It's here! 🥳 Today, we're excited to announce that WebGPU support has officially arrived in the PlayCanvas Editor.

Visual Studio Code is massively popular. In the Stack Overflow 2023 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool among 86,544 respondents, with 73.71% reporting that they use it.

Any PlayCanvas developer building directly on top of the Engine will very likely opt to use VS Code. But if you use the PlayCanvas Editor, you will normally rely on the built-in, browser-based Code Editor. Today, we're excited to give you another option by launching an open-source Visual Studio Code Extension for PlayCanvas.

Today, we are excited to announce the brand new PlayCanvas Developer Site and API Reference Manual!

Developer Site​

Let's start by taking a look at the new Developer Site, home of the PlayCanvas User Manual and Tutorials.

Introduction​

3D Gaussian Splatting is a new method for digitizing and rendering real world objects. With gaussian splatting, you can digitize a scene from a few photos using services like Luma Labs or Polycam. These services take the set of photos and generate a 3d Gaussian Splat scene in PLY format.

For example, this is a Gaussian Splat scene rendered in PlayCanvas.

Today we're excited to announce that PlayCanvas now supports WebP and AVIF images natively in the editor. Two new, efficient image formats built for the web.

This is not just an exciting update for us but a game-changer for anyone looking to optimize their projects for faster load times and better quality.

We're thrilled to announce the launch of the open source glTF Viewer 4.0, an update that supercharges your 3D model viewing experience with powerful features and support for the latest web technologies!

"Cyber Samurai" by KhoaMinh is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

TRY IT NOW

This new release is chock-full with enhancements aimed at providing more realistic, insightful, and versatile viewing options for your glTF files. Let's dive into the headline features of glTF Viewer 4.0.

Today, we're excited to announce the integration of Sketchfab into the PlayCanvas Editor!

"Spartan Armour" by McCarthy3D is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

With today's launch you'll have instant access to Sketchfab's enormous library of high quality 3D content right inside the Editor.

Welcome to the new PlayCanvas blog! 😎

We have made the decision to move from WordPress to Jekyll and although it's early days, so far, we are very pleased with the results. Therefore, we thought it might be useful to explain the reasons why we did this and describe the process we followed.

The PlayCanvas Asset Store is the first place that users tend to go to find content for their projects. This is especially true for new users who want to get started as quickly as possible. Up until now, the Store has not been particularly easy to use and the content has not changed in quite a long time. In short, a complete overhaul and refresh has been long overdue. So today, we are incredibly excited to announce a major upgrade for the PlayCanvas Asset Store!

First up, check out a little example of building a city scene using content taken from the Asset Store. A skybox, a pack of 3D city block meshes and a camera control script are imported and the city is built via drag and drop. And not one single line of code is needed!

Now, let's examine some of the key highlights that make the new Asset Store so special.

WebGPU is a cutting-edge technology that promises to revolutionize the way 3D graphics are handled on the web. As the successor to WebGL, WebGPU provides faster and more efficient rendering capabilities for complex 3D graphics and simulations.

PlayCanvas has been at the forefront of this new technology and has been working on adding WebGPU support to its platform.

With WebGPU, we can expect to see more immersive and interactive 3D experiences on the web in the future.

PlayCanvas WebGPU Clustered Area Lights Demo