Envrmnt Creator 1.3 Release Notes

Enhancements to Envrmnt Creator in Version 1.3

Envrmnt Creator v 1.3 (Rel Date: 10/10/18) adds a number of enhancements and fixes. Besides having a new name (changed from AR Designer), major changes to Envrmnt Creator include:

• New Home Page
• 360 Video Template
• Tools 2.0 Improvements
• Protection Mechanisms to Ensure Experience Completion
• Realtime APIs
• New Billing Function

New Creator Home Page

Version 1.3 adds a newly designed home page. Unlike earlier releases that greeted first-time users with a different home page than returning users, with v 1.3 all users see the same home screen.

Template selections are displayed across the entire page, whereas earlier versions confined templates to the sidebar. This presents larger and more graphically-rich template icons, including those for image, 2D video, 3D object (with an AR target), 3D Object (using AR Space), Portal, and 360 video.

When users hover over each template, the icon animates, better conveying the ultimate AR or VR experience. The new home screen also allows users to quickly filter the templates by choosing one of these options:

For users that want to see existing experiences, they just need to select the Library option in the top bar. No major changes have been made to the creation, editing, and storing of experiences and use of folders.

360 Video Template

The addition of a 360 video template is the first step of the integration of VR functionality into Envrmnt Creator. Once the user selects the template, they are placed into the Edit screen with an MP4 360 video already loaded. This allows novice users, in particular, to quickly see how 360 video differs from 2D video. And if the user chooses to put their mobile device in a VR headset, they can be part of an immersive experience.

An MP4 360 video with high resolution of 4096 x 2048 is recommended.

Tools 2.0 Improvements

Envrmnt Tools manage the asset pipeline into Envrmnt Creator and the Envrmnt database, EvrVault. The newest version, Tools 2.0, includes a more structurally sound database than earlier versions. This latest version includes improvements in how it retrieves assets, responds to file flaws during conversion, and how it notifies users of these conditions.

Ingest Improvements

• Support for more asset types, including FBX, OBJ, and digital asset exchange (DAE) files
• Multi-model support on FBX files so you can upload a scene with just one FBX file
• Improved animations. Rigs can be detected automatically so no additional steps are needed on the front end.
• Improved rendering. Assets that have over 65k vertices in a single mesh can now be split into multiple meshes. This reduces rendering issues as the tools can repair problems with the model and avoid displaying deformed models.  
• PBR material properties supported

Front End Improvements

• Flexibility in scene design. Users can now set up scenes in the web editor with already ingested assets, move the models around and add components to them so they behave distinctly in the native engine. This is enhanced with the ability of Tools 2.0 to support more than one mesh per model.
• Significant speed improvements with parallel processing. Previously, EvrVault ingested an FBX file as a long sequential process using multiple steps. Any issue with a file’s conversion—problem with a texture, for example—would put the other processes on hold until the texture issue was resolved. Now, if texture processing is delayed, the engine can move that to another instance of the tool, allowing the main tool to continue running.

In addition, previously, the engine could only process one file at a time.  Tools 2.0 can convert multiple files simultaneously.

Enforcing Complete Experiences

V 1.3 resolves earlier issues around incomplete experiences that led to crashing of the mobile app.  Now, most templates include default content that creates a complete experience, except for trigger based-experiences (Envrmnt Creator requires unique trigger images to function properly). With these templates, users see only a placeholder trigger image when the Trigger panel is opened, and the mobile display in the center screen includes a message “Please upload a unique trigger image.”  (see below).  

When experiences are incomplete, the Share, Mobile Preview, and Publish buttons are disabled (grayed out) until the minimum content is uploaded. Unlike earlier, however, users can save the experience safely to the Library.

Below is the type of content that each experience requires to function properly:  

Realtime APIs

When admins make updates to APIs, the changes occur immediately.  If users are given new permissions, they no longer must log out and back in, but will have immediate access.