PlayCanvas implemented the fantastic hardware texture compression workflow in 2016 which allowed users to build bigger and better WebGL apps, even on low memory devices like mobile phones.

JPGs and PNGs are great formats for transmission over a network because they tend to compress nicely. But once the images are downloaded and handed over to WebGL, they must decompressed to raw RGB(A) data. Using hardware compressed textures is important as decompression is performed in silicon on the GPU which avoids the need to utilize lots of memory.

Back in October, we launched PCUI, an easy to use framework for building web-based tools. It already powers the PlayCanvas Editor and glTF Viewer applications.

Today, we're excited to announce our next major release for the library: PCUI 1.1.0. Check out the release notes for the details. But let's take a look at some of the highlights.

We have levelled up the Script Attributes that makes it much easier to organize and group related attributes together.

PlayCanvas has a pretty cool (but not widely known about) feature that allows you to copy and paste entities and entity hierarchy between two instances of the Editor. This can save a lot of time, particularly when setting up new projects.

Many of you have requested the ability to do the same with assets. Well, we listened - and now you can! 🚀

The PlayCanvas team is super excited to announce the Editor support of glTF GLB conversion with model and animation imports.

This gives developers an order of magnitude reduction in load times compared to the JSON format while keeping similar gzipped download size.

Today, PlayCanvas is launching PCUI: a new, open source front-end framework for the web.

It’s finally here! The PlayCanvas team is very excited to announce the public release of our new Templates feature! 🎉

Today, the PlayCanvas team is excited to announce the release of a brand new browser-based glTF viewer application.

Creativity makes our world a better place. PlayCanvas unlocks creativity through collaborative, frictionless tools that enable everybody to build, share and play together.

With PlayCanvas, getting started with game development is as simple as clicking on a hyperlink. No installation, available wherever you have access to a browser and easily shareable for a real-time collaborative workspace.

Super Snappy Bowling from NOWWA

Since 2011, the PlayCanvas engine sourcebase has adhered strictly to the ES5 JavaScript specification. Since then, the JavaScript language and the surrounding tools ecosystem has moved on considerably. But PlayCanvas has steadfastly stuck to ES5. Why? Internet Explorer 11.

IE11 was released on October 17, 2013. But even today, StatCounter reports that IE11 has 2.43% of the global desktop browser market. Since PlayCanvas content is viewed by 100s of millions of end users, this is a pretty big deal.