Happy New Year to you all!
In 2021, we marked the 10th anniversary of PlayCanvas. In that time, we have seen WebGL become the world's standard for web graphics, implemented into every major web browser. And we have done our part to help make WebGL content creation both easy and fun!
2021 was definitely our most productive year yet. The platform has continued to evolve, delivering a host of new features and performance improvements.
We are nearing completion on transitioning our Code Editor from CodeMirror to Monaco, the powerhouse behind the immensely popular Visual Studio Code.
Look familiar? 馃憖
Over the past few months, we have been developing an Editor API that allows users to automate tedious tasks and enhance the base functionality.
We are excited to announce the beta release of the API today and are eager to see how the PlayCanvas community will leverage it to enhance their workflows!
Today, we are releasing the latest anim component feature: the masking and blending of anim layers.
This is a versatile feature that has been hotly requested by PlayCanvas developers that wish to get even more creative with their animations. We鈥檙e excited to be able to share how it works in this blog.
Up to now, our process for releasing new features and fixes to the PlayCanvas Engine and Editor has been rather simple.
As features and fixes are ready, we would plan a release and test against a comprehensive list of PlayCanvas projects and the Engine examples. Once testing is passed, it would be released to everyone that is using the playcanvas.com service and Editor.
This has served us well for many years and meant that users always had the latest features of the Engine.
However, as the features of the Engine are get bigger and more complex and users' projects grow in scale and size, this release process needs to change to match our users' needs for stability and transparency with releases.
The PlayCanvas team are very excited to fully release the Import Hierarchy pipeline feature in the PlayCanvas Editor!
We have been made aware of a critical issue regarding WebGL content and the release of macOS Safari 15 earlier this week where previously published content could fail to load.
We are very excited to release our very first showcase reel, showing some of the very best WebGL browser games and experiences made with PlayCanvas to date!
Today, we are excited to announce a new open source library: PCUI Graph. It鈥檚 a graph rendering framework for the browser which can be used to build and view various types of node-based graphs.
PCUI Graph in action
PlayCanvas has a rich JavaScript API that allows you to build just about any type of interactive content imaginable - games, playable ads, product configurators, AR, VR and more! But learning a new API can be tough. Reading API reference documentation is all well and good, but many people prefer to learn by experimentation. And by examining the code of real world examples. This led the PlayCanvas team to build a new application: the Engine Examples Browser.
