On the latest WWDC 2024 occasion, Apple previewed visionOS 2, which can arrive later this 12 months. The developer beta model is already out there, and now we find out about a brand new strategy to expertise VR within the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
The brand new VR video games can be found through WebXR within the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s Safari browser. WebXR a well-established cross-platform know-how that lets builders create immersive and blended actuality apps through web sites. There are a number of JavaScript frameworks out there comparable to Three.js, Babylon.js, PlayCanvas, Wonderland, and A-Body.
Whereas there was a strategy to allow WebXR in earlier variations of visionOS, it wasn’t on by default, signaling help was restricted and WebXR apps might have issues. By switching this characteristic on, Apple appears to be suggesting most WebXR apps ought to work on the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
Apple defined the best way to use the brand new WebXR capabilities in a developer video the place a chess app was performed through a neighborhood file connection, simulating an internet site for testing and debugging functions earlier than the net app is revealed. In response to RoadToVR, Apple’s implementation solely permits immersive apps. Hopefully, blended actuality help will arrive within the basic launch.
Within the instance, you navigate to the WebXR web site to begin the chess sport and choose a button to enter VR. An immersive scene hundreds with the digital chessboard able to play. Interplay is identical as some other visionOS app. You take a look at a chess piece and pinch to seize and transfer it. The pc opponent makes its transfer, and the method continues. To depart the immersive view, use the Finish VR button.
There are already many WebXR apps, and most ought to be appropriate with visionOS 2. You can too use a Bluetooth keyboard for video games that use the traditional WASD-key motion scheme. The visionOS 2 replace additionally sends gamepad and voice to WebXR, so there are many enter choices for builders to make use of.
The Imaginative and prescient Professional app library is rising, but it surely’s nonetheless small in comparison with the huge variety of VR and blended actuality video games out there for the Meta Quest 3.
RoadToVR talked about MoonRider, a Beat Saber-like rhythm sport. Yow will discover extra at sport web sites like itch.io.
