The Aethereal Shop Kit

A modular, remixable shop in Meta Horizon: an open-air, elegant and ethereal environment where every asset is designed for creators to adapt, customize and reimagine.

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Project Story

Inspiration

We believe in the growth of Meta Horizon and its potential to become a key platform for immersive experiences. This evolution will open new opportunities for both established brands and small businesses to showcase themselves in engaging, interactive environments.
Since not every company can afford specialized 3D artists and typescript developers, especially the small ones, our goal was to create a solution that lowers the barrier to entry and empowers anyone to build a branded presence in Horizon with ease.

What it does

The Aethereal Shop Kit is a remixable, modular environment that allows creators and businesses to quickly set up elegant and functional shops in Meta Horizon.
Instead of traditional prefab stalls, the entire space acts as the shop itself — an open-air, modern, and ethereal environment composed of modular assets such as floors, walls, arches, pedestals, display columns, and illuminated shelves.

It also includes:

  • Interactive product placeholders → when users interact, a UI opens showing a product sheet. The product’s title, description and the preview image are stored as global variables, so they can be easily modified directly from the editor without touching the code. This makes the kit accessible even for creators without technical skills.
  • A dynamic advertising panel → a customizable panel that cycles through different images every given seconds. Its size, content and interval time can also be adjusted directly from the inspector, with no need to alter code.
  • A complete tutorial and documentation → guiding users both on how to assemble the modular environment and on how to manage interactivity, product data, and media panels.

The result is an immersive shop experience that merges realism with design flexibility, offering creators a solid base to remix and adapt to their own vision.

How we built it

We designed the project as a set of modular building blocks:

  • Platforms, floors, and dividers for flexible layouts.
  • Walls, arches, and display columns for structure.
  • Shelves and panels with emissive strips for product display.
  • Pedestals and platforms for customizable arrangements.

On the interaction side, we built:

  • A UI-driven system connected to product placeholders. By externalizing key parameters (titles, descriptions), creators can customize their shop experience entirely through the editor.
  • A remixable advertising panel that supports image rotation, resizing, and customization directly from the inspector.

We also prepared a tutorial and documentation to guide users on how to:

  • Assemble the environment using modular pieces.
  • Manage and edit product information through global variables.
  • Configure and customize the advertising panel.

Challenges we ran into

  • Balancing realism and modularity: Organic shapes looked beautiful but were harder to keep remixable.
  • Naming conventions: We needed a system clear enough for beginners (e.g., Wall-12x8, Floor-8x8, RectangularShelf & more...).
  • User-friendly customization: Building a coded interaction system that still feels accessible for non-coders.
  • Future-proofing: Ensuring the kit can grow with Horizon’s evolution while staying simple and remixable.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Creating an elegant yet modular design that feels professional but remains easy to use.
  • Implementing interactive product placeholders that can be edited without touching code.
  • Developing a dynamic and customizable advertising panel.
  • Delivering documentation and tutorials that empower even non-technical creators to build and customize their space.
  • Building a kit that works for both professional creators and small businesses with little to no 3D experience.

What we learned

We learned how to:

  • Balance aesthetics with technical simplicity.
  • Create assets that are flexible without losing their visual identity.
  • Simplify UI and interaction systems for maximum accessibility.
  • Design with onboarding in mind, supporting creators with guides and documentation.

What's next for The Aethereal Shop Kit

We plan to:

  • Expand the kit with more modular assets (stairs, railings, furniture).
  • Add thematic variations (e.g., different color palettes).
  • Extend interactive systems with new features (e.g., product galleries, purchase simulations).
  • Continue refining usability to support both brands entering Horizon and independent creators experimenting with remixable content.

Built With

  • maya
  • substance-3d-painter
  • substance-3d-sampler
  • typescript
  • visual-studio-code
  • worlds-desktop-editor
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