Last updated: 2026-09-04
Marble is World Labs' generative world model that converts text, images, panoramas, or video into a spatially consistent 3D environment. Its Chisel tool blocks out a scene with simple shapes for the model to detail, and worlds export as Gaussian splats at up to 2 million points, or as meshes for a game engine or 3D tool.
About Marble
Marble is the flagship product of World Labs, the spatial intelligence startup founded in January 2024 by Fei-Fei Li and a team of NeRF, ImageNet, and Gaussian Splatting researchers. Marble launched in limited beta in November 2025 and moved to a formal commercial launch in early 2026, backed by $1.23B in total funding: a $230M 2024 seed plus a $1B round in February 2026 from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Autodesk, NVIDIA, and AMD; World Labs has not officially disclosed a valuation, though reporting ahead of the February round discussed a figure near $5B. It is a multimodal generative world model that converts a photo, written prompt, panorama, or video clip into a spatially consistent environment a user can walk through, edit, and export, rather than a flat image or a fixed video. A built-in tool called Chisel guides the scene layout: a creator arranges rough shapes to define where structures and terrain go, and the model fills in the geometry, materials, lighting, and style around that layout. Generated worlds can be expanded outward from a small starting scene or stitched together with other generated worlds into one larger connected environment, useful for building game levels or large VFX sets piece by piece. Marble's best-fit users are game environment artists and level designers who want to generate base terrain and architecture before hand-finishing in an engine, VFX and previsualization artists who need quick 3D sets built from reference photos, architectural visualization designers turning site photos or layouts into client walkthroughs, and XR/VR developers who prototype spatial experiences directly inside a VR headset. In January 2026, World Labs launched the World API, a separate developer interface that exposes Marble's generation pipeline programmatically for games, simulations, and robotics pipelines; World API credits are purchased on a completely separate platform and cannot be used interchangeably with Marble app subscription credits. Community-built MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers let AI assistants trigger Marble world generation from a chat session, and as of September 2026 World Labs also publishes its own first-party `marble-developer-api` skill (installable via npm, source on GitHub) that gives coding agents like Claude API guidance and an OpenAPI snapshot for client generation — though World Labs still has not published a first-party MCP server itself.
Screenshots
Pricing
Free: $0/month, 7,000 credits (up to 4 world generations), no commercial usage rights. Standard $20/month (20,000 credits, up to 12 world generations), adds video input and splat/panorama export. Pro $35/month (40,000 credits, up to 25 world generations), adds commercial usage rights and high-resolution textured mesh export. Max $95/month (120,000 credits, up to 75 world generations), everything in Pro. Enterprise: custom-quoted plans for large teams, contact sales for pricing. In-app top-up credits (Standard tier and above, not API credits) are sold separately from the subscription at $5 for 5,000 credits, $20 for 22,000 credits, and $50 for 63,000 credits. World API access is billed from a completely separate credit pool purchased on the World Labs Platform — Marble app credits and API credits are not interchangeable — at a fixed $1.00 per 1,250 credits, minimum purchase 6,250 credits ($5.00); a standard world generation (Marble 1.0/1.1) costs 1,500 API credits or 150 for a draft, Marble 1.1 Plus runs 1,500-3,000 API credits depending on world size, a high-quality mesh export costs 3,500 API credits ($2.80), and PLY splat exports are free via the API.
Feature Comparison by Tier
| Feature | Free | Standard | Pro | Max | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $20/mo | $35/mo | $95/mo | Custom, quote only |
| Credits per month | 7,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 | 120,000 | Custom |
| World generations | Up to 4 | Up to 12 | Up to 25 | Up to 75 | Custom |
| Commercial usage rights | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Video input | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| High-resolution textured mesh export | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| In-app top-up credits | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | n/a |
Key Features
- Multimodal world generation: Generates a persistent 3D environment from a text prompt, a single image, multiple photos, a 360-degree panorama, a video, or a rough 3D layout.
- Chisel scene editing: Lets creators block out a scene with simple geometric shapes, then has the model fill in detailed geometry, materials, lighting, and style.
- World expansion and stitching: Extends a small generated scene outward or combines multiple generated worlds into one larger connected environment for game levels or VFX sets.
- Gaussian splat and mesh export: Exports worlds as Gaussian splats (.ply/.spz, full 2-million-point or lightweight 500K resolution) or as OBJ/FBX meshes for Unreal, Unity, Blender, and Houdini.
- WebXR viewing on VR headsets: Generated worlds can be explored in VR via WebXR on Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
- World API for developers: Launched January 2026, lets developers generate worlds programmatically from text, images, panoramas, multi-view sets, or video through a separate, credit-metered endpoint.
Pros
- Turns a single photo or text prompt into a walkable, spatially coherent 3D scene, something most 2D image and video generators cannot do.
- Output formats slot directly into Unreal, Unity, Blender, and Houdini pipelines without manual retopology or format conversion.
- The free tier lets anyone test world quality before paying, and the Chisel tool makes scene layout approachable for people without 3D modeling experience.
- Backed by $1.23B in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Autodesk, NVIDIA, and AMD, signaling long-term investment in 3D tooling integrations.
Cons
- Free tier caps out at about 4 world generations per month and excludes commercial usage rights, which require upgrading to the Pro tier or higher.
- Some users report scenes morph or lose fidelity at the edges, with certain post-launch generations matching prompts less precisely than early beta results.
- World API credits are a completely separate, non-interchangeable pool from the Marble app subscription, so developers integrating Marble programmatically face a second, usage-based cost on top of any subscription.
- No official first-party MCP server, and no published SOC 2, GDPR, or HIPAA compliance documentation as of September 2026, limiting enterprise adoption — though World Labs does publish an official `marble-developer-api` skill for coding agents.
Data Handling
- Training-data policy
- Not publicly detailed by World Labs; output usage rights for Commercial Purposes are governed by the World Labs Terms of Service
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Marble actually cost?
Marble runs on a credit-based subscription with five tiers: Free (7,000 credits/month, about 4 worlds), Standard ($20/month, 20,000 credits), Pro ($35/month, 40,000 credits, includes commercial usage rights), Max ($95/month, 120,000 credits, up to 75 worlds), and a custom-quoted Enterprise plan for large teams. In-app top-up credits (Standard tier and above) are sold separately from the subscription. The separate World API for developers is billed by its own credit pool at a fixed $1.00 per 1,250 credits, with a minimum purchase of 6,250 credits ($5).
Can you use Marble without paying?
Yes. The free tier includes 7,000 credits per month, enough for about 4 world generations, but it excludes commercial usage rights and is capped too low for regular production work. There is no separate time-limited trial; the free tier itself is the ongoing trial.
What should you use instead of Marble?
Runway is the better pick if your deliverable is a 2D video rather than a navigable 3D scene. Midjourney fits better if you need fast 2D concept art or still images instead of 3D geometry. Stability AI's open-weight models suit teams that want to fine-tune or self-host rather than use a closed API.
Marble or Genie 3: which should you pick?
Genie 3 generates richly interactive 3D environments in real time, up to 24 frames per second at 720p, reacting live to user input for research and agent-training use. Marble instead outputs a persistent, downloadable 3D asset you can bring into Unreal, Unity, or Blender for further work. Pick Marble when you need an owned, editable export; pick Genie 3 for a live simulated environment.
What does it take to start using Marble?
Start on the free tier and generate a first world from a single photo, a text prompt, or a 360-degree panorama. Use the Chisel tool to block out layout with simple shapes before the model fills in detail, then export the result as a Gaussian splat or an OBJ/FBX mesh into Unreal, Unity, Blender, or Houdini.