Welcome to Mattercraft: The next generation of 3D tooling

Hey there!

Welcome to our very first product update for Mattercraft - our brand new development tool for creating AR, VR and WebXR. 

This initial product update will introduce you to the exciting new features now available in the Mattercraft Beta, which is now accessible on all Zapworks workspaces.

New Features

World Tracking (Beta). A brand new tracking type that’s more inline with native app world tracking stability (SLAM). This tracking method requires an initial "phone wiggle" to detect real points in your environment and anchor a ground plane once detected. Recognizing real-world points provides a more robust and stable approach. Mattercraft still supports Instant World Tracking, and we've provided project templates for both to help you get started instantly.

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Live preview. With a single click of the preview button, Mattercraft launches a live preview server accessible on any device (Desktop, Mobile, and compatible MR/VR Headsets). Any changes you make to your project will instantly update your live preview on all devices where it's open. The latest addition to the live preview is a simulator view, allowing you to visualize your experience on different device sizes while still developing within the tool.

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Updates to the animation system. Mattercraft's animation system is a powerful evolution of our controllers, states, and timelines setup from Zapworks Studio. It now supports a range of new functionality, including stream tracks, blended/weighted animations, interpolations, and even a custom curve editor, making custom animations and scene-based transitions in a web-based tool easier than ever.

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Raycasters, Triggers and Intersections. Use a number of recognisable features to setup user interaction within your experiences. Make use of raycasters for detecting nodes in 3D space or triggers for firing events when two objects collide. Both of which can activate events using built in behaviors.

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Realtime physics (Coming very soon). With the Havok physics engine, you'll soon be able to create dynamic and interactive experiences with high-performance physics. Mattercraft simplifies the use of physics by allowing you to simulate it directly in the 3D editor, eliminating the need for complex debug scenarios.

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Particle effects. Choose from six pre-made particle effects, including Snow, Confetti, Sparkles, Fire, and Fireworks, or create your own. The particle engine in Mattercraft is edited and run directly in the 3D editor, making it a seamless part of your creative process.

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Transparent video. Gone are the days of complex setup for green screen videos. Mattercraft now supports Chroma Keying for green screen videos. Simply drop your green screen video into your scene, pick the background colour, and let Mattercraft do the work for you.

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Video recording. Mattercraft comes with a versatile video recorder out of the box. It includes a template component for video recording and offers full customization options, such as colours, exported formats, text cues, and more.

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360 images and videos. Mattercraft now has support for 360 videos, as well as 360 images. Importing a panoramic video and dragging it into the Hierarchy will now give the option to set it as a 360 video. This will transport your end user into a fully immersive 360 experience. This same functionality can also be used for VR / MR experiences.

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A new theme. Explore the all-new Mattercraft style theme from the settings menu. This theme brings a futuristic and user-friendly feel to your development process. Rest assured, we still offer standard light and dark modes to cater to different preferences.

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What’s next?

Mattercraft is now in Open Beta, where we're actively working on feature enhancements and stability improvements. We're confident in Mattercraft's stability and can recommend using it for client and customer-facing projects but please thoroughly test these projects before deployment.

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Other helpful links

• Check out all new technical documentation, to get started using Mattercraft.

• Join us on Discord to share feature requests or get support.

• Head into your notification settings to keep up to date with Mattercraft product updates. 

Thank you for being a part of the Mattercraft journey. We look forward to your creative exploration with our tool.