Open Beta of New Dev-Tool Niantic Studio launched
– 1 min read
At the Augmented World Expo, developer Niantic Studio reiterated the need for a new map for spatial computing. At the same time, the company is increasingly positioning itself as a middleware maker for XR experiences and is launching the public beta of its new free tool, Niantic Studio.
Niantic is best known in the gaming world for Pokémon Go!, which brought AR gaming to the forefront after the success of Ingress. Although Niantic Studio has since developed many other games such as Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter New and Peridot, either in full or in part, Niantic is still primarily a technology company, in addition to being a development studio. This was made clear at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) in Los Angeles. At AWE, the studio, whose founder once founded Keyhole and co-created Google Earth and Google Maps, reiterated its belief that a new kind of map is needed for the XR future, as the way people experience the world through mobile phones and emerging headsets has changed. Niantic has already developed many elements for this new type of third-generation map, as it calls it. Others are still in the works.
One of these building blocks for the new map type is Niantic's Scaniverse product, for which an update was also announced at AWE, namely the integration of Gaussian Splatting. At the same time, Niantic is positioning itself as a kind of XR development unit. As part of the so-called Niantic 8th Wall platform, a collection of tools for developing XR experiences and web games, the public beta of a new tool, Niantic Studio, is also being launched.
The basic version of Niantic Studio is free and is designed to make the development of XR experiences and web games accessible to a wider range of creative professionals. Instead of a code-oriented interface, Niantic Studio is an intuitive editor with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach. It also includes a new web game engine and advanced XR features such as facial effects and world tracking. Niantic also plans to add more features during the beta.
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