WeChat's New Year's masterpiece: installing the metaverse into a mini program
WeChat tests the “XR-FRAME” development guide, and the human-computer interaction method of future applets may shift from 2D to more three-dimensional 3D.
Written by Kyle
As a national-level app with a monthly activity of 1.309 billion, every small upgrade of WeChat can easily become a phenomenon. In the beginning of 2023, WeChat will expand its efforts to try to incorporate the metaverse into applets.
Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the “XR-FRAME” development guide in the open community, which is a customized XR (extended reality) /3D application solution for applets. Simply put, after the launch of this solution, it will give the applet extended reality and 3D capabilities from the bottom layer, and transform the human-computer interaction method of future applets from 2D to more three-dimensional 3D.
Currently, XR-FRAME is still in the testing phase. According to the officially released demo, the component can better present 3D effects and provide experiences such as AR face-swapping and AR games. According to reports, WeChat took the lead in targeting the test scenario of the XR applet in the e-commerce field, and launched various types of cases such as AR try-on and AR home improvement.
From a strategic point of view, installing the metaverse into the WeChat Mini Program, Tencent is at risk. Economist Zhu Jiaming predicts that in the future, the basic form of people socializing will take place in the metaverse. If all of this actually happens, traditional social models such as WeChat will be disrupted. The possibility of defeating WeChat is not “Douyin” social networking, but a metaverse app.
Applets need to be 3D converted
Remember the popular little game “Jump!” on WeChat? By pressing and holding the screen, the player makes the villain jump to the box in front of them to score points. If the villain falls by accident, the game ends. The game landed on the WeChat Mini Program in December 2017, drawing countless players to compete. A few months ago, the elimination game “Sheep Is a Sheep” was also popular all over the Internet using the WeChat Mini Program as a carrier.
Since the launch of the WeChat Mini Program in January 2017, many phenomenal apps have been created in it. Relying on the huge WeChat user base, the applet provides developers with a new creative soil. Over the past 6 years, the platform capabilities and underlying framework of the applet have also been continuously upgraded. At the beginning of 2023, the applet revealed a big move — the XR framework is currently being tested.
XR, or extended reality, is a synonym for VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality), which can bring the audience an environment of real and virtual integration and human-computer interaction. Not long ago, WeChat officially posted the “XR-FRAME” development guide on the WeChat Open Community. According to the description, this is an XR/3D application solution officially provided by the applet. It is implemented based on a hybrid scheme. The performance is close to native, effective, easy to use, strong expansion, progressive, and follows applet development standards.
Currently, this underlying framework is still in the testing stage. The applet officially posted a detailed tutorial on the open community to guide developers on how to build an XR applet from scratch.
Compared to the Canvas (canvas) component used in current applets, xr-frame brings more power. According to the introduction, it provides an xml (expandable markup language) method to describe 3D scenes, and integrates systems such as AR, physics, animation, particles, post-processing, etc., making it easy to get started. At the same time, complete PBR (physics-based rendering) effects, ambient lighting, and shadows are built-in, and environmental data can be quickly generated through panoramas. In addition, it also has advantages such as close to native rendering performance and strong scalability.
Examples of XR applet development effects
Simply understood, the launch of xr-frame will give applets extended reality and 3D capabilities at the bottom, and will transform the human-computer interaction method of future applets from 2D to more three-dimensional 3D.
According to the officially released demo, after getting xr-frame support, virtual 3D people, 3D objects, and 3D scenes can all be better presented in the applet. In addition, functions such as AR face swapping, scanning a plane to obtain AR games, and scanning specific images to obtain AR interaction can also be realized. This means that future WeChat applets will have more interactive applications.
According to the pace of testing, 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 WeChat version upgrade.
Let the metaverse happen on WeChat?
WeChat is testing the XR applet right at a time when the metaverse wave is turbulent. This move sends a signal that the WeChat Mini Program will take on Tencent's mission to lay out the metaverse to a certain extent.
Although Internet giants such as Meta and Baidu have developed metaverse panorama applications, the experience and popularity are very limited. Currently, application scenarios related to the metaverse are mainly reflected in human-computer interactive games, immersive e-commerce shopping, virtual human live streaming, and virtual conferences. Without building its own metaverse platform, Tencent tested the waters of the metaverse and chose a lightweight approach. Using the WeChat traffic portal, use a small program to first connect to the virtual reality scene.
According to reports, at present, WeChat has taken the lead in targeting e-commerce in the XR applet, and is cooperating with a number of different types of brand applets to launch different types of cases such as AR try-on and AR home decoration.
At this stage, XR technology is most commonly used in e-commerce. In the traditional e-commerce shopping experience, consumers can only rely on the pictures/videos displayed by the merchant to make shopping decisions. After the final purchase, the gap between the buyer's show and the seller's show is often too large. However, after the introduction of AR technology, the product display model of traditional e-commerce platforms was gradually disrupted. In particular, in specific scenarios such as clothing trials, jewelry wear, and beauty trials, AR can help users make more correct decisions.
Although WeChat has never been the main battleground for e-commerce, consumer brands such as NIKE, Adidas, and Chanel have launched related WeChat applets. When the XR function is launched, these brands can better display products, which may drive the growth of the WeChat e-commerce ecosystem.
Also, it is conceivable that in the future, more 3D modelling and mini games with a stronger sense of realistic interaction will be created in the WeChat applet. Perhaps the next popular mini game will be in a completely different 3D form.
A wide variety of WeChat applets
In fact, as an important part of the WeChat ecosystem, applets have also entered a bottleneck in development. WeChat applets make huge sacrifices in performance in order to achieve the effect of not having to download, and the same apps often don't perform as well as apps on WeChat applets. As a result, applets have not become disruptive apps as people expected; on the contrary, some highly functional apps seem futile if used through applets.
It is not yet known whether the launch of the XR function will open up room for growth for applets. Some developers expressed concern that whether xr-frame can meet expectations still requires careful optimism. After all, the original design of applets was designed to be fast. “Fast” here refers to loading and rendering, so WeChat applets have always been a hybrid rendering method mainly based on WebView rendering and assisted by native rendering, which also makes the development of applets mainly focus on front-end technology. However, the 3D development of xr-frame requires a completely different technology stack, and the cost of rendering is also increased exponentially, which requires developers to have a better level of optimization. Also, in situations where high-quality 3D modeling often takes up a lot of memory, there is also a question mark about whether the XR experience provided by the applet will be discounted.
Of course, as a “national application” with a monthly activity of 1,309 billion, WeChat has a significant traffic advantage. As long as excellent applets appear, there will definitely be no shortage of users. This will also attract a large number of brands and developers to try it out, so the launch of xr-frame will drive the prosperity of the applet development ecosystem.
From a strategic perspective, incorporating the metaverse into applets is also Tencent's further exploration in the social field. Overseas social giant Meta has already begun.
Zhu Jiaming, an economist and chairman of the Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, once believed that the reason Facebook changed its name to Meta was because Facebook was originally a metaverse, but in the previous era, the development of digital technology was limited, and social experiences could only be presented in the form of graphics and videos. He predicts that in the future, the basic form of people socializing will take place in the metaverse, breaking the boundaries of time, space, and geography, and bringing more immersive experiences.
If all of this actually happens, traditional social networking app models such as WeChat and QQ will be disrupted, and the possibility of defeating WeChat is not a video social networking app like “Douyin,” but a metaverse.
