HAnim, glTF, and VRM—three major frameworks for representing and animating humanoid characters. 

HAnim, the Humanoid Animation International Standard maintained by the Web3D Consortium, provides a rigorously defined, interoperable framework for representing, animating, and exchanging 3D human figures across tools, platforms, and applications.

​X‑Ite, X3DOM, and the Castle Game Engine — three tools that all deal with X3D. Together, they form a complete ecosystem for 3D Web visualization.

The 3D web has evolved from experimental to a mature ecosystem powering cultural heritage, e‑commerce, scientific visualization, digital twins, and immersive storytelling. At the heart of this transformation are three foundational technologies: WebGL, glTF, and X3D. Each plays a distinct role—one is a rendering engine, one is a content format, and one is a full declarative standard for interactive 3D scenes. See comparison table below. 

There is great excitement around the development of new features and formats, from glTF 2.0 to X3D 4.0. This blog provides a high-level view of the leading open formats and how and why they should be used together.

See glTF + X3D integration on WebGL examples:

The term ‘Metaverse’ has taken on a new sparkle recently, appearing prominently in the marketing materials of a number of large technology companies. Indeed, many have attempted, or are attempting, to co-opt it for their own purposes, which has resulted in a great deal of confusion among producers and consumers in the marketplace. With this short position paper, the Web3D Consortium seeks to address this confusion by exploring the history of the ‘Metaverse’ that has led us to our current state, providing a workable definition of the term ‘Metaverse’, and providing a vision for its sustainable, cooperative construction into the future. We believe that all the technologies are in place to fulfill the vision of an open, equitable, and ubiquitous information space. What remains are the key issues that have kept the Metaverse from manifesting the last two decades: user experience and corporate cooperation. See attached paper below.