If You Can WebAR, You Can WebVR
8th Wall Cloud Editor now features a WebVR template to build VR for the browser
At 8th Wall, we’ve been working hard to usher in the immersive web by equipping developers with powerful tools to create AR/VR content.
While we’re best known as a platform for developing WebAR experiences, our newly launched Cloud Editor was designed as a powerful tool to create all reality content. To make it even easier to get started on a WebVR project, we’re introducing today our first WebVR project template available now to all Agency and Business plan users. If you have already been building WebAR content with our Cloud Editor, you are now able to make WebVR content, too!
The goal of our project templates is to enable developers to quickly get started with a code foundation for their project that they can build upon. Our first WebVR template is an A-Frame project for Oculus Quest which gets developers started on a 6DoF head and hands WebVR experience. Featuring a fully immersive scene where you can interact with colorful boxes with physics, the WebVR project template supports the latest WebXR Device API which is being rolled out in Chrome and Chromium browsers.
VR development has unique needs and we built our development platform with these in mind. With one-click publishing and remote debugging, developers are able to test and troubleshoot their projects in a headset without the need to be tethered to load an APK on the device. Our integrated distributed source control system allows unlimited team members to collaborate and edit their projects in real time, no matter where they are in the world. And with the introduction of our first WebVR template, developers can get up and running on a 6DoF WebVR project within minutes.
To demonstrate 8th Wall’s capabilities in creating WebVR content, our team recently published ROVR RUN, a classic arcade action game which is currently being featured on the Oculus Browser. You can play it now by jumping in your headset and entering 8th.io/rovr in the browser or finding it on the homepage of the Oculus Browser app.
Since our development platform is cloud-based, we challenged ourselves to develop key parts of ROVR RUN while immersed in VR using our Cloud Editor tool on the Firefox Reality browser with a bluetooth keyboard. Our development team used our fully-featured text editor in VR to make code changes, then published instantly to test these updates without taking off their headsets — dramatically reducing the time to iterate and develop. In app-based VR development, this same process would have required the developer to code on their laptop, compile, load up the new APK by tethering the headset to their computer, and then finally put on the headset to view the changes.
Additionally, our Cloud Editor’s remote debugging features enabled multiple Oculus Quest headsets to test our WebVR project untethered while our development team viewed live console logs to troubleshoot and edit in real time. These changes instantly appeared in the tester’s headset thanks to our ability to hot reload when ready.
With VR headset adoption at an all time high due to improved form factor and more cost effective pricing, and the holiday season sure to drive device sales up, it is a great time to get VR content out there for consumers. With no app required, WebVR benefits from instant distribution across all headsets once you are ready to have your link made available to the public.
We are really excited to see what developers will create for WebVR, and our template is just the start of our support for this immersive medium. To get started building WebVR content, log in to your Agency or Business account or sign-up for one here.
