We are very excited to release our showcase demo for Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios (MRCS) volumetric video technology.
PlayCanvas now supports MRCS volumetric video with a playback library for captured footage at their studios. Watch it on desktop, mobile with AR or even in a WebXR-enabled VR headset, all from a single URL!
The library can be easily added to any PlayCanvas project and used to create fantastic immersive mixed reality experiences.
About Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios
MRCS records holographic video – dynamic holograms of people and performances. Your audiences can interact with your holograms in augmented reality, virtual reality and on 2D screens.
They are experts at capturing holographic video, advancing capture technology and have been pioneering its applications since 2010.
As we begin 2023, let’s take a moment to look back at last year’s highlights for PlayCanvas, the powerful WebGL engine and platform for creating interactive web content.
From new features and improvements to exciting projects and partnerships, PlayCanvas has had a busy and successful year. In this review, we will cover some of the key developments and achievements of the platform, and how they have helped to advance the capabilities and potential of WebGL-based content creation.
The fantastic work done by you!
One of the most exciting aspects of PlayCanvas is seeing the amazing projects and work created by you!
From games and interactive experiences to architectural visualizations and simulations, the PlayCanvas community is constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible with WebGL.
To celebrate this work, we’ve created a showcase video with the standout projects and work from 2022.
We are looking to do more of these in 2023 so don’t be shy! Share with us and the rest of the community on Twitter, forums and Discord.
We also wanted to take a deeper dive into the creative process and workflows behind these projects.
To do this, we reached out to a selection of developers who have used PlayCanvas to create fantastic content across e-commerce, WebAR, games and the metaverse.
In these Developer Spotlights, developers share their experience with PlayCanvas, the challenges and solutions they encountered during development, and the unique insights and approaches they brought to their projects.
These interviews provide valuable insights and inspiration for other PlayCanvas users and anyone interested in WebGL-based content creation.
This year, we’ve been laser-focused on adding WebGPU support and glTF 2.0 spec compliance to the PlayCanvas graphics engine, and we’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made.
With Google Chrome set to enable WebGPU by default in 2023, we’re excited to be at the forefront of the future of interactive 3D content on the web, and we can’t wait to see what WebGPU will allow developers to create.
WebGPU GrabpassWebGPU Clustered Lighting
In addition to WebGPU support, we’ve also added support for all ratified glTF 2.0 extensions to the PlayCanvas engine, complete with Editor support for iridescence and dynamic refraction. These features allow developers to create even more realistic and visually stunning 3D content.
But we didn’t stop there! We also released Editor support for Clustered Lighting and Area Lights, which allow developers to easily incorporate hundreds of dynamic lights into their projects. And as it turns out, our users have already been using these new features to add extra flair and fidelity to their projects.
The most notable new feature is AR support with WebXR (Android) and USDZ export (iOS). This allows users to view glTF models in AR directly from the browser.
We’ve also made the UI more streamlined and mobile-friendly, grouping related functionality together for easier use. Rendering has been improved with the ‘High Quality Rendering’ option, which enables supersampling to smooth out jagged edges along polygons and high resolution reflections for more realistic rendering.
Tools Updates
We’ve been continuously improving the Editor, making it even more powerful and user-friendly for our developers.
Creating Texture Tool to inspect textures and convert HDRIs to/from cubemaps (also open source!).
Adding GitHub sign-in.
The project dashboard has gotten a huge refresh and can be accessed in-Editor. It includes searching and sorting of the project list as well as being able to manage teams and settings without leaving the Editor!
Version Control also got some major features this year, including the addition of the Item History and Graph View, which make it easier to track changes to your projects. And looking ahead to this year, we’re planning to make some of our REST API public, so developers can automate flows for CI and tools.
Thank You
As we wrap up our 2022 review of PlayCanvas, we want to take a moment to thank all of our users for their continued support and for the amazing projects and work they have created with PlayCanvas.
Your creativity and innovation inspire us to continue improving and expanding the capabilities of our WebGL engine and platform.
We can’t wait to see what the new year brings and the incredible projects and work that our users will create with PlayCanvas. Whether you are new to PlayCanvas or a seasoned pro, we hope that you will continue to be a part of our community and push the boundaries of what is possible with WebGL-based content creation.
Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing what you will accomplish in the new year!
Welcome to Developer Spotlight, a new series of blog articles where we talk to developers about how they use PlayCanvas and showcase the fantastic work they are doing on the web.
Today we are excited to be joined by Leonidas Maliokas, a freelance web and games developer for Solar Games.
He will show us how Solar Games ported a metaverse experience from Unreal to PlayCanvas in the video presentation below. Specific areas covered are:
Converting scenes and assets from Unreal to PlayCanvas
Hi Leonidas, welcome to Developer Spotlight! Tell us about yourself and your studio!
Hey, I’m Leonidas from Solar Games (formerly known as Pirron 1)! I’ve been working with interactive 3D websites since 2012. I used to work as a civil engineer before turning my hobby and passion for gamedev into a full time job using PlayCanvas.
Together with doing PlayCanvas contracts of all sorts, like product configurators, games and promotional sites, I’ve been researching how to extend the PlayCanvas engine and editor. Adding open world terrains, special effects and easy to use networked controllers to match features normally found in native only game engines, led to founding Solar Games.
We offer Uranus Tools for PlayCanvas, a collection of plug and play scripts to supercharge your PlayCanvas creation pipeline. You can find out more about our company’s services at https://solargames.io.
We are also working on Aritelia, a procedurally generated open world social MMO in PlayCanvas. This is still in development but you can already give it a try with the pre-alpha tech demonstration that was released last year.
Why did you choose PlayCanvas?
It was actually an easy choice for us: by reviewing the mainstream WebGL libraries and platforms, PlayCanvas did stand out for:
Offering an integrated editor and publishing solution. Even after all these years, the ability to easily share projects and builds and collaborate with your colleagues in real-time is something unique to PlayCanvas.
The PlayCanvas team is very productive and professional in the way it moves the platform forward.
The open source PlayCanvas engine provides a very effective and easy to use API.
What were the initial challenges and how did the team overcome them?
The main challenge was the lack of certain features and tools. For example things that you’d take for granted in a native game engine like a terrain system, post effects, automatic instancing and level of detail were missing.
The good news was that even before the PlayCanvas Editor API was officially released, it has always been possible to extend the PlayCanvas Editor. We were able to write our own editor extensions and quickly make them productive in our development pipeline.
Other developers and companies became interested in our extensions and we started offering them in our company’s asset store.
How is building an HTML5 game/experience different from a native game/experience?
Several concepts like rendering, resource loading, game logic and state management are quite similar. But there are some unique concepts when it comes to web-based experiences that can be challenging.
In particular, download times, different display sizes and pixel ratios, a broad spectrum of device specs, and also platform and browser compatibility.
Taking into account these factors is mandatory when building a high-quality HTML5 experience.
What are the team’s favorite features of PlayCanvas?
Our favorite feature is the editor, by far. The fact that it is collaborative in real time makes PlayCanvas the best tool for teams to work together. Also, the fact that PlayCanvas has version control integrated is pretty cool! Something else I would add is that PlayCanvas provides a very clean API to work with. Seiously, not only HTML5 devs but also native game devs should give PlayCanvas a try. It’s a great tool to quickly be productive!
Other than that:
Asset pipelines like enabling texture compression.
The engine API and the constant addition of new features by the PlayCanvas team.
The community – many greetings to everybody!
What is on the feature wishlist for PlayCanvas this year?
Having the PlayCanvas WebGPU renderer available to play with.
Full support of the new node based shader editor.
Asset variants for specific platforms e.g. serve smaller textures on mobile.
How do you see HTML5 games/experiences evolve over the next few years?
It’s definitely an exciting time for developers and companies working with HTML5 content. Both the technology has moved forward with standards and frameworks being more robust and powerful than ever, and the devices capable of running HTML5 experiences are very capable.
The metaverse is already leveraging HTML5 to deploy worlds and experiences across traditional web2 and newer web3 websites.
Pixel streaming is the only valid contender when it comes to what HTML5 can offer. I would definitely welcome a feature where pixel streaming is a viable option since it’s a great concept. But right now I don’t see this happening soon.
There are so many opportunities around HTML5 and I see a very positive future for everyone involved.
Thank you very much for your time and we look forward to your presentation!
Thank you for this opportunity to showcase our work!
