Unity is considering allowing Quest passthrough in the splash screen instead of a black void.
Currently when you launch a Unity mixed reality app on Quest you’ll see two sequential black void loading screens, effectively temporarily blindfolding you, even if you were in passthrough in the home environment.
It’s an issue we pointed out in our Quest 3 review as a rough edge of its mixed reality functionality. It feels unpolished and clunky, especially for anyone who bought the headset because it’s marketed for “mainstream mixed reality”.
The first of those black screens is on Meta’s end, and at its Connect 2023 conference Meta told UploadVR it plans to replace this with passthrough in a Quest system software update slated for December.
The second black screen is on the engine side, the splash screen. For VR the developer specifies the logo to show, but the background is currently a black void controlled by Unity.
On Unity’s AR/VR Roadmap, Splash Screen support for Quest Passthrough is now listed as ‘Under Consideration’. Signed in Unity developers can voice their support for it by marking it ‘Important’ or ‘Critical’, and providing reasoning when prompted.
