Set up your scene

To set up your scene for Android XR, follow the standard AR Foundation Scene setup process to add an AR Session component to your scene.

Add an XR Origin GameObject

To use Android XR, you must add an XR Origin to your scene. If you created a project from a template, the scene will contain an XR Origin that you can access in the Hierarchy window.

If you're starting a project from scratch, you need to create an XR Origin GameObject yourself.

To create an XR Origin in a new project, do one of the following:

  • Menu: GameObject > XR > XR Origin (VR).
  • Menu: GameObject > XR > Convert Main Camera to XR Rig.

The Android XR package includes the XR Core Utilities and XR Plug-in Management packages as dependencies. These packages enable the Convert Main Camera to XR Rig menu option. The XR Origin (VR) option replaces the previous command when you install the XR Interaction Toolkit package.

When you choose either of these two options, Unity creates an XR Origin object for Android XR. This process might result in duplicate Main Camera objects in your scene. In that case:

  1. Move the XR Origin object to the root of your scene (if it's not there already).
  2. Disable or delete the original Main Camera object.
  3. Make sure the newly created XR Origin > Camera Offset > Main Camera GameObject remains enabled in your scene.
Important

Ensure that the Tracked Pose Driver component on your XR Origin's camera has centerEyePosition [XR HMD] included in the Position and Rotation input actions. Without this, head tracking will fail, resulting in a poor VR or AR experience.

Configure camera background for passthrough

If your scene uses the Android XR device's passthrough camera, you need to configure the camera background. Android XR passthrough requires a Solid Color with the Background color alpha channel value set to zero for your Camera's Background Color (Universal Render Pipeline) or Clear Flags (Built-In Render Pipeline).

[!IMPORTANT]

In Unity 6.5 and newer, the Built-In Render Pipeline is deprecated and will be made obsolete in a future release. For more information, refer to Migrating from the Built-In Render Pipeline to URP and Render pipeline feature comparison.

If you have completed the AR Foundation scene setup steps, follow these instructions to configure your scene to render with a transparent camera background:

  1. Locate the XR Origin GameObject in your GameObject hierarchy.
  2. Expand the hierarchy to reveal the Camera Offset and Main Camera GameObjects.
  3. Inspect the Main Camera GameObject.
  4. Select from the following options. The options differ based on the render pipeline you're using:
    • URP: In the Environment section, set the Background Type to Solid Color.
    • Built-In Render Pipeline: Set Clear Flags to Solid Color.
  5. Select the Background color to open the color picker.
  6. Set the color's A value to 0.

Your scene is now configured to support Android XR passthrough.

Important

The scene camera renders its image in front of the passthrough video. If you set the camera's background color (or clear flags) to a skybox or an opaque solid color, the camera background will cover the passthrough video, making it invisible and preventing the passthrough feature from working.

Additional resources