Reality Engine launches, welcoming you and your HoloLens to the metaverse

Reality Engine Hero
Reality Engine Hero (Image credit: 8th Wall)

What you need to know

  • 8th Wall has launched its Reality Engine, a platform to make augmented reality experiences that instantly work across mobile and PC systems.
  • It enables development for "iOS and Android smartphones, tablets, computers and AR and VR headsets."
  • Reality Engine is available today and is included with 8th Wall's subscription offerings, which you can experience at no cost via a 14-day free trial.

Wondering if there's a development platform that'll let you seamlessly prep WebAR experiences for HoloLens, PC, and Android? That's Reality Engine's promise, a new development platform launched by 8th Wall. It's available today and is bundled alongside 8th Wall's existing subscription options, which start at $99 per month.

The sales pitch is thus: Developers can ensure their web creations translate to the metaverse experience with ease across Android, iOS, tablets, PC, and various headsets such as HoloLens 2.

Reality Engine is a completely reimagined version of 8th Wall's original AR engine, fully optimized to adapt to a myriad of devices to serve up the appropriate immersive experience every time. Upon creating a web-based augmented reality (WebAR) project, developers can leverage the engine's Metaversal Deployment capability to build once and deploy everywhere—unlocking more places to access and engage with the experience and significantly expanding its reach, without expanding the development time.

The goal is to make immersive website development less of a hassle. Reality Engine features spatialized UI that puts 2D web elements onto a spatial control panel, universal interaction mapping for easy input assignment, environment mapping, and responsive scale capabilities.

To gain access to 8th Wall's toolset, you'll need to subscribe, which starts at $99 per month. However, you can take advantage of a 14-day free trial to get a taste of what the company's offering.

Robert Carnevale

Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He's a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author of Cold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.