Iterate your spatial scenes faster with Reality Composer Pro 3

Watch on Apple Developer

TL;DR

• Reality Composer Pro 3 is a standalone app downloaded from developer.apple.com, designed for fast spatial-content iteration without needing to round-trip through Xcode.
• Scenes are built from entities and components; the session demonstrates importing USD assets, adding lights, physics/audio-style components, and using Compute Simulation with Compute Graphs for GPU-driven effects.
• New prototypes let developers turn entities into reusable assets, instantiate them throughout a scene, override instance properties, reset overrides, or propagate changes back to the source.
• Live Preview targets a connected Apple Vision Pro for instant in-headset updates, Lightmaps bake static indirect lighting/AO/beauty results, and Reality Composer Pro Assistant generates 3D objects and materials from prompts.

Reality Composer Pro 3 workflow

Reality Composer Pro 3 is presented as a standalone tool rather than an Xcode developer tool. It can be downloaded from developer.apple.com and launched directly from the Applications folder.

The session uses the Chaparral Village sample project, specifically an Alchemy Area scene. Assets were modeled in Blender, imported as USD files, and arranged in Reality Composer Pro.

• Use the Project Browser import button to add a USD asset.
• Imported USD content is organized and optimized into an import bundle containing geometry, materials, textures, and related data.
• Drag an imported bundle into the viewport to add it to the scene as an entity.
• Use Focus Mode and the hierarchy/inspector panels to inspect and edit scene content.

Entities, components, and simulation

Reality Composer Pro 3 uses an entity-component model. Entities appear in the hierarchy, can be reordered or nested, and are configured through components in the inspector.

The demo imports a cauldron, parents it under a fireplace entity, adjusts its Transform Component, then creates a Magic Effect entity with child content for lighting and simulation.

• Entities can have children, making it possible to organize scene structure around logical objects or effects.
• Components add behavior or data such as transforms, lights, physics, audio, and simulation.
• A Point Light component is used for a glow effect, with position, attenuation, color, and intensity adjusted in the inspector.
• A Compute Simulation component can reference a Compute Graph from the project using the Compute Graph picker.
• Compute Graphs are node-based GPU simulations suitable for effects such as particle systems and more complex simulations; they run during simulation.

Iterating in the editor with prototypes

The simulation tab lets authored content run directly inside Reality Composer Pro, so developers can tune effects, physics, script graphs, and animations without a separate deployment step.

Prototypes add a reusable asset workflow. Any entity can be dragged from the hierarchy into the Project Browser to create a prototype asset, then dragged back into the scene to create instances.

• Instances can override selected properties without modifying the prototype source.
• Overrides can be reset back to the prototype's source values from the context menu.
• Overrides can also be propagated back to the source when the change should become part of the reusable asset.
• The demo creates a Magic Effect prototype, instantiates it as a Brewing Effect, switches its Compute Graph, and adjusts its glow settings.

Live Preview and Lightmaps

Live Preview targets a simulation to a connected Apple Vision Pro and opens a companion app on visionOS. The editor continues to author content while updates appear immediately on device; the session notes this Live Preview capability ships later in the year.

Lightmaps address the cost of dynamic indirect lighting for static scenes. When lights do not move, Reality Composer Pro can pre-calculate lighting into texture lightmaps and use those baked results at runtime.

• Live Preview is useful for judging spatial effects, lighting, and physical-space lighting in headset instead of guessing from the Mac viewport.
• A Lightmap component controls which lighting terms are baked and exposes bake-quality settings.
• The Lightmap Preview tab shows the impact of baked lighting before committing to a full bake.
• Supported baked terms called out in the session include Indirect Lighting, Ambient Occlusion, and Beauty Lightmaps.
• The demo raises bake quality from low to high, previews the result, tweaks settings, then regenerates the scene lightmap.

Reality Composer Pro Assistant and next steps

Reality Composer Pro Assistant is available from the right panel and accepts natural-language prompts. It uses generative models to create 3D objects and materials on demand inside the editor, and can also answer Reality Composer Pro questions.

The demo uses the assistant to add extra workbench items and candles to the scene. Apple recommends downloading Reality Composer Pro 3 from developer.apple.com, exploring sample projects, and watching related Reality Composer Pro sessions for deeper topics.

• Use the Assistant for fast ideation and asset generation directly in the scene-building workflow.
• Use related sessions for deeper coverage of no-code games, RealityKit advances, Xcode extension workflows, and advanced spatial workflows.
• The WWDC23 "Meet Reality Composer Pro" session remains relevant for editor basics.

Related Sessions

• Design no-code games with Reality Composer Pro 3
• Explore advances in RealityKit
• Extend Reality Composer Pro 3 functionality with Xcode
• Supercharge your spatial workflows with Reality Composer Pro 3
• Meet Reality Composer Pro

Related sessions

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• 283Explore enhancements to visionOS object trackingTrack moving objects at high frame rates in visionOS 27, bring reference-object tracking to iOS 27, and build custom spatial accessories for Vision Pro.
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• 286Use foveated streaming to bring immersive content to visionOSLearn how to stream OpenXR apps from a PC or cloud to Apple Vision Pro using FoveatedStreaming, CloudXR, SwiftUI, ARKit, and RealityKit.