Niantic Announces 'Wol' Immersive Experience Powered by 8th Wall

May 31 – NianticThe creator of Pokemon GO announced its first mixed reality headset experience this week with the launch of "Wol," a mixed reality experience that uses pass-through augmented reality (AR) to bring users an outdoor experience.

Wol features a northern saw-whet owl that joins users in their space through an AR portal, opening a door to the redwood forest. As an AI-enabled owl, Wol is ready to engage in natural conversations with players about the plants on the forest floor, the life cycle of trees, and the creatures in the forest.

This limited browser-based experience is designed to demonstrate eighth wallof MetaMetaversal deployment capabilities enable developers to build once and deploy anywhere - smartphones, computers, tablets, VR HMDs, and now mixed reality devices like the Meta Quest Pro.

According to Niantic, Metaversal Deployment is designed for the new responsive web, where immersive websites need to adapt to an ecosystem of devices that now includes flat screens and wearable headsets. The company noted that one of the key benefits of Metaversal Deployment is allowing users to access the same AR-enabled website on any device and have meaningful experiences, such as 3D on computers, AR on mobile devices and mixed reality on pass-through devices. . This in turn enables developers to use the content they create as widely as possible.

"The web is a powerful place for augmented reality, and we're excited to highlight how the 8th Wall platform can be used to create browser-based content across devices, including smartphones and mixed reality headsets," said Tom Emrich, Director of Product Management. Niantic. "We created Wol to inspire developers to build their own WebAR content that leverages the truly immersive capabilities of Mixed Reality Passthrough while benefiting from the broad reach and scale of mobile."

While Wol is available on iOS and Android smartphones, it's optimized for use on Meta Quest Pro, where it blends the user's physical and virtual environments with full-color mixed reality passthrough. Using the Room Settings feature on Quest, the Wol experience learns where walls and surfaces fit within a room and uses them to transform the space into a redwood forest.

Wol was developed in partnership with Liquid City, a design practice specializing in XR and AI, focused on shaping a positive future of technology for society. The team developed Wol using 8th Wall Cloud Editor, 8th Wall's cloud-based IDE that was built from the ground up for WebAR development and provides all the tools teams need to create, collaborate, and publish immersive experiences across devices.

“We’re excited to explore how XR and AI can combine to enable new ways of learning. You just click a link to access Wol—whether you’re on your phone or headphones, your living room transforms into a redwood forest. Here’s to Understanding A very simple and easy-to-understand approach to a forest ecosystem, with a lot of depth and character," said Liquid City Director Keiichi Matsuda.

Niantic added that in addition to showcasing the company's capabilities in mixed reality, Wol also highlighted the 8th Wall platform's readiness to leverage generative AI to enhance AR experiences. The AI-enabled character Wol was created using Inworld AI, a development platform for AI characters. The Inworld engine is composed of multiple machine learning and character AI models designed to mimic human gestures, speech, safety, emotion, and memory. Inworld's technology has been integrated with 8th Wall to enhance Wol's unique personality and situational awareness within the experience.

"Generative AI and AR go hand in hand, and we're excited to join forces with Niantic and Liquid City to create the first browser-based experience featuring AI-enabled characters," said John Gaeta, chief creative officer at Inworld.

For more information about Niantic, the 8th Wall platform and the Wol mixed reality experience, visit the company’s website.

Image/Video Source: Niantic/8th Wall/YouTube