Today at Meta Connect, we unveiled our new brand, Meta Spark. We also introduced two new updates: virtual objects and Meta Spark Player for Meta Quest devices. These updates are the next steps in our journey to AR glasses. They are the early beginnings of the tools needed to build world-facing, interactive AR experiences that will contribute to the augmented layer of the metaverse—and a first taste of what those experiences will be like hands-free.

We’re now Meta Spark!

Last year we introduced Meta, our new company brand that ties together all of our apps and technologies. Starting today, October 11, you’ll see some of these changes reflected throughout the Meta Spark platform, with changes to our product names, including Meta Spark Studio and Meta Spark Player.

A new type of AR experience: Virtual Objects

Virtual objects are a building block of the AR layer of the metaverse and a first step towards standardizing content for AR. Those of you who are familiar with Meta Spark Studio may already be familiar with Blocks. However, while Blocks have customizable inputs and outputs, virtual objects have a locked set of ports, allowing them to coexist with other virtual objects in the same scene, even if they’re created by different people. By standardizing the ports, virtual objects can receive information about the world and other objects, and inform the AR experience about its state or actions in a consistent way.

Virtual objects can be built in Meta Spark Studio with our visual tool through patches, and further enhanced with scripting and shaders. If using scripting and shaders, you can use our recently released “spark-entity-components” experimental package in our AR library, which provides reusable components and an in-frame API. These make it even easier to add functionality to your code with script packages.

Once built, you can view your virtual objects in one of Studio’s six new simulator environments, or test them in the newly updated Meta Spark Player app for Meta Quest devices. This is particularly special with our newest headset, Meta Quest Pro, which allows for full-color Passthrough, letting you test and experience virtual objects in a headset as an early proxy for AR glasses. You’ll still need to use the Meta Quest Pro controllers to manipulate and activate virtual objects while using Player, and you’ll also be able to create a testing link to share your virtual objects with other creators and developers.

You can learn more about building and testing virtual objects through our two Connect sessions:

Sign up for the beta

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While we’re excited to share virtual object creation in Meta Spark Studio and testing in Meta Spark Player on Meta Quest devices, there’s still a lot to learn, and we want to learn with you, our Meta Spark community. You can sign up for the beta here. If selected for the program, you will be among the first creators and developers around the world to push boundaries and build for the augmented layer of the metaverse. You’ll receive early access to our tools and resources and be part of the driving force towards AR glasses and the future of the metaverse.

As we continue to expand our capabilities and community, we’re excited to see what new innovations and experiences you’ll bring. We can’t wait to learn and collaborate with you!