As a national-level application with 1.309 billion monthly active users, each small upgrade of WeChat can easily become a phenomenon. In the beginning of 2023, WeChat will expand its strategy and try to put the metaverse into a small program.
WeChat applet XR-FRAME
Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the "XR-FRAME" development guide in the open community, which is a set of XR (extended reality)/3D application solutions customized for small programs. To put it simply, after the program goes online, it will endow the applet with extended reality and 3D capabilities from the bottom layer, so that the human-computer interaction mode of the applet in the future will change from 2D to a more three-dimensional 3D.
Previously, XR-FRAME was still in the testing stage. According to the official demo, this component can better present 3D effects, and provide AR face changing, AR games and other experiences. According to reports, WeChat took the lead in targeting the water testing scene of XR applets in the e-commerce field, landing AR try-on, AR home decoration and other different types of cases.
Today, the framework XR-FRAME has released the official version, which has undergone a series of updates, and some functions are still under development.
xr-frameThe base library v2.32.0is basically stable.
limit:
- The minimum client requirements are iOS 8.0.29 , Android 8.0.30 and above, and the recommended stable version is iOS 8.0.36 , Android 8.0.35 and above.
- The minimum base library is 2.27.1 and above, and 2.32.0 and above are recommended.
- The latest version is required for development tools, Nightly version is recommended.
- Only one component can exist globally at a time in the applet
xr-frame, otherwise an exception may occur.xr-frameThere can only be one component of the same componentxr-scene, and it must be the top level.<view>Currently, it does not support mixing with traditional tags such as applets .- Currently,
wxmlauto-completion is not supported, and real device debugging requires special attention, see the real device debugging documentation.At the same time, more capabilities will be added in the future. In future planning, we will also focus on:
- XR-FRAME has built-in characteristic UI components, allowing developers to write UI in XR-FRAME components to implement a cool UI system.
- AR/VR capabilities continue to increase and support eye devices.
- The interactive means are further enhanced, physical collision, triggering and other functions (completed, to be released).
- Enhanced tool capabilities, including auto-completion of tag attributes, etc.
From a strategic point of view, Tencent puts the metaverse into the WeChat applet, and Tencent is prepared for danger in times of peace. Economist Zhu Jiaming predicts that the basic form of people's social interaction will be carried out in the Metaverse in the future. If this really happens, traditional social models such as WeChat will be subverted. It may not be the "Douyin" social networking that defeats WeChat, but the Metaverse application.
Small programs need to be 3D
Remember the popular mini-game "Jump" on WeChat? Players press and hold the screen to let the villain jump to the front box to score points. If the villain falls accidentally, the game ends. This game landed on the WeChat Mini Program in December 2017, attracting countless players to compete. A few months ago, the elimination game "Goat and Goat" also became popular on the Internet with the WeChat mini program as the carrier.
Since the WeChat mini-program was launched in January 2017, many phenomenal applications have been born in it. Relying on the huge WeChat user base, Mini Programs provide developers with a new creative soil. Over the past 6 years, the platform capabilities and underlying framework of Mini Programs have also been continuously upgraded. At the beginning of 2023, the small program has exposed a big move-the XR framework is being tested internally.
XR is Extended Reality, which is a collective term for VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality), which can bring audiences an environment that combines real and virtual, and human-computer interaction. Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the "XR-FRAME" development guide in the WeChat open community. According to the description, this is a set of XR/3D application solutions officially provided by the applet. Based on the hybrid solution, the performance is close to the original and the effect is good. , easy to use, strong expansion, progressive, follow the small program development standards.
Now this underlying framework is still in the testing stage, and the official applet has posted a detailed tutorial in the open community to guide developers on how to build an XR applet from scratch.
Compared with the Canvas (canvas) component used by the current applet, xr-frame brings more capabilities. According to reports, it provides XML (Extensible Markup Language) to describe 3D scenes, and integrates AR, physics, animation, particles, post-processing and other systems, making it easy to use. At the same time, it has built-in complete PBR (Physical-Based Rendering) effects, ambient lighting, and shadows, which can quickly generate environmental data through panoramas. In addition, it has the advantages of rendering performance close to native and strong scalability.
Example of XR applet development effect
To understand simply, the launch of xr-frame will endow mini-programs with extended reality and 3D capabilities from the bottom, and will change the human-computer interaction mode of future mini-programs from 2D to more three-dimensional 3D.
According to the official demo, with the support of xr-frame, virtual 3D people, 3D objects, and 3D scenes can be better presented in the applet. In addition, AR faces can be changed, AR games can be obtained by scanning planes, and AR games can be obtained by scanning specific pictures. Functions such as AR interaction can also be realized. This means that there will be more interactive applications in the future WeChat Mini Programs.
According to the test rhythm, the XR applet function is likely to be fully launched after the Chinese New Year, and the industry generally regards it as the core function of the next major version upgrade of WeChat.
Let the Metaverse happen on WeChat?
The WeChat internal test XR applet is just at the time when the metaverse wave is turbulent. This action sent a signal that the WeChat applet will take on the mission of Tencent's layout of the metaverse to a certain extent.
Although Internet giants such as Meta and Baidu have developed metaverse panorama applications, their experience and popularity are very limited. At present, the application scenarios related to Metaverse are mainly reflected in human-computer interactive games, immersive e-commerce shopping, virtual human live broadcast, virtual conferences, etc. Without a self-built Metaverse platform, Tencent tried the Metaverse, and chose a lightweight method, using the WeChat traffic portal to access the virtual reality scene first with a small program.
According to reports, WeChat has taken the lead in targeting e-commerce as the test scene of XR mini-programs, and has cooperated with a number of mini-programs of different categories of brands to implement different types of cases such as AR try-on and AR home decoration.
At this stage, XR technology is most commonly used in the field of e-commerce. In the traditional e-commerce shopping experience, consumers can only rely on the pictures/videos displayed by merchants to make shopping decisions. After the final purchase, there is often a large gap between the buyer's show and the seller's show. After the introduction of AR technology, the product display mode of traditional e-commerce platforms has gradually been subverted. Especially in specific scenarios such as clothing try-on, jewelry wear, and beauty makeup trial, AR can help users make more correct decisions.
Although WeChat has not been the main battlefield for e-commerce, consumer brands such as NIKE, Adidas, and Chanel have all launched related WeChat mini-programs. When the XR function is launched, these brands can better display their products, which may drive WeChat e-commerce. ecological growth.
In addition, it is conceivable that more mini-games with 3D modeling and realistic interaction will be born in the WeChat mini-program in the future. Perhaps, the next popular mini-game will be a completely different 3D form.
In fact, as an important part of the WeChat ecosystem, mini programs have also entered a development bottleneck. In order to achieve the effect of no need to download and go away after use, WeChat applets have made huge sacrifices in performance. The performance of the same application on WeChat applets is often not as good as that of APP. This has also led to the fact that applets have not become subversive applications as people expected. On the contrary, some applications with strong functions will appear useless if used through applets.
Whether the launch of the XR function can open up room for growth for mini programs is still unknown. Some developers expressed concern that whether xr-frame can meet expectations needs to be cautiously optimistic. After all, the original intention of the small program design is to require fast speed. The "fast" here refers to loading and rendering. Therefore, the WeChat small program has always been based on the mixed rendering method of webview rendering and native rendering, which also makes the development of small programs Mainly based on front-end technology. However, the 3D development of xr-frame requires a completely different technology stack, and the rendering overhead is doubled, which requires developers to have a better optimization level. In addition, when high-quality 3D modeling often takes up a lot of memory, it is questionable whether the XR experience provided by the applet will be discounted.
Of course, WeChat, as a "national application" with 1.309 billion monthly active users, has a significant traffic advantage. As long as there are excellent small programs, there will definitely be no shortage of users. This will also attract a large number of brands and developers to try on it, so the launch of xr-frame will drive the prosperity of the mini program development ecology.
From a strategic point of view, putting Metaverse into mini programs is Tencent's further exploration in the social field. The overseas social giant Meta has already started.
Zhu Jiaming, an economist and chairman of the academic and technical committee of the Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, once believed that the reason why Facebook changed its name to Meta was because Facebook was originally a Metaverse, but in the previous era, the development of digital technology was still limited. , Social experience can only be presented in the form of graphics, text and video. He predicted that the basic form of people's social interaction in the future will be carried out in the metaverse, breaking the boundaries of time, space and geography, and bringing a more immersive experience.
If all this happens, the traditional social application models such as WeChat and QQ will be subverted. It may not be the video social application such as "Douyin" that defeats WeChat, but Metaverse.
Note: "Phenomenon-level applets" refer to those that suddenly become popular in a short period of time and become well-known and used