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Love the author’s point that web-based is an untapped blue ocean opportunity. My team is building a sort of “Roblox in WASM/WebGPU” that’s built in UE4 and com

Love the author’s point that web-based is an untapped blue ocean opportunity. My team is building a sort of “Roblox in WASM/WebGPU” that’s built in UE4 and compiled to the browser, that will allow anyone to easily create virtual words and experiences for HTML5 without needing to know how to code. We’re even working toward live building using editor client side on the web, with hot reloading and a simple “publish” button so you can see in real time as you push changes. Furthermore, the metaverse will be born from the web, because it “just works”, not to mention accessibility is increased when anyone can join with a simple link. And for developers? No 30% tax from monopolistic walled gardens, plus only one codebase to worry about. If anyone is interested in early access to our platform, you can join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8 https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8

maverwa 5y ago
Are you targeting mobile with that? If yes, how does iOS Safari do with WASM and WebGL (since webGPU isnt really supported anywhere in factory settings afaik).
- Jensson 5y ago
  Didn't they just add support for webgl 2.0? That is the important one.
  - soylentgraham 5y ago
    It was there behind a OS setting, but most features were available by extension anyway. Still no float rendertargets, which is more of a pain than anything else
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  From our experience (we're running on WebGL) iOS Safari is very performant and on modern iPhones very, very performant. No support for fullscreen and a bunch of other things makes me sad though.
  - cma 5y ago
    The fullscreen thing is gross, it is them batantly saying pay us 30% of gross revenue to enable.
herbst 5y ago
Any other way to track this than discord? Sounds interesting. Why do you mention 'no code'? To little coding opportunity is one things that made many metaverses after second Life boring.
pjmlp 5y ago
So far I haven't seen a use for WebGL other than shadertoy like experiences and product visualisation on online commerce. Mostly because it is like doing PS2/Amiga games, and dealing with browser blacklisting is even worse than just driver issues on native code. At least with driver issues one can work around them, with browser blacklisting there is no idea what is happening, while the user gets a single digit FPS. Additionally WebGPU is now getting some kind of MSL/HLSL/Rust inspired shader language, yet another one to master, with plenty features only after 1.0 MVP.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  I was one of WebGL's early users. I was working with a team doing renderings of 3d models from World of Warcraft online for a WoW fansite database. We could only do it in Flash before webgl became a thing.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    We have lost 10 years catching up to Flash. 2 generations of game developers were able to get a degree during that time. No wonder everyone is now yet again going for streaming with server side rendering using the 2021 hardware capabilities via Vulkan and DirectX 12 Ultimate.
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      I mean, even at the time flash wasn't a good experience. It was proprietary, nonstandard, buggy, riddled with security holes, didn't work well on Linux at all, required installing a plugin that more often than not came bundled with malware, and I'm forgetting a lot. I see flash as the MVP of the modern web. It showed us a glimpse of the possibilities if we were to make the tooling available. And it worked: the modern web has more than caught up with Flash and there are absolutely incredible things being done with modern tech. Google Maps on the web is one of those, by the way. If you look closely and consider everything they are doing with these "catch-up" specs... Well, i for one am glad they're not doing it in Flash :)
mentos 5y ago
UE4 dropped support for HTML5 a few builds back are you guys using an old build or did you work to add compiling for HTML5 to the latest?
- astlouis44 5y ago
  We built a new and improved pipeline for UE targeting the web.
soylentgraham 5y ago
Genuine query; why aren't you just building it directly for the web, instead of inside UE?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  What other engines are available for building 3D games for the web? Building games is hard enough already; thinking you can build the whole toolchain on top of that is hubris.
  - Tossrock 5y ago
    Unity can target web as a platform. AFrame is a web-native engine built on top of three.js

maverwa 5y ago

Are you targeting mobile with that? If yes, how does iOS Safari do with WASM and WebGL (since webGPU isnt really supported anywhere in factory settings afaik).

Jensson 5y ago
Didn't they just add support for webgl 2.0? That is the important one.
- soylentgraham 5y ago
  It was there behind a OS setting, but most features were available by extension anyway. Still no float rendertargets, which is more of a pain than anything else
meheleventyone 5y ago
From our experience (we're running on WebGL) iOS Safari is very performant and on modern iPhones very, very performant. No support for fullscreen and a bunch of other things makes me sad though.
- cma 5y ago
  The fullscreen thing is gross, it is them batantly saying pay us 30% of gross revenue to enable.

herbst 5y ago

Any other way to track this than discord? Sounds interesting. Why do you mention 'no code'? To little coding opportunity is one things that made many metaverses after second Life boring.

pjmlp 5y ago

So far I haven't seen a use for WebGL other than shadertoy like experiences and product visualisation on online commerce. Mostly because it is like doing PS2/Amiga games, and dealing with browser blacklisting is even worse than just driver issues on native code. At least with driver issues one can work around them, with browser blacklisting there is no idea what is happening, while the user gets a single digit FPS. Additionally WebGPU is now getting some kind of MSL/HLSL/Rust inspired shader language, yet another one to master, with plenty features only after 1.0 MVP.

scrollaway 5y ago
I was one of WebGL's early users. I was working with a team doing renderings of 3d models from World of Warcraft online for a WoW fansite database. We could only do it in Flash before webgl became a thing.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  We have lost 10 years catching up to Flash. 2 generations of game developers were able to get a degree during that time. No wonder everyone is now yet again going for streaming with server side rendering using the 2021 hardware capabilities via Vulkan and DirectX 12 Ultimate.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    I mean, even at the time flash wasn't a good experience. It was proprietary, nonstandard, buggy, riddled with security holes, didn't work well on Linux at all, required installing a plugin that more often than not came bundled with malware, and I'm forgetting a lot. I see flash as the MVP of the modern web. It showed us a glimpse of the possibilities if we were to make the tooling available. And it worked: the modern web has more than caught up with Flash and there are absolutely incredible things being done with modern tech. Google Maps on the web is one of those, by the way. If you look closely and consider everything they are doing with these "catch-up" specs... Well, i for one am glad they're not doing it in Flash :)

mentos 5y ago

UE4 dropped support for HTML5 a few builds back are you guys using an old build or did you work to add compiling for HTML5 to the latest?

astlouis44 5y ago
We built a new and improved pipeline for UE targeting the web.

soylentgraham 5y ago

Genuine query; why aren't you just building it directly for the web, instead of inside UE?

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
What other engines are available for building 3D games for the web? Building games is hard enough already; thinking you can build the whole toolchain on top of that is hubris.
- Tossrock 5y ago
  Unity can target web as a platform. AFrame is a web-native engine built on top of three.js