XR SDK: turn any web site into a virtual world

After over two years of development, we are pleased to release XR SDK which is a framework for building multi-user, multi-platform 3D Players with dynamically downloaded content based on Unity3D and Photon.

A3D Player works like a video player but instead of downloading a video, one can download Unity asset bundles from any URL in the world. This lets one easily turn any website into a virtual world.

The XR SDK gives you the source code and examples to do the following:

1. Create a list of characters and dynamically download the specific character as an asset bundle asynchronously from your website or any place on the internet.

2. Create a list of scenes and dynamically download the specific scene as an asset bundle asynchronously from your website or any place on the internet.

3. Create or join a Photon room and asynchronously manage the download sequence of the asset bundles for the scene and all the various characters players have selected. Also show how to network instantiate a world locator object that Photon uses to synchronize the player and as a child has the actually character model. This let’s Photon create the network object while the asset bundle is being downloaded.

4. Examples on how to create character and scene asset bundles. We are adding asset bundles for objects in the next release.

5. Character examples include showing setting up Mecanim.

6. The demo scene includes a multi-user picture viewer.

7. XR SDK includes examples for access asset bundles on your local drive or from a web server. When using web servers you can access asset bundles as file-based URLs or as web services. What this means is that you can work locally in Unity on your local drive and test your asset bundles builds. Then, when ready, you can simply ftp your files to a webserver and access them as through a URL.

8. We include client side web service call examples which include fill Add, Edit and Delete functionality for characters and scenes as well as an example of how to upload an asset bundle to a web server.

9. The user interface can be configured to show a main dashboard screen with 'select character', 'scene' as well as a list of 'running rooms', or you can auto select and go right into viewing the scene.

For those that want to get started fast or do not have the technical skills to build their own 3D Player, our in-beta XR 3D Player and XR 3D Community Server is a fully working 3D Player and a Server for managing users and asset bundle content that one can upload or your users can upload.

We see this being used by gamers and virtual world developers to visualize how to implement asynchronously downloaded asset bundle content into their projects. We also see this being used in many business and educational applications. For instance, it would be possible for an e-commerce site to have 3D models of their items that can be viewed on their web page and at any time, if you need to add a new product or change an element, you would not have to build a new 3D Player.

You can also build your own content. To add multi-user support to your website, you can easily implement the Photon Cloud in minutes or install your own Photon server on your dedicated server.

To build your own 3D Player, you can find content and scripts at the Unity Asset Store, or to add multi-user support to your website, you can easily implement the Photon Cloud server on your own server.

We believe Photon and Unity3D is a solid foundation for any project, business, education or entertainment and we look forward to showing people how they can develop their own 3D Player and how they can turn their website into a virtual world.

Extreme Reality, Inc.
http://www.extreme-reality.com