Niantic 8th Wall

8th Wall, the web augmented reality platform owned by Niantic, is an open source platform for building 3D and web augmented reality experiences, comprising an XR Engine with world effects, absolute scale, image targets, face effects and sky effects, an 8th Wall Desktop visual editor and game engine, utilities including an image target processor, and example projects.

Going open source and free for everyone is the fact that reframes this listing, and it changes the calculation for anyone who previously ruled 8th Wall out on cost. There is no login requirement, projects can be hosted anywhere, and the distributed engine binary permits commercial use as part of a broader application or experience, so branded campaigns and client projects are explicitly in scope.

WebAR remains the interesting bet underneath all of this. An AR experience that runs in the browser needs no app install, which for a marketing campaign is the difference between a few percent conversion and almost none, and it is why agencies adopted this route for packaging, print and event activations rather than shipping an app nobody would download twice.

Working with A-Frame, Three.js, Babylon.js and PlayCanvas rather than requiring a proprietary scene format is what makes the open source release genuinely usable, since a team with an existing web 3D codebase can adopt the tracking without rewriting the rendering. A migration guide is provided for existing projects, and native export from the 8th Wall Desktop editor Niantic distributes is stated as coming.