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Virtual and Augmented Reality

Supported Devices • Adding VR and AR • Avatars • HTML Content Overlays • Image and Marker Tracking • Limitations for WebXR on iOS

Supported Devices

Theoretically all WebXR-capable devices and browsers should be supported. That being said, we've tested the following configurations:

Tested VR Device Browser Notes
Meta Quest 1 ✔️ Oculus Browser support for sessiongranted
Meta Quest 2 ✔️ Oculus Browser support for sessiongranted
Pico Neo 3 ✔️ Pico Browser no hand tracking support, inverted controller thumbsticks
Oculus Rift 1/2 ✔️ Chrome
Hololens 2 ✔️ Edge in VR mode, background is rendered as well
Quest 1/2 via Oculus Link ✔️ Chrome known issues with repeated refresh of a WebXR session
Tested AR Device Browser Notes
Android 10+ ✔️ Chrome
Android 10+ ✔️ Firefox
iOS 15+ ✔️ WebXR Viewer some nonstandard behaviours but works
iOS 15+ ❌ Safari can fall back to interactive USDZ files or other approaches
Hololens 2 ✔️ Edge
Hololens 1 ❌ no WebXR support

Adding VR and AR capabilities to a scene

AR, VR and networking capabilites in Needle Engine are designed to be modular. You can choose to not support any of them, or add only specific features.

Basic capabilities

  • Enable AR and VR
    Add a WebXR component.
    Optional: you can set a custom avatar by referencing an Avatar Prefab.
    By default a very basic DefaultAvatar is assigned.

  • Enable Teleportation
    Add a TeleportTarget component to object hierarchies that can be teleported on.
    To exclude specific objects, set their layer to IgnoreRaycasting.

  • Enable going into Miniature Mode
    Pointing onto a surface and pressing A on a controller switches between 1:10 scale (miniature mode) and 1:1 scale.
    We're planning to add a component to have more control over this functionality.

Multiplayer

  • Enable Networking
    Add a SyncedRoom component.

  • Enable Desktop Viewer Sync
    Add a SyncedCamera component.

  • Enable XR Avatar Sync
    Add a WebXRSync component.

  • Enable Voice Chat
    Add a VoIP component.

Note: these components can be anywhere inside your GltfObject hierarchy. They can also all be on the same GameObject.

Castle Builder ⇡ uses all of the above for a cross-platform multiplayer sandbox experience.
— #madebyneedle 💚

Special AR Components

  • Define the AR Session Root and Scale
    Add a WebARSessionRoot component to your root object.
    Here you can define the user scale to shrink (< 1) or enlarge (> 1) the user in relation to the scene when entering AR.

Controlling object display for XR

  • Define whether an object is visible in Browser, AR, VR, First Person, Third Person
    Add a XR Flag component to the object you want to control. Change options on the dropdown as needed.

    Common usecases are

    • hiding floors when entering AR
    • hiding Avatar parts in First or Third Person views (e.g. first-person head shouldn't be visible).

Travelling between VR worlds

Needle Engine supports the sessiongranted ⇡ state. This allows users to seamlessly traverse between WebXR applications without leaving an immersive session – they stay in VR or AR.

Currently, this is only supported on Oculus Quest 1 and 2 in the Oculus Browser. On other platforms, users will be kicked out of their current immersive session and have to enter VR again on the new page.

Avatars

While we don't currently provide an out-of-the-box integration external avatar systems, you can create application-specific avatars or custom systems.

  • Create a custom Avatar
    • Create an empty GameObject as avatar root
    • Add an object named Head and add a XRFlag that's set to Third Person
    • Add objects named HandLeft and HandRight
    • Add your graphics below these objects.

Experimental Avatar Components

There's a number of experimental components to build more expressive Avatars. At this point we recommended duplicating them to make your own variants, since they might be changed or removed at a later point.

20220817-230858-87dG-Unity_PLjQ
Example Avatar Rig with basic neck model and limb constraints

  • Random Player Colors
    As an example for avatar customization, you can add a PlayerColor component to your renderers.
    This randomized color is synchronized between players.

  • Eye Rotation
    AvatarEyeLook_Rotation rotates GameObjects (eyes) to follow other avatars and a random target. This component is synchronized between players.

  • Eye Blinking
    AvatarBlink_Simple randomly hides GameObjects (eyes) every few seconds, emulating a blink.

    image
    Example Avatar Prefab hierarchy

  • Offset Constraint
    OffsetConstraint allows to shift an object in relation to another one in Avatar space. This allows, for example, to have a Body follow the Head but keep rotation levelled. It also allows to construct simple neck models.

  • Limb Constraint
    BasicIKConstraint is a very minimalistic constraint that takes two transforms and a hint. This is useful to construct simple arm or leg chains. As rotation is currently not properly implemented, arms and legs may need to be rotationally symmetric to "look right". It's called "Basic" for a reason!

HTML Content Overlays in AR

If you want to display different html content whether the client is using a regular browser or using AR or VR, you can just use a set of html classes.
This is controlled via HTML element classes. For example, to make content appear on desktop and in AR add a <div class="desktop ar"> ... </div> inside the <needle-tiny> tag:

<needle-tiny src="loadScene">
    <div class="desktop ar" style="pointer-events:none;">
        your content for AR and desktop goes here
    </div>
</needle-tiny>

Image Tracking

WebXR doesn't yet support Image Tracking, it's still in a "draft" phase: Marker Tracking Explainer

Without that spec, one can still request camera image access and run custom algorithms to determine device pose.
While we currently don't provide built-in components for this, here's a few references to libraries and frameworks that we want to try in the future:

Limitations for WebXR on iOS

Due to Apple currently not supporting WebXR on iOS devices, Augmented Reality experiences on iOS are limited.

A number of options and workarounds exist to still give iOS users some AR:

  1. Guiding users towards WebXR-compatible browsers on iOS. Depending on your target audience, you can guide users on iOS towards for example Mozilla's WebXR Viewer ⇡ to experience AR on iOS.

  2. Exporting content on-the-fly as USDZ files.
    These files can be displayed on iOS devices in AR. They lack interactivity (besides a small set of built-in components) but can be sufficient for product configurators and similar relatively static usecases. An example is Castle Builder ⇡ where creations (not the live session) can be viewed in AR.

Encryption in Space ⇡ uses this approach. Players can collaboratively place text into the scene on their screens and then view the results in AR on iOS. On Android, they can also interact right in WebXR.
— #madewithneedle by Katja Rempel 💚

  1. Using camera access and custom algorithms on iOS devices.
    One can request camera image access and run custom algorithms to determine device pose.
    While we currently don't provide built-in components for this, here's a few references to libraries and frameworks that we want to try in the future:

References

WebXR Device API ⇡
caniuse: WebXR ⇡