AT its Adobe Summit 2022, which kicked off yesterday, Adobe unveiled a series of innovations, integrations, and investments designed to position brands to succeed in the metaverse to empower agencies and brands to adapt to the new demands of designing in 3D and immersive environments, and fast-track brands on their road to metaverse readiness.
Building upon the capabilities Adobe currently offers for creating immersive 3D experiences, e-commerce platforms and digital experiences, Adobe announced new innovations for designing, creating and delivering engaging and realistic virtual experiences to millions of users.
The company said new integrations across Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud will bring Adobe's 3D content creation and personalisation solutions to businesses across a wide spectrum of industries.
The company unveiled "Metaverse Playbook" for brands and previewed its upcoming Substance 3D Modeler as well as augmented reality (AR) shopping tools.
In addition, Adobe unveiled collaborations with leading brands – including The Coca-Cola Company, Epic Games, NASCAR and NVIDIA – on an array of technology advances and experiences that include the key ingredients of metaverse readiness.
The new solutions unveiled will help companies in 3D and other immersive content creation.
Adobe said today's immersive experiences, including games and interactive commerce and educational experiences, are largely built using its industry-leading 3D and immersive content creation tools, Substance 3D and Aero.
"Smart brands are using 3D design workflows, such as virtual photography with tools like Substance Stager, to make their product design and marketing content production better, faster and more efficient," it said.
Besides that, Adobe has been working with thousands of businesses to power digital storefronts and other e-commerce experiences. This expertise, as well as cross-cloud integrations, empowers businesses to crate immersive experiences where users shop for both virtual and physical products in the virtual world.
Adobe also helps empower brands to deliver unified, personalised digital experiences to their customers, no matter where they are or what channel they're engaging.
The company said it is building on its expertise to enable users in the metaverse and other immersive experiences to design their unique online personas and possessions and use these customised assets inside of virtual worlds.
"The metaverse and other immersive experiences will only succeed if they are feature-rich, personalised, engaging and have interactive content," said Adobe Creative Cloud's chief product officer and executive vice president, Scott Belsky.
"To lead in the metaverse, brands should start creating 3D and immersive content now – it will not only prepare them for the future, but make their product design and creation of marketing and e-commerce assets better, faster and cheaper," he said.
The metaverse experience
The metaverse consists of immersive experiences that enable people to interact in virtual worlds. It will power the next wave of innovation, including a broad range of shared experiences addressing work, gaming, e-commerce, robotics, trainings for autonomous vehicles and climate change research.
As Adobe moves to integrate its creative 3D and immersive tools with Adobe Experience Cloud, its first integrations planned are Adobe Commerce, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target. Previously, Adobe announced tighter integration of 3D content, effects and capabilities across its portfolio of Creative Cloud applications.
"As the web evolves, there will be greater demand than ever for data-driven, immersive experiences that include e-commerce, multi-user functionality and the ability to own and export customised versions of your identity and possessions across virtual worlds," said Adobe's president, Digital Experience Business, Anil Chakravarthy.
"Adobe Experience Cloud will be integral to brands' efforts to build personalised, immersive experiences such as these," he said.
Customer experience
Among the customers who are collaborating with Adobe in the metaverse readiness move include Coca-Cola, Epic Games, NSACAR and NVIDIA.
"At Coca-Cola, we're committed to preserving the craft of creativity and design – in the real world and the digital world too," said The Coca-Cola Company's global vice president of design,Rapha Abreu.
"Adobe helps bring digital innovation to our physical products, and we look forward to working together to extend the magic of Coca-Cola to the rapidly expanding virtual world with immersive design experiences," he said.
Epic Games, meanwhile, is working with Adobe to develop new tools that empower creators to build real-time 3D experiences that push the boundaries of photorealistic immersion."
NASCAR is using Adobe to give its fans the ultimate experience, whether they're at the track, watching from home or engaging in the virtual world.
NVIDIA is working at the cutting-edge to build foundational technologies that allow enterprises, developers and artists to create and connect within virtual worlds. Working with Adobe to evangelise open, common 3D standards like Universal Scene Description will empower our design and engineering teams to bring 3D assets across virtual worlds.
Metaverse Playbook
The Adobe "Metaverse Playbook" unveiled at the summit is designed to empower agencies and brands to adapt to the new demands of designing in 3D and immersive environments to streamline marketing production, product design and more. Additional areas included in the playbook are new insights on the core ecosystem of partners to fast-track brands on their road to metaverse readiness.
Adobe said later this year it will expand its 3D capabilities in Adobe's Substance 3D Collection, which currently includes Substance 3D Stager, Painter, Sampler, Designer, and 3D Asset Library, with an all-new Substance 3D Modeler app, making the collection the only end-to-end solution for 3D visuals and experiences.
Adobe's 3D tools are used extensively in top immersive games, including Fortnite, Roblox, Halo, and Flight Simulator. They are also used to create exceptional entertainment experiences, including Dune, The Mandalorian, and Blade Runner 2049.
The company said it will also continue integrating its 3D content, effects and capabilities across Creative Cloud applications, building on recently released integrations with Illustrator and After Effects. In addition, Adobe offers an industry-leading tool for authoring experiences in augmented reality, Adobe Aero.
During "Sneaks" at Adobe Summit, Adobe previewed cutting-edge immersive tools from Adobe's research labs, including tools that will empower businesses to bring e-commerce experiences to the metaverse and other virtual, digital experiences. Specifically, Adobe will preview AR shopping capabilities that enable marketers to embed AR markers into digital images on their websites. Customers will be able to take a photo of a product online and automatically see its exact size and fit rendered in their home – merging the virtual and physical worlds.