What you can build with a 360° world

A 360° environment is a complete surrounding in a single image: the sky, the horizon and the ground in every direction. That makes one world useful in a surprising number of places. Game developers use them as skyboxes and to light their levels, VR teams as the space around the player, filmmakers to scout and previs locations that do not exist yet, and architects to light renders and fill the view through the glass. WorldGen360 Studio generates them from a written description or a photo, at up to 8K, as one seamless equirectangular image that every one of those tools already understands.

Which format and size for which job

Every world comes out of Studio as the same 2:1 equirectangular image, so the choice is not which world to make but how to export it. The format depends on whether the world will be seen or will light a scene, and the size on how closely people look. Keep the 8K original as your master and make smaller copies from it.

Job	Format	Size	Guide
A game sky on PC or console	PNG, or EXR if it lights the level	8192 × 4096	Unity, Unreal Engine
A game sky on mobile	PNG	A 4096 × 2048 copy	Unity
Lighting and reflections in a game	EXR	8192 × 4096, or 4K if only rough surfaces reflect it	Game skyboxes guide
A VR app on a standalone headset	PNG, compressed on import	8192 × 4096, or 4K if memory is tight	VR environments
WebXR and 360° viewers on the web	JPEG	4K first, 8K when someone zooms	VR guide
Previs and virtual scouting	EXR in the engine, PNG to review	8192 × 4096	Virtual production
Architectural and product renders	EXR	8192 × 4096	Architectural visualisation
Bringing an old photo to life	PNG to explore, 360° video to share	4K or 8K	Photo to 360°
A store page or social post	360° video, MP4 at 1920 × 1080	Rendered from any world	Studio

EXR and 8K exports come with paid plans; the free plan exports 4K PNG, which is plenty for trying a world in any of these places.

Frequently asked questions

What can you use a 360° environment for?

Game skies and the light they cast, the surroundings of a VR experience, locations for pitching, previs and virtual scouting, the environment that lights an architectural or product render, interactive 360° viewers on the web, and 360° video for store pages and social posts. They all use the same kind of image.

Which file format do I need for games, VR or rendering?

PNG for a world that will be seen, such as a game sky or a VR backdrop. EXR for a world that will light a scene, because its extra range keeps the sun bright. JPEG for web viewers, where download size matters. All of them are the same 2:1 equirectangular image.

Can one world be used in several engines?

Yes. Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, Blender, WebXR and most renderers read the same equirectangular image, and each converts it into whatever it needs internally. Keep the 8K original as your master and export smaller copies for each platform.

Is a generated environment good enough for professional work?

For skies, backdrops, lighting, look development and previs, yes: every world is repaired as a panorama, checked in a quality report and licensed for commercial use on every plan. Know the limits, though. It is an interpretation of a place, so match live-action plates with a captured HDRI; it has no parallax, so build anything close in 3D; and 8K is below what large LED volumes need for final backgrounds.

Go deeper

For the ideas behind every use case, start with the complete guide to 360-degree images, which covers projection, resolution and formats. Game developers should read the complete guide to game skyboxes, and anyone building for a headset the complete guide to VR environments. If a term is new, the 360° glossary explains it in a few sentences.