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1How AWS Sumerian Will Enable People to Explore VR, AR App Development
In recent years many companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft have invested heavily in virtual reality augmented reality development efforts. Now Amazon Web Services is joining in with the introduction on Nov. 27 of Sumerian, a new cloud platform that individual users or corporate development teams create 3D virtual reality and augmented reality experiences. With Sumerian, users will be able to use Amazon’s cloud assets to create virtual worlds enable people around the world to play them on everything from smartphones to virtual-reality headsets. Best of all, AWS claims the tools it provides are simple enough so that users don’t requires specialized expertise or high-level development still. This slide show will discuss how Sumerian will enable Amazon to expand its role in virtual reality.
2AWS Sumerian Is a Cloud Virtual Reality Workbench
3Content Coming to a Headset Near You
4ARCore Support Is Coming to Sumerian
5Novices Should Try It Out
Although AWS Sumerian might sound like a platform designed for expert developers, Amazon said that it’s developed the platform to work well for novices, too. Using software “building blocks,” amateur developers will be able to add objects and create 3D environments with little development expertise.
6A Cloud-Based Editor
7Sumerian Includes an Inventory of Virtual Objects and ‘Hosts’
8Users Can Bring Their Own Assets to Sumerian
9AWS Speech Technology Integration
In addition to relying on Amazon’s cloud AWS Sumerian will work with cloud services such as Amazon’s Polly text to speech technology and Amazon Lex conversational chatbot development tool. These features will enable characters to speak through a natural language interface. Amazon also said that a voice scripting library can be used with AWS Lambda.
10Amazon Is Offering Limited Free Access for the First 12 Months
Users who sign up for AWS can get free access to Sumerian and can create a 50MB scene that gets 100 views per month at no charge for the first 12 months, According to Amazon. Beyond that, Amazon will charge 6 cents for each GB of storage and 38 cents a month for each GB of traffic transferred. Amazon Lex and Amazon Polly charges will also apply.
11Sumerian Is in Preview
Amazon acknowledged that AWS Sumerian is still in preview and is a work in progress. However, the company said users won’t be charged to use the service during the preview period. AWS will start charging users after the previous period ends, but Amazon didn’t say when that might happen.