In Public Beta since June, the updated AR SDK is the most complete toolkit for real-world AR across iOS and Android.
Tight integration with AR Foundation brings Niantic’s advanced AR features to new and existing apps.
New Shared AR features make it easier than ever for multiple users to seamlessly join multiplayer experiences.
Fully customizable Lightship Maps help developers add location AR and leverage Niantic’s extensive human-centric location data.
Today, we’re excited to announce the release of the newest version of our AR developer kit, Lightship 3.0, making it the most comprehensive set of tools and services available to create new AR applications, or to add AR functionality to existing Unity-based apps, across iOS and Android devices.
Lightship sits on top of AR Foundation and extends features like Meshing to work on non-Lidar devices with no extra work required. Meshing is the number one feature for AR applications to make AR feel more real by powering physics, occlusion, lighting, world alternation, and more. Lightship’s Playback and mocking tools enable developers to build and test AR directly in the editor saving hours of iteration time per day.
New features in Lightship 3.0 include Multiplayer co-localization using Lightship VPS (Visual Positioning System) or image targets so users can point their device at a VPS-activated location it will automatically allow them to join a multiplayer session and all participants in the session are synced to the real-world location. With 3.0 there are now 20 Semantic Segmentation classes, dynamic navigation mesh, and the ability to anchor and persist content at real-world locations.
“Lightship 3.0 is the most complete set of advanced augmented reality tools and services making it easy to work with and easy to transform the real world. Lightship is ideal for Unity developers who want to add location AR and visual AR features to their existing games and applications, and the perfect starting point for anyone who wants to build entirely new real-world mobile projects from the ground up. And because our approach is cross-platform, investments in using our tools to build now for mobile devices will continue to pay off as new form factors become available for passthrough AR and other new head-mounted, hands-free devices.”
Powered by Lightship 3.0
Since the beta opened in June, select developers have been building new experiences and testing features of ARDK 3.0. Apps that have recently launched or are coming soon include:
Kinfolk by Kinfolk Foundation, uses VPS and Maps to bring newly imagined AR monuments to life featuring underrepresented Black and Brown historical figures. A new Signature Series featuring new works by select artists in NYC is launching soon.
Matter AR by Hot Dark Matter is a geospatial AR app that uses VPS and the best of Lightship Meshing to help players create and combine a variety of voxel-style fortifications and then battle together. It includes the beta of a LaserTag game for up to four players in an epic battle royale.
Mirror Planet by Savy Soda is a Lifestyle GameFi (gaming finance) role-playing geolocation game that integrates Lightship’s Semantic Segmentation and VPS in a real-world experience where players can earn real rewards depending on how they choose to play – as a citizen, landlord, merchant or mayor, performing daily tasks based on their role.
Rodney Mullen’s Skatrix by Reality Crisis is the first AR skateboarding game, urging players to invent clever ways to use their surrounding architecture and environment. It uses VPS and Maps to help give players the power to project their creativity into the real world and the chance to actively participate in the community of their fellow skaters.
Scrylight by Spectropia is an AR ghost-hunting experience that uses multiple Lightship features to power its Scrylight Engine, creating procedurally generated ghostly entities across indoor and outdoor locations for up to four players together.
Step Into Biology by Zoic Labs is a multiplayer AR educational experience that functions as both an instructional and assessment tool for students and teachers. Free for students with a code they receive from teachers, Step Into Biology creates engaging AR field trips as students kinesthetically explore various biology experiences. (iOS only designed specifically for iPads but also runs on iPhones)
In addition to these apps Powered by Lightship, Niantic has successfully moved our AR-first game, Peridot, to 3.0. Peridot drove development of Lightship tools and makes rich use of Semantic Segmentation, real-world understanding, real-time Mapping, obstacle occlusion, and more. We will share more details about the process of migrating Peridot to 3.0 in an upcoming blog post.
Lightship 3.0 Integration with AR Foundation
Enabling Lightship is as simple as installing a package and clicking on ‘enable.’ We seamlessly extend AR Foundation capabilities adding cross platform compatibility (Android/iOS) for features like Meshing and add in new ones like Semantic Segmentation and VPS. This means even existing AR Foundation projects will instantly have access to more devices and be able to use Lightship’s unique AR features and debugging tools.
Lightship 3.0 also sets the stage for compatibility with wearable headsets, starting with Snapdragon Spaces-powered devices. In partnership with Qualcomm, the first cohort of ten AR studios will soon have access to Lightship VPS with Snapdragon Spaces to bring Niantic’s precise, persistent 3D map of the world service to XR headset development.
Shared AR
One of the biggest improvements in 3.0 is the ability to colocalize with VPS to enable real-world AR multiplayer experiences. It was one of the most requested features by developers and now there’s no need for a join code or to scan a QR code. Once a VPS-activated location is scanned, end users can easily join multiplayer sessions enabling and seamlessly experience AR together. It’s as easy as scanning and playing.
And like the other updates to Lightship, there is better integration with familiar Unity features like Netcode for GameObjects. Now with Lightship, a developer can take a multiplayer game built using Netcode and move it into AR without needing to re-write the networking stack. The code created for Desktop or any other platform with Netcode will just work and Lightship will make sure all players are colocalized into one AR space. It’s easy to place a game on a table top and have multiple people play it there, or scale it up and place it in the real world. Developers can even do both in the same game – one player at home inside and another player(s) out in the world.
Lightship Maps for Unity
Lightship 3.0 also includes Lightship Maps for Unity which allows developers to utilize the same base maps that Niantic uses for our own games. The updated Lightship Maps SDK allows developers to connect their existing and new games and applications to the real world and provide missions and game mechanics that leverage the map.
Bringing Spatial Computing to the Real World
We’ve made tremendous progress building the most complete set of tools for developers to create their own AR experiences for mobile devices. We believe in AR everywhere - an open ecosystem with cross-platform and cross-device functionality that will enable the most people possible to enjoy these new experiences. Now that there is more interest in spatial computing thanks to new and soon to be released mixed reality headsets, Niantic is uniquely positioned to deliver highly precise understanding of physical spaces coupled with the perspectives of multiple end users. These cross-platform tools and services work for both location AR and visual AR experiences on today’s mobile phones and other hardware to come. Whether you want to create new games, update existing games or bring entirely new spatial computing experiences to life, our tools and teams are here to help you.
Ready to start building with Lightship 3.0, head to your accounts page to download ARDK 3.0 and join our developer challenge beginning October 31st!