy documentation project and said the team hoped to support Unreal Engine and WebXR in the future.[7] UploadVR wrote in April 2019 that v4 was "theoretically now engine agnostic", and noted that there were no v4 releases yet, so developers had to pull the project from GitHub.[5]

Tilia packages (2019-present)

The core of v4 is Zinnia, "a collection of design patterns for the Unity software that can be beneficial in (but not limited to) spatial computing development"; its first tagged release, v1.0.0, was published on 14 October 2019.[22][23] Ready-made features were first collected in a VRTK.Prefabs repository, which was later deprecated in favor of individual "Tilia" packages.[24] The Tilia packages are published to npmjs under the io.extendreality scope and installed through Unity's Package Manager with a scoped registry.[8] The official site names the free "VRTK v4 Tilia Package Importer" on the Unity Asset Store, as the easiest way to get started; the importer's latest version (1.3) is dated 21 April 2022.[1][25]

The main VRTK repository now holds a "Farm Yard" example project for v4, which requires Unity 2020.3.24f1 and uses Unity's XR management and Input System. Its README says the project is still in development and lacks some features of the earlier example built on VRTK.Prefabs, such as drag-world locomotion and a play area boundary cursor.[26]

Features

The v3 README summarized the toolkit as "a collection of useful scripts and concepts to aid building VR solutions rapidly and easily in Unity3d 5+", covering locomotion, touching, grabbing and using objects, interaction with Unity UI elements through pointers or touch, body physics, and 2D and 3D controls such as buttons, levers, doors and drawers. A VR Simulator worked without any third-party SDK; real headsets required importing the matching vendor SDK.[2] Ball described the main benefit to GamesBeat as the abstraction layer: mechanics built from VRTK components would work on any supported SDK, which he said made it easier to port games between stores.[3] The researchers who built the VR-EAL neuropsychological test battery chose the SteamVR SDK and VRTK for their interactions, citing VRTK's teleportation tools, support for six-degrees-of-freedom controllers, snap-drop zones and controller haptics.[27]

The v4 Tilia packages are grouped by function. As listed on the official package page:[8]

Group Examples of packages
Camera rigs OpenXR, Unity XR (legacy XR management), XR Plugin Framework, Spatial Simulator, Tracked Alias
SDK wrappers SteamVR, Oculus Integration, Pico Integration, HTC Wave XR
Input Unity Input Manager, Unity Input System, Combined Actions
Interactions Interactables, Controllables, Pointer Interactors, Snap Zone, Spatial Buttons
Locomotors Teleporter, Teleport Targets, Axis Move, Climbing, Movement Amplifier
Indicators Object Pointers, Spatial Targets
Visuals and output Basic Hand, Collision Fader, Interactable Highlighter, Tooltip, Vignette, Interactor Haptics
Trackers, mutators and utilities Collider Follower, Pseudo Body, Obscurance Tracker, Collision Ignorer, Object Follower, Object State Switcher, Shaders, Developer Tools

The Vignette package "creates a vignette tunnel in front of a camera view to improve comfort for fast movements in VR", and the Spatial Simulator camera rig "simulates spatial hardware" so scenes can be tested without a headset.[8]

Version history

Version Date Notes
First commit 23 April 2016 Repository started as SteamVR Unity Toolkit[9]
2.2.0 19 September 2016 First tagged release under the VRTK name[10][11]
3.0.0 7 January 2017 Basic Oculus SDK support; SDK-independent structure[12]
3.1.0 25 February 2017 Bug fixes, new features and deprecations[10]
3.2.0 23 June 2017 Runtime SDK switching with SDK Setups[14]
3.2.1 6 July 2017 Bug fixes, SteamVR plugin 1.2.2 support[10]
3.3.0 22 February 2019 Final v3 release; Windows Mixed Reality support[10][2]
4.0-beta March 2019 Ground-up rewrite announced on the Oculus developer blog[7]
Zinnia v1.0.0 14 October 2019 First tagged release of the v4 core library[23]
Tilia Package Importer 1.3 21 April 2022 Latest version on the Unity Asset Store[25]
Tilia OpenXR camera rig v1.2.2 9 September 2025 Latest release of the OpenXR rig package, which requires Unity 2022.3.62f1 or later[28]

Use and reception

The official "Made with VRTK" page lists dozens of titles on Steam, the Oculus store, the PlayStation Store and itch.io, among them QuiVr, Richie's Plank Experience, Universe Sandbox ² and Holodaze.[29] In a 2017 guest article for UploadVR, developer Nicholas Robinson called VRTK "a collection of foundational VR elements for Unity" and wrote that using it "gave us the breathing room to work on more critical elements like the fight mechanics".[30] GamesBeat wrote in 2017 that a large group of indie creators had used the toolkit to start in VR development.[3] UploadVR's 2019 article on the v4 beta was titled "VRTK v4 Beta Makes The Best Unity VR Framework Even Better".[5]

When Unity released its first-party XR Interaction Toolkit in December 2019, UploadVR contrasted the two: "Unlike with the VRTK toolkit, Unity is preferring laser pointer selection to direct manipulation", and developers on larger projects might use "a more advanced framework such as VRTK", although VRTK had no UI features yet.[31] Apress published a tutorial book on the rewritten toolkit, Virtual Reality with VRTK4: Create Immersive VR Experiences Leveraging Unity3D and Virtual Reality Toolkit by Rakesh Baruah, in 2020.[32]

Current status

As of October 2026, the Tilia repositories and the main VRTK repository remain public under the MIT License and are not archived. Most Tilia packages were last updated in September 2024, the main VRTK repository in April 2024 and the Zinnia core library's latest release, v2.16.2, is dated 28 September 2024. The newest package, the OpenXR camera rig, was created in June 2025 and last released as v1.2.2 on 9 September 2025.[23][28][33] The official website carries a 2024 copyright notice for "VRTK / Sysdia Solutions Ltd.", the company that also publishes both VRTK packages on the Unity Asset Store.[1][17] Companies House lists Harvey Alan Ball as a director of Sysdia Solutions Ltd since its incorporation in 2006.[34]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "VRTK - Virtual Reality Toolkit". VRTK. Sysdia Solutions Ltd.. https://www.vrtk.io/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "VRTK - Virtual Reality Toolkit (README, version 3.3.0)". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. 2019-02-22. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/blob/3.3.0/README.md. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Jason Wilson (2017-09-30). "VRTK helps devs get started in VR with open-source dev kit". GamesBeat. https://gamesbeat.com/vrtk-helps-devs-get-started-in-vr-with-open-source-dev-kit/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "SteamVR Unity Toolkit (README, version 1.0.1)". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/blob/1.0.1/README.md. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 David Heaney (2019-04-19). "VRTK v4 Beta Makes The Best Unity VR Framework Even Better". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/vrtk-v4-beta-release/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "feat(Structure): rename to VRTK brand". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. 2016-08-20. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/commit/dbe23f28d4d57f223d1a5e682382d10913507d37. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 The VRTK Team (2019-03-29). "VRTK v4 Now Available". Meta Horizon Developers Blog. https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/vrtk-v4-now-available/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "Extend Reality Ltd - Tilia Packages". VRTK. https://www.vrtk.io/tilia.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Commit history of ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK (April 2016)". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/commits/3.3.0?until=2016-04-25. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 "Releases - ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/releases. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "VRTK VR Toolkit (README, version 2.2.0)". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/blob/2.2.0/README.md. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Version 3.0.0". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. 2017-01-07. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/releases/tag/3.0.0. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ "VRTK - Virtual Reality Toolkit (README, version 3.0.0)". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/blob/3.0.0/README.md. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Version 3.2.0". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. 2017-06-23. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/releases/tag/3.2.0. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ "Get expert guidance on building for VR and AR at VRDC Fall 2017!". Game Developers Conference. 2017-06-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20221209220315/https://gdconf.com/news/get-expert-guidance-building-vr-ar-vrdc-fall-2017. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ Skarredghost (2017-12-28). "VRTK is shutting down: who will make VR development for Unity easier now?". The Ghost Howls. https://skarredghost.com/2017/12/28/vrtk-shutting-will-make-vr-development-unity-easier-now/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "VRTK - Virtual Reality Toolkit - [ VR Toolkit "]. Unity Asset Store. Sysdia Solutions Ltd. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/slug/64131. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ Skarredghost (2018-04-30). "VRTK announces version 4 thanks to an Oculus grant". The Ghost Howls. https://skarredghost.com/2018/04/30/vrtk-announces-version-4-thanks-to-an-oculus-grant/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ "EXTEND REALITY LTD (11190608)". Companies House. UK Government. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11190608. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ "EXTEND REALITY LTD (11190608) - People". Companies House. UK Government. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11190608/officers. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ "LICENSE.md - ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK/blob/master/LICENSE.md. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ "Zinnia.Unity". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/Zinnia.Unity. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 "Releases - ExtendRealityLtd/Zinnia.Unity". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/Zinnia.Unity/releases. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ "VRTK.Prefabs (deprecated)". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK.Prefabs. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "VRTK v4 Tilia Package Importer". Unity Asset Store. Sysdia Solutions Ltd. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/vrtk-v4-tilia-package-importer-214936. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  26. ↑ "VRTK Farm Yard Example - Virtual Reality Toolkit (README)". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/VRTK. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  27. ↑ Panagiotis Kourtesis, Danai Korre, Simona Collina, Leonidas A. A. Doumas, Sarah E. MacPherson (2020-01-14). "Guidelines for the Development of Immersive Virtual Reality Software for Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology: The Development of Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), a Neuropsychological Test Battery in Immersive Virtual Reality". Frontiers in Computer Science, vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2019.00012. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 "Releases - ExtendRealityLtd/Tilia.CameraRigs.OpenXR.Unity". GitHub. Extend Reality Ltd. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd/Tilia.CameraRigs.OpenXR.Unity/releases. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  29. ↑ "Made With VRTK". VRTK. https://www.vrtk.io/madewith.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  30. ↑ Nicholas Robinson (2017-02-26). "GDC 2017: The 3 VR Tools That Got Us In". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/gdc-3-vr-tools-got-us/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  31. ↑ David Heaney (2019-12-19). "Unity Adds Toolkit For Common VR/AR Interactions". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/unity-xr-interaction-toolkit/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  32. ↑ Rakesh Baruah (2020). "Virtual Reality with VRTK4: Create Immersive VR Experiences Leveraging Unity3D and Virtual Reality Toolkit". Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5488-2. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  33. ↑ "Extend Reality Ltd". GitHub. https://github.com/ExtendRealityLtd. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  34. ↑ "SYSDIA SOLUTIONS LTD (05934381) - People". Companies House. UK Government. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05934381/officers. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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