what's new for realitykit?

RealityKit has introduced several new features and improvements this year, as highlighted in the WWDC sessions. Here are some of the key updates:

1. Cross-Platform Alignment: RealityKit 4 is now aligned across macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS, allowing developers to build for all these platforms simultaneously. This includes support for rich materials, virtual lighting, and new APIs like blend shapes, inverse kinematics, and animation timelines, which enhance character animation capabilities (Platforms State of the Union).

2. Low-Level Access: New APIs provide low-level access to mesh and texture resources, enabling developers to construct and update these resources with more control. This is particularly useful for creating dynamic models and textures (Discover RealityKit APIs for iOS, macOS and visionOS).

3. Animation Enhancements: The animation system now supports creating animation timelines in Reality Composer Pro, and features like full-body inverse kinematics and blend shape animation have been introduced (Compose interactive 3D content in Reality Composer Pro).

4. New Components and Features: New components such as the billboard component, which ensures entities always face the user, and pixel cast, which allows for pixel-perfect entity selection, have been added. Subdivision surfaces enable rendering smooth surfaces without dense meshes (Discover RealityKit APIs for iOS, macOS and visionOS).

These updates make RealityKit a more powerful tool for creating immersive and interactive 3D and spatial experiences across Apple's platforms.