The metaverse is getting a make-over, with a range of tools being launched this week that aim to create better and more immersive experiences, enhance 3D rendering and, perhaps most importantly for retailers, allowing better insight and data analytics to flow from metaverse use.
Better experiences
This week Adobe has launched a major update to its Substance 3D, a suite of tools and services that support 3D content creation from the beginning to the end of your project – expanding on the tools’ extensibility and performance. Updates include a 3D Materials SDK for developers, powerful new plugins and native Apple M-series chips support for Painter, Designer and Sampler.
The company also previewed innovations from Adobe Research focused on new ways to design, create and deliver engaging and realistic immersive experiences, and showcased how leading brands are using Substance 3D tools to build unique customer experiences. Additionally, Adobe announced that Substance 3D applications will be free to teachers and students worldwide.
“Smart brands are getting ‘metaverse-ready’ by growing their 3D and immersive content creation capabilities. That means that creative artists with expertise in 3D have a wealth of opportunities,” says Scott Belsky, chief product officer and executive vice president of Adobe Creative Cloud, speaking at a customer event in Paris. “These innovations provide new superpowers to the rapidly growing number of creative people using Substance 3D.”
Retailers going 3D
The growing importance of 3D and immersive content has contributed to strong demand for Substance 3D tools across gaming, entertainment and e-commerce industries. 3D content creation also continues to grow into a core skill for creative professionals as more brands prepare for the metaverse and other immersive experiences. Substance tools have seen a strong 100% YoY growth, with hundreds of thousands of monthly active users now.
“Incorporating Adobe Substance 3D into our product design and development processes has unlocked a new level of creative freedom for the HUGO BOSS team,” says Sebastian Berg, head of digital excellence at HUGO BOSS. “The emergence of the Metaverse presents exciting opportunities for the fashion world, and Adobe Substance 3D tools are an integral part of our approach as we execute on our plan to develop 80% of our collections on a digital basis by the end of this year.”
“Visualisation is one of the keys to success in accelerating decision making, strengthening the link with creative direction and reducing our time-to-market by validating the product in the marketing touchpoints,” adds Guillaume Meyzenq, SVP Consumer Category Running, Outdoor & Sportstyle at Salomon. “The Adobe Substance tools allow us to reinforce the user experience, offer us a lot of flexibility and a reduced adoption time for the designers by importing digital assets from other tools.”
“The mix of simplicity and raw power of what I can do in Adobe Substance 3D Modeler is staggering. It’s the gold standard for two handed sculpting,” says Bay Raitt, a 3D graphic novelist and principal UX designer at Unity. “With a set of perfectly chosen controls, Modeler is deceptively simple to use, but as your skills improve it is worthy of deep mastery for even the most dedicated sculpting and world building tasks.”
Analytics from the metaverse
With a growing number of retailers looking to leverage the metaverse, the need to understand and apply customer data both from and to this new platform has become crucial. Adobe has also unveiled tools to make this work too.
“Delivering personalised customer experiences is a top priority for every business in every industry, and the key to making it happen is connecting real-time insights across all aspects of the customer journey,” says Amit Ahuja, senior vice president, Adobe Experience Cloud platform and products at Adobe. “With support for metaverse and streaming media channels, Adobe Analytics continues to lead the industry as the only true omnichannel analytics solution for customer engagement.”
Adobe Analytics is the solution of choice across industries, providing insights for brands to understand the effectiveness of cross-channel experiences and marketing campaigns. In the retail sector, nine of the top 10 U.S. brands rely on Adobe Analytics to understand shopper journeys that move from online to in-store. In travel, eight of the top 10 hotel chains and seven of the top 10 U.S. airlines lean on Adobe to enhance digital services as demand picks back up. Adobe Analytics is also leveraged by eight of the top 10 financial services institutions, nine of the top 10 media companies and eight of the top 10 healthcare companies. It is widely used across the public sector and educational institutions as well.
As consumer habits change and more daily life moves online, brands have had to connect more data sources in areas such as e-commerce, social media and support centers, to form a clear picture of customer engagement. At the same time, a growing audience around streaming media and immersive experiences has created new opportunities for forward-looking teams.
Adobe is introducing new innovations to help brands capitalise on these trends. For the metaverse, Adobe is previewing support for metaverse analytics, as more brands begin to embrace immersive and 3D experiences. With a rearchitected platform, Adobe can now seamlessly extend the reach of Adobe Analytics to new and emerging channels. In the metaverse, brands will be able to measure and analyse specific events, such as the volume of engagement with 3D objects and immersive experiences, as well as collecting interactions across multiple metaverses.
This data can then be combined with insights across other channels like the website or mobile app, to understand changing consumer preferences. With Adobe Creative Cloud and immersive design tools like Adobe Substance 3D, Adobe is uniquely positioned to help brands design, deliver, measure and monetise experiences in the metaverse.
While streaming is a key investment for the entertainment industry, other sectors such as retail and banking continue to prioritise video and audio content. Adobe is introducing new capabilities today for brands to understand how streaming fits into the overall customer journey. Through Customer Journey Analytics (CJA), teams can tie digital media consumption to engagement on other channels like social media, websites and offline channels. A retailer, for instance, can see the types of content that drive social engagement and/or in-store activity to deliver personalisation and drive retention efforts.
