Kinect and Unity, Peanut Butter and Chocolate (or you'd think so, given how often we cover them here... 
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Now James Ashley has put together something just a yummy with his Unity 5 and Kinect 2 tutorial...
Unity 5 and Kinect 2 Integration
Until just this month one of the best Kinect 2 integration tools was hidden, like Rappuccini’s daughter, inside a walled garden. Microsoft released a Unity3D plugin for the Kinect 2 in 2014. Unfortunately, Unity 4 only supported plugins (bridges to non-Unity technology) if you owned a Unity Pro license which typically cost over a thousand dollars per year.
On March 3rd, Unity released Unity 5 which includes plugin support in their free Personal edition – making it suddenly very easy to start building otherwise complex experiences like point cloud simulations that would otherwise require a decent knowledge of C++. In this post, I’ll show you how to get started with the plugin and start running a Kinect 2 application in about 15 minutes.
(As an aside, I always have trouble keeping this straight: Unity has plugins, openFrameworks as add-ins, while Cinder has bricks. Visual Studio has extensions and add-ins as well as NuGet packages after a confusing few years of rebranding efforts. There may be a difference between them but I can’t tell.)
1. First you are going to need a Kinect 2 and the Unity 5 software. If you already have a Kinect 2 attached to your XBox One, then this part is easy. You’ll just need to buy a Kinect Adapter Kit from the Microsoft store. This will allow you to plug your XBox One Kinect into your PC. The Kinect for Windows 2 SDK is available from the K4W2 website, though everything you need should automatically install when you first plug your Kinect into your computer. You don’t even need Visual Studio for this. Finally, you can download Unity 5 from the Unity website.
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9. To build the app, select File | Build & Run from the top menu. Select Windows as your target platform in the next dialog and click the Build & Run button at the lower right corner. Another dialog appears asking you to select a location for your executable and a name. After selecting an executable name, click on Save in order to reach the final dialog window. Just accept the default configuration options for now and click on “Play!”. Congratulations. You’ve just built your first Kinect-enabled Unity 5 application!
Project Information URL: http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/blog/post/2015/03/27/Unity-5-and-Kinect-2-Integration.aspx
Contact Information:
Follow @CH9
Follow @Coding4Fun
Follow @KinectWindows
Follow @gduncan411
Continue reading...
.Now James Ashley has put together something just a yummy with his Unity 5 and Kinect 2 tutorial...
Unity 5 and Kinect 2 Integration
Until just this month one of the best Kinect 2 integration tools was hidden, like Rappuccini’s daughter, inside a walled garden. Microsoft released a Unity3D plugin for the Kinect 2 in 2014. Unfortunately, Unity 4 only supported plugins (bridges to non-Unity technology) if you owned a Unity Pro license which typically cost over a thousand dollars per year.
On March 3rd, Unity released Unity 5 which includes plugin support in their free Personal edition – making it suddenly very easy to start building otherwise complex experiences like point cloud simulations that would otherwise require a decent knowledge of C++. In this post, I’ll show you how to get started with the plugin and start running a Kinect 2 application in about 15 minutes.
(As an aside, I always have trouble keeping this straight: Unity has plugins, openFrameworks as add-ins, while Cinder has bricks. Visual Studio has extensions and add-ins as well as NuGet packages after a confusing few years of rebranding efforts. There may be a difference between them but I can’t tell.)
1. First you are going to need a Kinect 2 and the Unity 5 software. If you already have a Kinect 2 attached to your XBox One, then this part is easy. You’ll just need to buy a Kinect Adapter Kit from the Microsoft store. This will allow you to plug your XBox One Kinect into your PC. The Kinect for Windows 2 SDK is available from the K4W2 website, though everything you need should automatically install when you first plug your Kinect into your computer. You don’t even need Visual Studio for this. Finally, you can download Unity 5 from the Unity website.
...
9. To build the app, select File | Build & Run from the top menu. Select Windows as your target platform in the next dialog and click the Build & Run button at the lower right corner. Another dialog appears asking you to select a location for your executable and a name. After selecting an executable name, click on Save in order to reach the final dialog window. Just accept the default configuration options for now and click on “Play!”. Congratulations. You’ve just built your first Kinect-enabled Unity 5 application!
Project Information URL: http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/blog/post/2015/03/27/Unity-5-and-Kinect-2-Integration.aspx
Contact Information:
Follow @CH9
Follow @Coding4Fun
Follow @KinectWindows
Follow @gduncan411
Continue reading...
