webXR

Apple Vision Pro Will Support WebXR for Fully Immersive Experiences in the Browser

News, webXR, webxr safari, webxr vision pro, webxr visionos / Ryan Harris / June 21, 2023

Apple has confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will support WebXR, a web-standard that allows immersive experiences to be delivered through the browser.

In a somewhat surprising move, Apple confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will support WebXR. Prior to the reveal of the headset, it was an open question whether the company would entertain the idea of XR experiences through the browser, and even more so if the company would adopt the relatively new WebXR standard. But now Apple has confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will indeed support WebXR.

The company confirmed as much in its WWDC 2023 developer talk titled Meet Safari for Spatial Computing, in which the Apple explained the version of Safari running on Vision Pro is “truly is Safari with the same WebKit engine underneath, plus some thoughtful additions for [Vision Pro].”

Thanks to Safari on visionOS being a fully-featured version of the browser, existing websites should work exactly as expected, the company says. But to go beyond flat web pages, Safari on visionOS includes support for WebXR for immersive experriences and the new tag for 3D models.

For the time being, WebXR capabilities on Safari for visionOS are still hidden through a developer toggle, but once enabled it will support the ‘immersive-vr’ session type, and the ‘hand-tracking’ feature for user input.

An example of a fully immersive WebXR environment | Image courtesy WebKit

WebXR allows developers to build fully immersive content that can be delivered through a web browser. It’s possible to create fully interactive VR games and experiences, like this Beat Saber clone, which can run across various headsets and browsers using the same code, just like a web page can render the same way between different devices and browsers.

Apple plans to make WebXR a mainline feature in visionOS Safari after more time collaborating with the rest of the industry on the WebXR standard.

With Apple now officially supporting WebXR, the standard can claim truly widespread support; WebXR is now supported, at least in some capacity, by Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and Safari, as well as the Quest browser, Pico browser, Magic Leap Browser, Chrome for Android, Samsung Internet, Opera Mobile, and Firefox for Android. Though like visionOS Safari, some of these browsers have kept the feature as a developer preview for now.

In addition to WebXR, Apple is also adding support for the in-development specification, a standardized approach to adding 3D models to web pages for things like previewing clothing, furniture, and other products.

The goal is to make embedding 3D models into web pages as easy as embedding photos or videos. For the time being the feature will remain behind a developer toggle.

Apple Vision Pro Will Support WebXR for Fully Immersive Experiences in the Browser Read More »

AWE USA 2023 Day One: XR, AI, Metaverse, and More

AI, AR/VR events, augmented reality, digilens, Events, extended reality, featured, Lenovo, metaverse, nreal, qualcomm, webXR / Ryan Harris / June 2, 2023

AWE USA 2023 saw a blossoming industry defending itself from negative press and a perceived rivalry with other emerging technologies. Fortunately, Day One also brought big announcements, great discussions, and a little help from AI itself.

Ori Inbar’s Welcome Address

Historically, AWE has started with an address from founder Ori Inbar. This time, it started with an address from a hologram of Ori Inbar appearing on an ARHT display.

Ori Inbar hologram at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *Ori Inbar hologram*

The hologram waxed on for a few minutes about progress in the industry and XR’s incredible journey. Then the human Ori Inbar appeared and told the audience that everything that the hologram said was written by ChatGPT.

While (the real) Inbar quipped that he uses artificial intelligence to show him how not to talk, he addressed recent media claims that AI is taking attention and funding away from XR. He has a different view.

it’s ON !!!

Ori Inbar just started his opening key note at #AWE2023

Holo-Ori was here thanks to our friends from @arht_tech.@como pic.twitter.com/Do23hjIkST

— AWE (@ARealityEvent) May 31, 2023

“We industry insiders know this is not exactly true … AI is a good thing for XR. AI accelerates XR,” said Inbar. “XR is the interface for AI … our interactions [with AI] will become a lot less about text and prompts and a lot more about spatial context.”

“Metaverse, Shmetaverse” Returns With a Very Special Guest

Inbar has always been bullish on XR. He has been skeptical of the metaverse.

At the end of his welcome address last year, Inbar praised himself for not saying “the M word” a single time. The year before that, he opened the conference with a joke game show called “Metaverse, Shmetaverse.” Attendees this year were curious to see Inbar share the stage with a special guest: Neal Stephenson.

Neal Stephenson at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *Neal Stephenson*

Stephenson’s 1992 book, Snow Crash, introduced the world to the word “metaverse” – though Stephenson said that he wasn’t the first one to imagine the concept. He also addressed the common concern that the term for shared virtual spaces came from a dystopian novel.

“The metaverse described in Snow Crash was my best guess about what spatial computing as a mass medium might look like,” said Stephenson. “The metaverse itself is neither dystopian nor utopian.”

Stephenson then commented that the last five years or so have seen the emergence of the core technologies necessary to create the metaverse, though it still suffers from a lack of compelling content. That’s something that his company, Lamina1, hopes to address through a blockchain-based system for rewarding creators.

“There have to be experiences in the metaverse that are worth having,” said Stephenson. “For me, there’s a kind of glaring and frustrating lack of support for the people who make those experiences.”

AWE 2023 Keynotes and Follow-Ups

Both Day One and Day Two of AWE start out with blocks of keynotes on the main stage. On Day One, following Inbar’s welcome address and conversation with Stephenson, we heard from Qualcomm and XREAL (formerly Nreal). Both talks kicked off themes that would be taken up in other sessions throughout the day.

Qualcomm

From the main stage, Qualcomm Vice President and General Manager of XR, Hugo Swart, presented “Accelerating the XR Ecosystem: The Future Is Open.” He commented on the challenge of developing AR headsets, but mentioned the half-dozen or so Qualcomm-enabled headsets released in the last year, including the Lenovo ThinkReality VRX announced Tuesday.

Swart was joined on the stage by OPPO Director of XR Technology, Yi Xu, who announced a new Qualcomm-powered MR headset that would become available as a developer edition in the second half of this year.

As exciting as those announcements were, it was a software announcement that really made a stir. It’s a new Snapdragon Spaces tool called “Dual Render Fusion.”

“We have been working very hard to reimagine smartphone XR when used with AR glasses,” said Swart. “The idea is that mobile developers designing apps for 2D expand those apps to world-scale apps without any knowledge of XR.”

Keeping the Conversation Going

Another talk, “XR’s Inflection Point” presented by Qualcomm Director of Product Management Steve Lukas, provided a deeper dive into Dual Render Fusion. The tool allows an experience to use a mobile phone camera and a headworn device’s camera simultaneously. Existing app development tools hadn’t allowed this because (until now) it didn’t make sense.

Steve Lukas at AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Steve Lukas*

“To increase XR’s adoption curve, we must first flatten its learning curve, and that’s what Qualcomm just did,” said Lukas. “We’re not ready to give up on mobile phones so why don’t we stop talking about how to replace them and start talking about how to leverage them?”

A panel discussion, “Creating a New Reality With Snapdragon Today” moderated by Qualcomm Senior Director of Product Management XR Said Bakadir, brought together Xu, Lenovo General Manager of XR and Metaverse Vishal Shah, and DigiLens Vice President of Sales and Marketing Brian Hamilton. They largely addressed the need to rethink AR content and delivery.

Vishal Shah, Brian Hamilton, Yi Xu, and Said Bakadir at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *From left to right: Vishal Shah, Brian Hamilton, Yi Xu, and Said Bakadir*

“When I talk to the developers, they say, ‘Well there’s no hardware.’ When I talk to the hardware guys, they say, ‘There’s no content.’ And we’re kind of stuck in that space,” said Bakadir.

Hamilton and Shah both said, in their own words, that Qualcomm is creating “an all-in-one platform” and “an end-to-end solution” that solves the content/delivery dilemma that Bakadir opened with.

XREAL

In case you blinked and missed it, Nreal is now XREAL. According to a release shared with ARPost, the name change had to do with “disputes regarding the Nreal mark” (probably how similar it was to “Unreal”). But, “the disputes were solved amicably.”

The only change is the name – the hardware and software are still the hardware and software that we know and love. So, when CEO Chi Xu took the stage to present “Unleashing the Potential of Consumer AR” he just focused on progress.

From one angle, that progress looks like a version of XREAL’s AR operating system for Steam Deck, which Xu said is “coming soon.” From another angle, it looked like the partnership with Sightful which recently resulted in “Spacetop” – the world’s first AR laptop.

XREAL also announced Beam, a controller and compute box that can connect wirelessly or via hard connection to XREAL glasses specifically for streaming media. Beam also allows comfort and usability settings for the virtual screen that aren’t currently supported by the company’s current console and app integrations. Xu called it “the best TV innovation since TV.”

AI and XR

A number of panels and talks also picked up on Inbar’s theme of AI and XR. And they all (as far as I saw) unanimously agreed with Inbar’s assessment that there is no actual competition between the two technologies.

The most in-depth discussion on the topic was “The Intersection of AI and XR” a panel discussion between XR ethicist Kent Bye, Lamina1 CPO Tony Parisi, HTC Global VP of Corporate Development Alvin Graylin, and moderated by WXR Fund Managing Partner Amy LaMeyer.

Amy LaMeyer, Tony Parisi, Alvin Graylin, Kent Bye AWE 2023 Day 1 — *From left to right: Amy LaMeyer, Tony Parisi, Alvin Graylin, Kent Bye*

“There’s this myth that AI is here so now XR’s dead, but it’s the complete opposite,” said Graylin. Graylin pointed out that most forms of tracking and input as well as approaches to scene understanding are all driven by AI. “AI has been part of XR for a long time.”

While they all agreed that AI is a part of XR, the group disagreed on the extent to which AI could take over content creation.

“A lot of people think AI is the solution to all of their content creation and authoring needs in XR, but that’s not the whole equation,” said Parisi.

Graylin countered that AI will increasingly be able to replace human developers. Bye in particular was vocal that we should be reluctant and suspicious of handing over too much creative power to AI in the first place.

“The differentiating factor is going to be storytelling,” said Bye. “I’m seeing a lot of XR theater that has live actors doing things that AI could never do.”

Web3, WebXR, and the Metaverse

The conversation is still continuing regarding the relationship between the metaverse and Web3. With both the metaverse and Web3 focusing on the ideas of openness and interoperability, WebXR has become a common ground between the two. WebXR is also the most accessible from a hardware perspective.

“VR headsets will remain a niche tech like game consoles: some people will have them and use them and swear by them and won’t be able to live without them, but not everyone will have one,” Nokia Head of Trends and Innovation Scouting, Leslie Shannon, said in her talk “What Problem Does the Metaverse Solve?”

Leslie Shannon AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Leslie Shannon*

“The majority of metaverse experiences are happening on mobile phones,” said Shannon. “Presence is more important than immersion.”

Wonderland Engine CEO Jonathan Hale asked “Will WebXR Replace Native XR” with The Fitness Resort COO Lydia Berry. Berry commented that the availability of WebXR across devices helps developers make their content accessible as well as discoverable.

Lydia Berry and Jonathan Hale AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Lydia Berry and Jonathan Hale*

“The adoption challenges around glasses are there. We’re still in the really early adoption phase,” said Berry. “We need as many headsets out there as possible.”

Hale also added that WebXR is being taken more seriously as a delivery method by hardware manufacturers who were previously mainly interested in pursuing native apps.

“More and more interest is coming from hardware manufacturers every day,” said Hale. “We just announced that we’re working with Qualcomm to bring Wonderland Engine to Snapdragon Spaces.”

Keep Coming Back

AWE Day One was a riot but there’s a lot more where that came from. Day Two kicks off with keynotes by Magic Leap and Niantic, there are more talks, more panels, more AI, and the Expo Floor opens up for demos. We’ll see you tomorrow.

AWE USA 2023 Day One: XR, AI, Metaverse, and More Read More »

Wonderland Engine Is Here to Make WebXR Development Faster and Easier

augmented reality, developers, Development, extended reality, featured, News, virtual reality, webXR / Ryan Harris / May 9, 2023

WebXR development is increasingly popular. Developers want to create content that users can enjoy without having to install apps or check the compatibility of their devices.

One of the companies working for the advancement of immersive technologies, Wonderland GmbH, based in Cologne, Germany, has recently announced one giant leap forward in this process. They have recently released Wonderland Engine 1.0.0, a WebXR development platform already vouched for by top content creators.

Wonderland Engine 1.0.0 – Bringing Native XR Performance to WebXR Development

What is special about the new engine launched by Wonderland? Its first benefit is the ability to mimic native XR performance. Before its launch, Wonderland Engine 1.0.0 passed the test of content creators.

WebXR development platform Wonderland Engine editor vr website with browser

Vhite Rabbit XR and Paradowski Creative, two companies creating XR games, used the engine to develop content. The Escape Artist, an upcoming title by Paradowski Creative, is created with Wonderland Engine 1.0.p0, and its developers say that it matches native games in terms of polish and quality.

“We’re excited to announce this foundational version of Wonderland Engine, as we seek to bridge the gap between native XR app development and WebXR,” said the CEO and founder of Wonderland, Jonathan Hale, in a press release shared with ARPost. “We see a bright future for the WebXR community, for its developers, hardware, support, and content.”

Top Features of Wonderland Engine 1.0.0

The developers who choose Wonderland GmbH’s WebXR development platform to create content will be able to use the following:

Full 8th Wall integration – complete integration of 8th Wall AR tracking features such as face tracking, image tracking, SLAM, and VPS;
Runtime API rewrite – better code completion, static checks for bugs before running the code, and complete isolation for integration with other libraries;
Translation tools – necessary for the localization of WebXR content;
Benchmarking framework – to check for content performance on various devices.

Developers can find the complete list of features and bug fixes on the official release page.

According to the company, Wonderland Engine users can launch their first running app into the browser in less than two minutes. With a bit of experience, users can build a multi-user environment that supports VR, AR, and 3D in 10 minutes, as demonstrated in this video.

The XR Development Platform Is Optimized for VR Browsers

To indicate their commitment to helping content creators, Wonderland GmbH is optimizing their tool specifically for the most popular VR browsers: Meta Quest Browser, Pico Browser, and Wolvic.

Wonderland Engine WebXR meta browser

Wonderland Engine-based apps support any headset that has a browser available. Also, any headset released in the future will automatically be supported, if it has a browser. Apps created with Wonderland Engine can also run on mobile devices through the browser, as Progressive Web Apps (PWA), which also allows them to run offline.

Apart from the two game development companies mentioned above, the company is also working with various content creators.

“It was crucial to bring the whole ecosystem with us to test and validate the changes we made. This resulted in a highly reliable base to build upon in upcoming versions,” Hale said. “By making it easier to build XR on the web we hope to attract developers and content creators to WebXR. We see WebXR truly being able to rival native apps and offer consumers a rich world of rapidly accessible content to enjoy.”

Meet the Wonderland Team at AWE USA 2023

The creators of Wonderland Engine 1.0.0 will present the WebXR development platform at AWE USA 2023 (use ARPost’s discount code 23ARPOSTD for 20% off your ticket), which is taking place in Santa Clara, CA between May 31 and June 2.

The company is one of the sponsors of the event and will also be present at the event in booth no. 605.

Wonderland Engine Is Here to Make WebXR Development Faster and Easier Read More »

The 2023 Polys WebXR Awards Recap

AR/VR events, augmented reality, Events, extended reality, featured, virtual reality, webXR / Ryan Harris / March 8, 2023

The third Annual Polys WebXR Awards took place this weekend. The show was bigger than ever thanks to the first-ever in-person awards and a special event saying farewell to AltspaceVR. However, despite some new categories, the overall category list was shorter this year as a number of previous awards were combined.

A Very Special Polys

The Polys launched during the height of the pandemic. Fortunately, not being in person has a way of not greatly hindering an event that’s already dedicated to WebXR.

The event took place in a bespoke AltspaceVR world, with watch parties on YouTube as well as other remote platforms. However, this time, people were able to get together in person but they did it in a very “metaverse” way.

The Polys 2023 WebXR Awards

In-person hosts, producers, presenters, and an audience gathered at ZeroSpace, an XR stage and motion capture studio in Brooklyn. Their actions on the stage were volumetrically captured and displayed in The Polys’ AltspaceVR environment, similar to the launch of Microsoft Mesh. Polys Director Ginna Lambert said that this was the first award show to use the technology.

Further, while winners and honorees had previously received their Polys Awards as NFTs, the team worked with Looking Glass Factory so that this year’s Polys can be presented in a physical frame. This is as physical as The Polys can get, seeing as Linda Ricci designed the award to defy physics.

A Funeral for AltspaceVR

In lieu of a half-time show, Big Rock Creative CEO, co-founder, and producer Athena Demos held a eulogy for AltspaceVR. Virtual attendees lined the aisle to a pulpit adorned with flowers and candles in a ceremony that was heartfelt and a little macabre. Following mourners down the aisle was a coffin containing one of the iconic robot avatars that AltspaceVR used at launch.

“AltspaceVR will always hold a special place in our hearts,” said Demos. “While we say goodbye to the platform that brought us together, we will always remember the connections that we made here.”

AltspaceVR funeral - The 2023 Polys WebXR Awards

While the WebXR team has used AltspaceVR to host The Polys Awards and numerous other town hall events and summits over the last three years, Demos and her team have been using it to bring Burning Man into virtual spaces. There is also a farewell party scheduled by Big Rock Creative to last until the moment that AltspaceVR servers shut down later this week.

The Polys Awards

Where last year’s Polys saw 15 awards categories (not counting personal honors of Lifetime Achievement, Ombudsperson of the Year, and the Community Award), this year’s show had eight categories. That includes some new categories reflecting the advancement of immersive technology even over the last few months.

“We in this community are ahead of a massive shift that we call the fourth industrial revolution,” said host Julie Smithson. “We’re here to celebrate the progress made in WebXR in the year of 2022.”

Julie Smithson at The Polys WebXR Awards

Entertainment Experience of the Year

When popular culture looks at “the metaverse” they typically equate it with irresponsible escapism – something that people use to avoid the challenges of life. XR producer and director Kiira Benzing pointed out that positive escapism – using XR to take a break from life rather than to neglect it – is one of the medium’s greatest strengths.

“With the immersive medium, you get the opportunity to step into an experience,” Benzing said in presenting the award for Entertainment Experience of the year.

The award went to Project Flowerbed, an immersive gardening experience by the Meta WebXR team. The same project was nominated for Experience of the Year.

Innovator of the Year

Futurewei Technologies Senior Director for VR, Metaverse, Mobile, Apps, and Services Daniel Ljunggren presented the award for Innovator of the Year – previously “Innovation of the Year.” The award went to Sean Mann, CEO and co-founder of RP1, a “persistent, seamless, real-time platform with limitless scalability.”

“To be amongst this many pioneers and innovators in one space is amazing. I think we’re all winners,” said Mann. “I’m super excited to be a part of this.”

Developer of the Year

“Being on the frontier of the immersive web is a pioneering effort,” Yinch Yeap said in presenting this award. “It still feels like the Wild West.”

And, like in the Wild West, many of the biggest names are pseudonyms. This is certainly the case for this year’s winner, known only as “Jin.” Jin appeared as a similarly anonymized avatar to accept the award.

“I am a huge believer in WebXR,” said Jin. “I stand on the shoulders of giants. I am very humbled and I owe this to everyone building the immersive web.”

Game of the Year Award

“Game of the Year” is a broad category as most WebXR experiences are arguably “games” – and that’s what makes the award so important according to presenter Rik Cabanier, a software engineer at Meta. The award went to the mini golf game Above Par-Adowski by Paradowski Creative.

Above Par-Adowski VR game

Accepting the award was Paradowski Creative Director of Emerging Technology James Kane, who called WebXR “the best expression of the metaverse there is.” Kane was also a nominee for Innovator of the Year.

“I want to thank our team,” said Kane. “And thanks to the Meta team for creating an amazing WebXR platform as well as for directly supporting us.”

AR Passthrough Experience of the Year

“Where, for the past years AR experiences were mainly relegated to phones, now passthrough devices are everywhere,” said presenter Lucas Rizzotto. This allows more passthrough experiences on devices available today, but it also allows more impactful development of experiences for future AR devices.

The award went to Spatial Fusion by PHORIA and Meta, an experience which sees players repairing a damaged spaceship. Ben Ferns, a consulting developer, was one of those accepting the award.

“Huge thanks to the entire team – it was a huge team effort,” said Ferns. “It’s just exciting to see the promise of WebXR and passthrough.”

WebXR Platform of the Year

In presenting the award for WebXR Platform of the Year, Prestidge Group founder and CEO Briar Prestidge pointed out that every WebXR platform has strengths and weaknesses – something that she learned a lot about while famously spending “48 hours in the metaverse” for a documentary.

The award went to Croquet, “the operating system of the metaverse,” which also took home the Startup Pitch Competition Auggie Award last year. The award was accepted by The Polys on behalf of the organization.

Education Experience of the Year

The “digital divide” describes accessibility differences exacerbated by the benefit of technology only being available to those who can afford the required hardware or programs. WebXR is vital to the future of education because it lowers the cost of access for immersive experiences, according to Silicon Harlem founder Clayton Banks in presenting this award.

Banks presented the award to Prehistoric Domain, an immersive tour that brings learners up close and personal with virtual representations of dinosaurs and other extinct species. Accepting the award was creator Benjamin Dupuy. Prehistoric Domain was also nominated for Experience of the Year.

“WebXR opens so many possibilities – it’s very exciting,” said Dupuy in accepting the award. “We are all pioneers of the immersive web here and I think we’re at the beginning of an era where the line between illusion and reality is very thin.”

Experience of the Year

Demos returned to the stage – this time in volumetric capture instead of in her AltspaceVR avatar – to present the award for Experience of the Year to Spatial Fusion.

This was the experience’s second win of the night. The experience was also a nominee for Entertainment Experience of the Year. Ferns returned to accept the award and pointed out that the code has been open-sourced.

“I’m really excited to see what other people do with this now that it’s freely accessible,” said Ferns. “It’s an exciting time for trying out all of these new UX opportunities.”

This Year’s Honorees

In addition to the nominated awards categories, there are three honors categories. The honoree in each category is named by the previous year’s recipient rather than by a panel of judges.

Community Honor

Last year’s community honoree Trevor Flowers named Evo Heyning for this year, specifically for her work with the XR Guild, the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group, and [email protected].

“Whether it’s exploring AR, exploring 3D objects and NERFs, exploring interoperability of avatars and [email protected] specifically, being a part of these experiences with [Sophia Moshasha], with Ben [Irwin], with Julie [Smithson], with everyone – it’s meant so much to me,” Heyning said in accepting the honor.

Ombudsperson of the Year

The Ombudsperson of the Year Honor is specifically set up to recognize people working on the social and human aspects of WebXR. Last year’s honoree, Avi Bar-Zeev said that he was “honored to hand off the title” to Brittan Heller, a lawyer who introduced the term “biometric psychography” to describe mental and emotional profiling through an XR user’s personal data.

Brittan Heller at The Polys WebXR Awards

“I’d like to thank Avi, Kent [Bye], and everyone at the XR Guild and the Virtual World Society, and everyone in the XR community,” said Heller. “I appreciate how everyone here is so involved in making the community so welcoming to everyone.”

Bye, referenced by Heller in her acceptance speech, is a leading XR ethicist, a strong speaker in the nascent field of biometric psychography, and the first-ever recipient of this award.

Lifetime Achievement Honor

Last year’s Lifetime Achievement Honoree Brandon Jones selected Patric Cozzi for this year’s honor. Cozzi is the CEO of Cesium, but he was selected for this award because of his work co-creating glTF as a contributor to the Khronos Group.

Patric Cozzi at The Polys WebXR Awards

“I’m really honored for glTF and the community,” said Cozzi. “It was a grassroots effort for years.”

Looking Forward to the Future

This was the last year that The Polys WebXR awards will be hosted in AltspaceVR, but the team is still looking forward to next year’s event. While they haven’t yet said what platform (or platforms) it will take place on, there’s a full year to figure that out. And a year is a long time in this industry. If you missed this year’s ceremony, you can find the recording here.

The 2023 Polys WebXR Awards Recap Read More »

Frame Releases Second Set of Platform-Defining Updates

collaboration, featured, metaverse, News, virtual reality, VR platform, webXR / Ryan Harris / March 3, 2023

It’s been over a year since ARPost introduced readers to Frame, the hardware-agnostic web-based virtual meeting platform. The team, a part of Virbela (which has its own app-based virtual world platform), just announced a major update. It was time to step back in with Vice President Gabe Baker.

Gabe Baker in Frame 3.0

A Peek at the Update

Frame’s update was all about adding power to the platform while making it easier to use. The result was added or improved tools with a more streamlined user interface so that more advanced users can access the tools without cluttering the view for everyone else.

New tools include advanced analytics and new APIs for adding members and admins and editing assets. There’s also a new question queue system for support centers, classrooms, and other large-scale discussion cases, and a partner program that rewards users for attracting subscribers to the platform.

Analytics - Frame 3.0

“Fundamentally, we believe that the web browser IS the metaverse and that we’re entering a new era of spatial computing that will result in many traditional websites, apps, and services existing on the spatial web alongside the 2D internet that we’re used to today,” Baker wrote in a blog post announcing the update.

Even if you’re not building and hosting your own frames, there are benefits coming for average users as well. These include new environments, graphics updates like real-time light and shadow, and a still experimental option to use full-body avatars.

Frame Releases Second Set of Platform-Defining Updates

Also announced were coming roadmap updates including increased asset storage and support for multiple web browsers. Some of these will be limited to the paid subscriber tiers, but will all be rolled out “while maintaining a robust free plan.”

Seeing Is Believing

Reading about the updates is one thing, but I jumped into the platform, first solo and then in a live session with Baker to check them out for myself. As a connoisseur of VR avatars, I was pleasantly surprised before even entering a Frame.

I Have Legs and a Jacket. Life Is Good.

The avatars weren’t one of my favorite aspects of the platform last time around, but they’ve come a long way. Even if you don’t opt for the full-body avatars, the “classic” avatars are a lot more expressive and have some layered clothing options that were missing before. You can also use your Ready Player Me avatar, but not in full-body mode.

“[Full-body avatars] are hard to achieve on the web just for performance reasons,” said Baker. “We still have a ways to go on the full-body customizations.”

Full-body avatars - Frame 3.0

I was curious about whether Frame had had some conversations with parent company Virbela, who have had full-body avatars since the beginning. However, it’s not that simple, as Virbela is a native app as opposed to a browser-based platform.

“It’s a bit of a different world because they’re a Unity-based application,” said Baker. “In terms of the back-and-forth, there’s not really much because we use Babylon.js.”

All the Pretty Lights

Frame is also a year behind Virbela in announcing graphics performance updates. Graphics and display are big topics at the company because they are key areas where developers can compromise to achieve performance. That’s a big deal for a platform designed to run on everything from headsets to computers to mobile phones.

“It’s always going to be more important to us that people can get into Frame than that they can have an amazing graphical experience,” said Baker. “People do use Frame to explore digital twins and then they do need that level of graphical fidelity.”

And, that level of graphical fidelity is available to those users. The platform has long had a feature that tones down display quality automatically to the highest level that can be achieved by the user’s hardware while maintaining a stable experience. There is also a system in the works for builders to upload separate versions of their worlds for devices with different abilities.

Performance requirements aside, one of the worlds that we visited was at least as visually impressive as the average VR application – and more impressive than a number of them.

“There are still some visual experiences that you really need to be in a native application for, but the gap is narrowing,” said Baker, who was also the guest on our latest episode of XR Talks. (If you missed it live on Twitter Spaces yesterday, you can listen to it on YouTube here or Spotify here.)

Tools for Builders

Another area where the company tries to achieve compromise is with developer tools. The plan has always been to keep the platform agile and approachable, but it’s quickly growing into a fully-featured world-building tool for developers who need it.

“When we first started Frame, our whole thing was like ‘no nonsense, no download, no code,’ and we still very much believe in that vision,” said Baker. “But now we’re kind of branching out because we do see people that want to do those kinds of things… and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

Worldbuilders have more ability than ever to create and bring in their own assets, as well as enable visitors to do the same. They can also see who created or edited which assets and when through new analytics tools.

Welcome to Frame 3.0

There are a growing number of browser-based immersive spaces. And most of them can be accessed from portals placed within a Frame. That is one of the many reasons that this is one of our favorite platforms in the immersive web. And it just keeps getting better.

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