News

What's new in Ready Player Me — September 2023

Here's your recap of what we added to Ready Player Me in September 2023.

Watch the full September recap here or on YouTube:

Asset Designer

Our new Asset Designer makes custom content creation accessible to anyone. You no longer need 3D design tools like Blender or Maya to make avatar outfits for Ready Player Me. In fact, all you need is Photoshop or similar graphic design software with support for PSD files. Here's how to use it:

  1. Go to Asset Designer in Developer Studio;
  2. Pick an outfit piece that you want to use and download a PSD template;
  3. Use the template to create your design and upload it back to Asset Designer.

In early October, we added geometry-aware AI texturing to the Asset Designer.

Custom Avatar Creator

You now have even more flexibility when integrating Ready Player Me avatars in your game!

New Custom Avatar Creator modules for Unity and Unreal SDKs let you create native avatar creators powered by Ready Player Me for your game.

Read documentation for Unity SDK and Unreal Engine SDK.

Custom Avatar Creator for Unity

Revamped Render API

Render API got big updates in September! It now renders 2D avatars 3x faster, significantly reducing load times.

Most importantly, we upgraded the visual quality of 2D avatar renders, and added improvements like ability to control camera, expressions, and scene background.

Enhanced 2D avatar renders

React Avatar Creator

The former React SDK is now obsolete and will be replaced by two packages: the React Avatar Creator and Visage. This makes the integration in your React project more intuitive and flexible without any extra dependencies you might not need.

The Avatar Creator package gives you an easy way to integrate the Ready Player Me Avatar Creator as a React component. Visage gives you the best Avatar rendering possibilities with all scene setup and lightning options.

Unreal Engine SDK 1.4.0

Ready Player Me Unreal Engine SDK 1.4.0 brings some improvements and fixes for new developers as well as support for UE 5.3.

  • Setup Guide helps you set up the project and get started quickly
  • Ready Player Me Unreal SDK now supports UE 5.3
  • Fixed rendering issues in the QuickStart map

Ready Player Me x Sunglass Hut

We are excited to bring legendary looks from Ray-Ban and Oakley to Ready Player Me, thanks to our partnership with Sunglass Hut.

Starting September 14th, you can visit participating Sunglass Hut stores across the US to claim a pair of sunglasses for your avatar. Look for SmartShopper digital screens and scan a QR code to get your virtual pair of glasses. You can choose from Oakley’s HSTN and Kato styles, as well as Ray-Ban’s Wayfarers and Aviators.

Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglasses for Ready Player Me avatars

Stranger Greens now available

We are excited to announce our second avatar collection, Stranger Greens. The limited-edition avatars will be available in selected partner apps, starting with HiberWorld.

Avatar collections is one of the new monetization tools we offer to Ready Player Me developers. We are working on bringing them to more partners soon.

Stranger Greens avatar collection

Animation Library introduction

We were overwhelmed by the positive response we have received after the release of our free, game-ready animation library!

We have created a tutorial to help you get the most out of the animations available in the library.

Getting started with Unity SDK

New to Ready Player Me? Check a new tutorial on our blog or watch an in-depth, 90 min workshop on how to get started with our Unity SDK.

Reimagining the avatar creation pipeline with generative AI

We are bringing AI to more and more developer tools, like Copilot AI and AI texture in Asset Designer. But we are using AI tools internally too!

Learn more about the influence of AI on our platform and how it's helping us streamline the avatar content creation process — from the first concepts to the final 3D model.

Get started with Ready Player Me

Are you building an app or game that could use some avatars? You can integrate Ready Player Me for free, even in commercial applications. Sign up here to get started.