After years of waiting, the Horizon Worlds beta is opening to anyone in the US and Canada, with no invite required.
Meta announced the change today, which moves the beta from an invite-only system to a public beta with no invite requirement. Anyone who is in the US and Canada and over 18 can download Horizon Worlds and try it out from today.
UploadVR asked Meta for clarification on how the 18+ age requirement will be verified, to which a spokesperson responded: “When you log into Horizon Worlds with Facebook, you’ll be able to use the app in VR if your age on Facebook is over 18.”
Horizon Worlds is the social hub and creation tool created by Meta as part of the wider Horizon brand, which also includes Horizon Venues and Horizon Workrooms. It was announced all the way back in 2019, then known as Facebook Horizon, and displayed similar social, world-building functionality as VR apps like VRChat and Rec Room.
Now, more than two years after it was announced, the beta will be open to those in the US and Canada. There is no word on other regions at the moment, but expect to hear more as the open beta progresses towards (hopefully) a full launch in the future.
Horizon Worlds beta is open to anyone aged 18+ in the United States and Canada from today on the Quest and Rift platforms. Support for the original Quest 1 will end January 13, 2022.
Nearly two and a half years in the making, Meta’s most ambitious social VR project, Horizon Worlds, has finally reached open beta. Well kinda. Starting today, the platform is available to those in the US & Canada who are 18 years old or older—on Quest 2 and Oculus PC. If you’re part of that group you’ll be able to jump in to explore worlds made on the platform and get your hands on the app’s stunningly impressive collaborative building tools.
Horizon Worlds was initially announced back in 2019 as Facebook Horizon. Since then, Facebook has changed its name to Meta and Facebook Horizon has since become known as Horizon Worlds.
Despite the name change, the vision of Horizon Worlds is still the same: a social VR platform where users can build experiences with and for each other. Being a self-contained application, it’s not quite part of the metaverse yet, but it’s the company’s first big project that’s build on a foundation with many of the same ideas—like having a shared identity across interconnected, immersive experiences where you can spend time with friends.
Image courtesy Meta
The app has been in a closed beta for more than a year, during which time the company says it’s been honing the experience with feedback from users and creators alike.
Today Horizon Worlds is finally opening its doors, at least to some. Anyone in the US & Canada that is over 18 years old is welcome to join Horizon Worlds on Quest 2 or Oculus PC (Meta is pulling the plug on support for the original Quest starting on January 13th).
I recently got a tour of the latest version of Horizon Worlds and found a very polished experience with some excellent in-game creation tools. While much of the foundation here is the same as what we’ve seen previously, various systems have been enhanced and the experience overall feels streamlined.
For example, the last time we took a look at Horizon Worlds, spaces inside the world could only hold up to 8 players at a time. Now it’s possible to fit up to 20 players in a single space, depending upon the complexity of the scene (creators can reduce the total player count in order to add more geometry, animation, logic, etc).
Another upgrade is that Horizon Worlds is now using the latest Oculus Avatar system, which replaces the previous proprietary avatar system. When you load into Horizon Worlds you’ll automatically appear the avatar that you have (probably) already configured in your headset.
Image courtesy Meta
Building tools have also been expanded an improved. Creators now have control over an object’s texture, material properties, and more. You can even light scenes generally (at the skybox level) and specifically (by placing lights that illuminate nearby objects). Lights aren’t dynamic (they won’t cast shadows or respond to moving objects in real-time), but they do bake quickly enough that creators can easily use the game’s built-in tools to work with lighting on-the-fly to add extra character to their scene.
Meta says that everything you see in HorizonWorlds was built completely in-game—environments, game-logic, scoreboards, and… well, everything.
The building tools in Horizon Worlds are collaborative at their core. You can build collaboratively with up to four friends at a time, and everything that you see and do is synchronized between users, making for a feeling of co-creation that’s really powerful. This even applies to the scripting panel (which allows users to add logic to their creations); if you make even a tiny change to a script, your friend next to you will see the change reflected on their end too—great for helping each other debug, I’m sure.
Horizon Worlds is an impressively sleek package, even in its beta form. Whether or not it sees real traction is likely to come down to the quality of content available on the platform and how easy it is for the best content to be discovered and shared by users.
That can be a chicken-and-egg problem, of course. Sensing this, Meta recently announced a $10 million fund to try to kickstart creator projects on the platform, but hasn’t commented on plans to create any structured compensation for creators spending their time building on the platform. That might make it hard for Horizon Worlds to attract high quality creators who might otherwise choose to spend their time building on platforms that offer structured, real-money payouts, like Rec Room or Roblox.
Horizon Workrooms 1.2 is available now, bringing more customization to rooms and a lectern for easier presenting.
Originally announced back at Connect 2021, the new update lets users upload custom posters and logo graphics to display in the room, as well as pick a room theme.
When Workrooms launched, there was only one room available (the ‘Lakes’ room). Now there are two room locations available, each with two different themes: Lakes – Cabin, Lakes – Vibrant, City – Bright and City – Sleek.
The latter Vibrant and Bright themes feel a bit more casual, while the Sleek and Cabin themes take on a slightly more professional tone, especially the former.
The City room is a nice change of pace from the standard offering, but the view does look a little close to the ‘The World If’ meme skyline for my liking. Nonetheless, you can make it feel a little more homely by uploading custom graphics and decorating the walls.
To upload custom graphic files to Workrooms, you’ll need to ensure that both your Workrooms Quest app and the Oculus Remote Desktop app are updated to version 1.2. Oculus Remote Desktop doesn’t update automatically, so you’ll need to head over to workrooms.com and download the latest version.
Once everything is updated, head to the Room tab in Workrooms in VR, then scroll down until you find the option that lets you customize the room’s graphics. Clicking on the plus icon for each graphic will open a link in the browser of your connected computer, where you can upload the poster and logo graphics.
Once uploaded, apply them to your room and feel a little bit more at home. We managed to get our UploadVR logo into the City – Sleek theme, as pictured above, and it definitely makes the space feel a little more personal.
The last new feature is a lectern, to be used when presenting so that you still have access to your desk area while speaking to the audience.
Will you be customizing your Workrooms environment? Let us know in the comments.
Meta (formerly Facebook) is expanding 2D app support on Quest — apps like Instagram, Dropbox and Slack will soon be available to download on the Oculus Store.
Announced at Connect today, these 2D apps for Quest will use a new framework based on the PWA (progressive web app) industry standard.
Starting today and expanding with increased support to come, this will expand the Quest Home’s 2D app capabilities from just the operating system first-party 2D apps and services (Explore, Oculus Store, Oculus Browser) to include other first and third-party apps from “a variety of developers” that can run in a 2D panel model and take advantage of the Quest’s multitasking capabilities.
“You just download them and then you use them like panel apps in Home, just like the first party apps,” said Product Management Lead, AV/VR for Enterprise Jill Campbell on a call earlier this week. “Enabling more 2D apps is another step forward in making VR more flexible and more useful … Services like Slack and Dropbox, Facebook and Instagram, and many more open up opportunities, not just for how to use the headset, but for developers and how they might build for the headset.”
Select apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Smartsheet and Spike, will be available in the Oculus Store for Quest from today. Apps such as Dropbox, Monday.com, MURAL, My5, Pluto TV and Slack “will follow soon” along with other unannounced apps in the future.
Meta says that these apps 2D panel apps are using a new framework based on the Progressive Web App (PWA) industry standard, which will make Home a developer platform for the first time and allow an app to “have the look and feel of a native app and gain access to discovery and distribution features on the Oculus Platform.”
There’s also a new work-focused home environment, designed to be used with 2D panel apps and a desk as a virtual office location, pictured above. Unlike Horizon Workrooms, which is designed as a communal meeting and collaborative workspace, this environment is simply an aesthetic change to the home environment optimized for 2D apps and multitasking — essentially an area to work on something by yourself.
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s company title will be renamed to Meta.
Facebook Becomes Meta
The social media platform Facebook will keep its name, as will other company services and apps, while Meta will become the official name for the umbrella company that oversees Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Reality Labs and all its other subsets.
The official announcement follows on from a report from The Verge last week that indicated the change might be incoming and announced officially at Connect.
As we remarked last week, the move is not dissimilar to Google’s 2015 decision to rebrand their company title from Google to Alphabet. This was done to distinguish Google from the search engine and provide a more encompassing name for the umbrella company managing all of its services and products.
For Meta, the new name signals a shift towards the metaverse, which has been a big focus of Facebook’s recent VR/AR efforts and today’s Connect keynote. Currently the company brands its own social VR applications on platforms like the Oculus Quest as ‘Horizon’, including Horizon Home, Horizon Workrooms and Horizon Worlds.
Meta says that the name was chosen “because it can mean “beyond,” and captures our commitment to building social technologies that take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today.”
What do you make of the new Meta name? Let us know in the comments below!
Horizon Workrooms is set to expand, offering users the ability to customize rooms and add custom logos and graphics.
These new features won’t be available until later in the year, but will let users add some personal touches to the Workrooms, including a custom logo graphic on the wall and custom posters. Users will also be able to switch between “a wider variety of environments”, one of which is pictured below.
In its current state, Horizon Workrooms only offers one room with no customization beyond the seating arrangement. Users can only choose between conversation, boardroom table and presentation settings, which alter the direction of the seats but nothing about the room itself.
On a call earlier this week Facebook’s Product Management Lead, AV/VR for Enterprise Jill Campbell said that these new customization options are only the beginning of future personalization plans for Workrooms. “This is one step we’re going to take in that direction with lots more to come.”
The image embedded above shows a brand new environment set among city skyscrapers, while the image below shows the default countryside setting that launched with Workrooms. The images also show the custom logo and poster integration, exampled here by Zoom (whose video conferencing service is soon to receive native integration with Workrooms).
Workrooms launched earlier this year as Facebook’s remote work and collaboration solution for VR. It allows teams to meet in VR and work together with a sense of presence as if everyone is in one room. It achieves this by harnessing a combination of existing and emerging technologies, such as spatial audio, keyboard and hand tracking, passthrough, remote desktop and Oculus Avatars.
Facebook launched Horizon Workrooms back in summer, bringing to Quest a new enterprise-focused virtual collaboration platform that connects both VR and video chat users in the same place. Soon the app will let you choose from different environments which will be customizable to some degree—a prescient step on the way to Facebook’s vision of its metaverse.
“Later this year we’ll introduce customizable rooms in Workrooms, giving you the ability to choose from a wide variety of different environments to get work done, and place your own company logos or team posters in your rooms,” the company said today during its annual Connect dev conference. “This will let people adapt their virtual workspaces to match individual company styles, cultures, and branding guidelines.”
So far Horizon Workrooms has only offered a few standard boardroom spaces. That isn’t changing terribly much with the ability to do things like modify colors, decorations, and import company logos and posters, however the ostensibly conservative update coming to the app later this year is definitely another bid to make Facebook and its VR hardware more attractive to companies looking to stay distanced and distributed. You know, the ‘new normal’.
Facebook surprise-launched Horizon Workrooms back in August, which lets VR and video chat users work and physically collaborate in the same virtual space. Since then it’s included support for things like Zoom Meeting and Zoom Whiteboard for better cross-platform collaboration, and also included more intuitive whiteboards, instant Remote Desktop connection, and AR keyboard labels in its v1.1 release.
And customizable Workrooms environments aren’t the only thing on the agenda this year either, as Facebook continues to refine its expansion into enterprise VR to make it cheaper and more attractive. It’s building towards the 2023 release of dedicated ‘Work Accounts’ which will essentially let companies adopt the consumer Quest hardware instead of having to buy the more expensive Quest for Business kit for $800.
This comes on the tails of a Facebook hiring spree that will see an additional 10,000 people added to its ranks in effort to build its version of the metaverse, or what you might define as a connect platform of virtual experiences and worlds that share some level of connectivity, interoperability, and identity.
Remember Facebook Horizon, the company’s attempt at a new virtual reality (VR) social platform that was revealed in 2019 and accessible as an invite-only beta? Well, this week the Facebook branding has been dropped in favour of Horizon Worlds whilst announcing a new $10 million creators fund to encourage more to the platform.
Horizon Worlds now joins Horizon Workrooms, expanding Facebook’s suite of VR applications around the “Horizon” name, the former a creative universe where you can build whatever world you like, the latter focused on collaborative, enterprise-based working environments. It’s likely these won’t be the only two applications under this new branding banner.
Ever since the Horizon Worlds beta launched Facebook has been developing new tools to grow the social application, encouraging creators to come in and flesh out the experience. These include new textures and improved object snapping, whilst tools on the horizon include: “for projectile launching mechanics and global leaderboards.” You don’t even need to start from scratch if you don’t want to, with the Horizon Worldsteam building an entire experience that can be used as a template. Additionally, an educational hub will be made available to help those new to the platform.
As for that $10 million creators fund, that’ll provide support and resources by distributing those funds in three core ways. The first is via Creator Competitions that’ll begin later this year. Each competition will offer up to $10k in cash prizes, shared across first, second, and third place winners – how much each will get hasn’t been revealed. All you have to do is build a really cool world. The second option will be via the Accelerator Program. This is an: “application-based initiative designed to give people from diverse backgrounds an advanced crash course in Horizon Worlds creation.” Applications open next month for the 2022 programme.
Facebook Horizon
Facebook has also been working directly with third-party developers to help build its Horizon Worlds vision. Content is built around a certain theme, earlier this year those involved built cooperative mini-games for two-four players. The next theme hasn’t been unveiled but if you’re an interested studio or solo developer sign-ups are being accepted for these funded projects.
By the sound of it, Horizon Worlds isn’t yet ready to leave beta for an official public outing. If there’s going to be any major news about the platform it’s probably going to be unveiled in a few weeks at Facebook Connect. For all the latest news from the annual show, keep reading VRFocus.
Horizon, Facebook’s social VR space built around user-generated content, was announced more than two years ago, but the company still isn’t quite ready to send it out the door. Instead, Facebook this week announced it is rebranding the project as Horizon Worlds, while also announcing a $10 million fund to support creators building content within.
When we tried out Facebook Horizon back in August of 2020, we found that it was aiming for a sweet spot between social VR apps Rec Room and VRChat, including some seriously impressive in-game building and scripting tools that make it possible to build worlds, experiences, and mini-games for anyone to enjoy. Since then, Facebook says it has upgraded its building tools and decided to rebrand the entire project to be called Horizon Worlds, which serves to distance ‘Facebook’ from the core name while also fitting better with the recently introduced Horizon Workrooms.
Community Competitions: Later this year, we’ll launch a series of creator competitions to reward people building the very best worlds in Horizon and who are taking advantage of the tools we offer. We’ll offer up to $10K in cash prizes for the first-, second-, and third-place winners, and we’ll share more details on these competitions soon. You can sign up here to be notified when we launch our first competition.
Accelerator Program: We’ll also continue with our Creator Accelerator Program, an application-based initiative designed to give people from diverse backgrounds an advanced crash course in Horizon Worlds creation. The Creator Accelerator Program also gives people a unique opportunity to attain the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in a professional environment, including a session we held that focused on building more inclusive worlds. We just wrapped up the pilot class of this program, and we’ll begin accepting applications next month for an expanded Creator Accelerator Program set to kick off in early 2022.
Funding For Developers: Last but not least, our product teams have been working closely with a handful of external developers to explore the range of possibilities for content in Horizon Worlds. Earlier this year, we worked with developers on the theme of cooperative mini-games that are easy to learn and hard to master for two to four players. If you’re a developer, studio, or creator and you’re interested in partnering with us for funded opportunities to create experiences for Horizon in a particular theme, you can sign-up to learn more about the next set of themes here.
Ostensibly the company is hoping to attract the kind of creators that are essential to the traction of other social virtual worlds like Roblox, Rec Room, and VRChat.
To support those creators, Facebook says it has built “best-in-class” in-game building tools, with recent upgrades offering even more flexibility for individuals or teams of creators to build experiences inside Horizon Worlds.
We redesigned our creation tools UI and interactions to make the most common creator workflows more efficient and intuitive. Through new textures and improved object snapping, artists and designers are now able to bring complex environments and characters to life with greater ease. Our scripting updates have unlocked a wide variety of new VR mechanics and gameplay that scripters and programmers can use to bring their ideas to life—whether it’s using custom locally-scripted physics to craft a paper airplane or building a competitive team-based game with persistent XP progression, the only limit is your imagination.
We’re working to bring even more tools and features to the community soon, like a new feature for projectile launching mechanics and global leaderboards. We’re also building full game experiences to share with creators as templates so that they won’t need to start from scratch when making a new world.
With these new tools and monetary incentives, Facebook hopes to attract users who will populate Horizon Worlds with content that will bring other users to the platform. A newly published video shows some of the things that creators have been building in Horizon:
Horizon was initially announced just over two years ago but has quietly remained in a closed beta over the last year with no firm roadmap for a full launch. The announcement of a $10 million fund to attract creators to the platform seems to be an acknowledgement that there isn’t yet enough to do inside to appeal to a broader userbase, and we may not see Horizon open to the public until the company feels like it has built up enough content to keep people coming back. However, it better be not wait too long; after all, it also risks losing the attention of creators if there isn’t a real userbase ready and willing to explore their content.
Facebook removed its brand from in-development social VR platform Horizon and plans to focus the effort around VR-based building tools with a $10 million fund to encourage creators.
Horizon Worlds is the new name for Facebook Horizon and the company is removing support for Unity-based worlds, encouraging creators building with that game engine to seek release on the Oculus Store.
When the social service was first showcased for Oculus Quest in late 2019 it supported worlds made in Unity which were noticeably more complex and engaging than those made in VR using Facebook’s tools. Unity is the most popular game engine among developers and, alongside Roblox, Rec Room and Epic Games, the companies are on a short list of efforts to build powerful yet easy-to-use tools for interactive 3D virtual world creation. Facebook tried to acquire Unity in the past and the acquisition would’ve given the advertising giant a key toolset that would push many creators to work with the social media company. Instead of selling, though, Unity went public on the stock market in late 2020.
“We don’t have any plans [for] direct Unity-level development on top of Worlds, but absolutely as a VR developer you can build on top of Unity and bring that experience, whether its a game or something else, over to Oculus through the Oculus app store,” said Vivek Sharma, VP of Horizon at Facebook Reality Labs.
Facebook recently announced its Horizon Workrooms app for working remotely in VR. When viewed together, “Horizon” may now be viewed as Facebook’s brand for first party social VR applications.
VR Scripting And Art Creation
Facebook offered a tour of some of the worlds in Horizon made recently by community members using VR-based tools.
Community members are able to add to each other’s work, building up from primitive shapes to make new objects and adding logic and rules to the world via a scripting system. You can of course resize yourself to work at different scales — one of the hallmarks of VR as a medium — so you can make yourself very small to work on tiny details or very large to get an overview of everything. Creators can also install portals to other worlds and share pieces with others to take and build on. For example, a pair of worlds made by OcuLos410 called “Intro To Horizon” and “Horizon World Tours” give creators an overview of what’s possible, a meeting space to get help, and examples of tools they can use to make their worlds more complex.
Overall, then, two years after its initial launch Facebook is honing Horizon Worlds around its VR-based creative community with the $10 million creator fund to be doled out through community competitions, an accelerator program, and funding for developers who agree to build for Horizon according to Facebook’s suggested theme.
Facebook said it would add more people to the testing release of Horizon Worlds throughout the rest of 2021.
“We fully expect ticketed events, we fully expect people to be asking for gifting of goods, trading of goods, buying digital goods and items, as well as of course experiences themselves, so subscriptions inside of these experiences themselves,” said Sharma. “I having nothing to announce today in terms of exact features that we’re working on, but if you take a look at what the family of apps at Facebook already support, it’s a pretty good line that we already have the capabilities other places that we can tie all of these things together into a nice bow for our creators.”
