The Begining Of A New Era With Cocos CreatorXR

2022.09.26 by Luke

Company News

After the first big year of VR in 2016, XR devices for individual users have sprung up. Since then, XR excitement has fluctuated and finally broke out again with the help of the metaverse concept. The realization of the metaverse not only pushes to ensure immersion but also provides a sense of real experience. Therefore, XR is regarded as the entrance to the metaverse era and is likely to become the next-generation computing platform. As the most viable path to combine virtual worlds and reality. XR has become a treasure worthy of exploration.

The essence of XR is the virtualization and digitization of the natural world, which is also in line with the direction promoted by Cocos. The application of Metaverse scenarios continues to deepen, and the market needs to improve content development efficiency further. After launching the XR content development tool "Cocos CreatorXR Community Edition" for a select few developers last month, we received a lot of trial feedback. The first official version of Cocos CreatorXR is finally here. The editor will embed the underlying engine technology, toolchain, and related services required for developing and optimizing XR content so that more developers can conduct XR around related capabilities. Digital content development.

The current version of Cocos CreatorXR already has considerable maturity and availability and has already implemented practical application cases. This year, Cocos helped WAIC to create an online version of "Original Unbounded" on multiple platforms simultaneously. Among them, the VR version was developed and produced by Cocos CreatorXR.

Using Cocos CreatorXR, developers can perform multi-device cross-platform deployment within one development project. Currently, it supports compatibility and adaptation of devices of various brands, including Rokid Air, Meta Quest2, Huawei VR Glass, Pico Neo3, and Monado.

So far, Cocos has also become the first full-featured engine helping content creators to participate in Metaverse creation at a low cost. With the launch of Cocos Creator XR, Cocos has officially entered the XR track and will undoubtedly help the XR ecosystem become more prosperous in the long-term iterative evolution.

Lowering the threshold for content creation in the XR industry

With Cocos Creator 3.6, Cocos has added a series of content for XR for the first time. The capability layer calls the OpenXR interface to interface with the engine. The interface layer provides various components and functions to serve the creation of VR-based XR content. XR device manufacturers can also use the functional components of the plug-in to customize the SDK corresponding to Cocos Creator for their respective devices. The first official version of Cocos CreatorXR is the VR editor plug-in, officially released as an official plug-in in Cocos Creator 3.6.1.

Cocos CreatorXR Fact Sheet

Supported Equipment

Rokid Air
Meta Quest2
Huawei VR Glass
Pico Neo3
Monado

Device Mapping

Stereo Rendering or HMS
IPD Offset setting
3DoF/6DoF location tracking input
Input setting and visual model setting of handle equipment

Interactive Components

Allow Ray Interaction and Direct Interaction with interaction components & Prefabs
Support low-coding interaction configure
Support multiple kinds of interaction methods & scenes

Motion Components

Modular setting of movement, rotation, and transmission
Support users to move in virtual space

XRUI

HUD-like UI fixed at the fixed position of the camera
UI Combined with scene elements
Independent Scene UI

Editor key features

Workflow visualization

Users can build new XR projects through templates or in the WYSIWYG visualization interface or convert existing projects into XR versions and package and publish them to the hardware platform with one click, without worrying about the SDK differences of different devices, to achieve the effect of one creation and multi-platform deployment. The WYSIWYG design method dramatically simplifies the design difficulty and improves the design efficiency.

Standardization of mainstream XR SDKs

Cocos CreatorXR integrates the OpenXR standard protocol, which is compatible with various mainstream XR devices and their runtimes. At the same time, it supports 3Dof/6Dof and input signal processing of gamepad and mobile phone touch screen. It can develop 3Dof-based VR movies and mild VR games, as well as deep interaction of scenes based on the current mainstream 6Dof, allowing users to experience obstacle-surpassing, Immersive experiences such as jumping, climbing, skiing, etc.

Cocos CreatorXR strives to maximize the development experience to achieve the best balance between the quality of the work and the developer's time investment. Developers do not need to develop different application versions for each platform. Through the OpenXR API, they can complete the adaptation of multiple platforms through one development, reduce development costs, and improve developers' profitability.

Graphical backend intelligence

The engine supports rendering backends such as Vulkan (1.0, 1.1), GLES3, Metal, WebGL, WebGPU, etc. When the XR application starts, it will use the best graphics API adapted to the current device according to the packaging options.

Web preview

Cocos CreatorXR provides a web-based preview function. The web preview provides a binocular rendering perspective. It can simulate the operation of the head-mounted display and the joystick controller through the keyboard and mouse so that you can experience the XR function without an XR device.

How to get Cocos CreatorXR

The underlying engine of Cocos CreatorXR is based on Cocos Creator, which can be extended from Cocos Creator 3.6.1 or later by downloading and installing the xr-plugin and then creating templates.

A good XR ecosystem requires excellent underlying technology and high-level hardware with an excellent experience in XR development. In the future, Cocos will continue to optimize the engine, further expand supported devices, and bring the editing experience of Cocos Creator to XR, thereby further facilitating the development work for beginner XR developers, and is committed to making Cocos CreatorXR the best choice for all XR developers. Development costs and application costs will continuously be reduced to help XR land in thousands of households and all parts of life.

Welcome to download and experience Cocos CreatorXR, or enable Cocos Creator XR through the template/case of Dashboard. Thanks to all developers for your support!