You can provide prospective customers with an informative and immersive shopping experience by providing a monoscopic, 360° preview graphic. In the Store, this graphic is then used as a skybox for your product details page (PDP). You can A/B test skybox graphics the same way as other PDP art assets.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to:

Upload a 360° preview graphic to the Store

Create 360° previews that abide by the technical requirements

Create 360° previews that abide by the content policies

Optimally compose 360° previews using best practices and Meta’s Store tablet UI reference

An animated clip depicting a transition from the home environment to an app specific skybox

Technical Requirements

You can upload your 360° preview as either a cubestrip or an equirectangular projection. Cubestrips provide more effective use of the available pixels and are preferred. There is no need to specify the type of projection, it is detected automatically. However, the filename should adhere to the given convention and the file size must be less than 2.3 MB.

Filename convention: <appname>_<description>_WxH.jpg

Example: com.meta.popone_cubemap_6144x1024.jpg

Cubestrip

A 6x1 monoscopic cubestrip provides the highest fidelity 360° previews.

Minimum target dimension	12288 x 2048 pixels
Face order	left, right, up, down, front, back
Format	JPEG minimum 80 quality, PNG, KTX
Maximum file size	2.3 MB

Equirectangular

A monoscopic equirectangular asset with a 2:1 aspect ratio is also acceptable.

Minimum target dimension	7680 x 3840 pixels
Format	JPEG minimum 80 quality, PNG, KTX
Maximum file size	2.3 MB

Upload to the Store

The option for adding a 360° preview is in your app management page’s App Metadata tab. It is on the same page where other PDP asset options are located. Note: If your app is currently under content review, you must wait until the end of the review cycle before you can add a preview to your metadata.

Go to your app on Developer Center.

On the left, select Overview.

Either select an existing app submission that is in draft status, or create a new app submission with the Edit app button.

Select the App Metadata tab and then select Assets.

Find the section named 360° Previews to upload your graphics asset.

Test the 360° preview in the headset

To test your PDP changes in the headset:

On the App Metadata page select Start Preview.

Open your app’s Store listing in your headset.

If your app has not yet been published, find your app in your App Library, and then select See Details. You may have to set the search filter to “All” if your app isn’t initially visible.

This preview is only visible to your Meta account.

Content Policies

Along with the standard Meta Quest Platform app content policies, these additional policies apply to 360° previews:

Safety and Comfort

Do not position characters in poses that can be perceived as directly threatening users. For example, a monster in a threatening pose directly behind the user is unacceptable.

Maintain a 10 meter minimum distance between the user and content to help prevent confusion and potential injury. Don’t include any characters, props, or environmental objects that could encourage a user to attempt to touch them.

Do not include weapons, violence, blood, and so on. Exemptions may be granted by request.

Text and Branding

Don’t use title text in the graphic.

Don’t add badges, banners, or awards in the graphic.

Don’t add taglines or descriptive words in the graphic.

Best Practices

360° previews deliver on the VR experience users expect. These best practices can help you deliver quality results that match those expectations.

Technical

JPEG compression for the uploaded media should not be lower than 80 quality. Given the 2.3 MB file size limitation, finding the balance between resolution and compression might require you to experiment.

Render in a loss-less graphics format at high resolution and then rescale or convert the graphics to your target dimension and graphics format in post-production instead of rendering directly to the target.

For 6x1 monoscopic cubestrips, consider rendering 2048 x 2048 faces to a high-resolution PNG.

For 2:1 equirectangular graphics, consider rendering to a 8192 x 4096 PNG.

If using Unity, you can use the OVR Screenshot Wizard utility included in the Meta XR Core SDK to create a “Cube Map Screenshot” cubestrip that conforms to the guidelines.

KTX (Khronos Texture) is also an accepted graphics format. If you have the ability to produce KTX version 1.0 textures, a KTX file might yield slightly smaller file sizes compared to JPEG.

Environment

Choose a location that feels unique to your experience and immersive in a way that makes the user feel as if they have been teleported to a new world.

Evoke a strong sense of immersion by utilizing the 360° space to place content in all directions. Creatively explore how to make the most out of the space.

Utilize scale such as large buildings or structures.

The floor height of the camera should be at least 1.56m or 5’6”.

Keep all your branded assets consistent, cohesive, and representative of the app content.

Composing with the Store tablet UI reference

It’s important to visually account for the tablet UI of the Store when composing your skybox. To help you compose and place content in the 3D space relative to the user, we recommend using our Meta Quest Store Tablet UI 3D Reference digital asset.

Download tablet UI 3D Reference (.fbx) (237 KB)

By importing our reference asset into your digital content creation app, you can place the render camera in the scene and visualize how the tablet UI might affect the composition of the environment behind it. This lets you make adjustments to the camera position or to the location of environmental objects to better accommodate the tablet UI.

Don’t forget to hide the tablet UI 3D Reference geometry before rendering the skybox.

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