WebGL Roadmap

@jonas echterhoff Given the recent Mozilla announcement, I know I already asked before but do you have any recent information on whether the webgl build will allow at some point to dynamically reallocate the memory heap total size.

I don't see many people talking about this limitation so I guess it is not a big problem for most of them but it is really a big deal in my case as I am working on an app where users create 3D content, starting from nothing (few memory allocated) to a lot depending on what they do and their content complexity (hundreds MB to a GB). In this case, I can't pre-allocate the theorical maximum of memory for the heap as many users have very simple content and low end computers. BTW, how could we know what is the maximum ? How is it defined, so that we could prevent any 'out of memory' exception.

It may be too early to answer this, but I would be grateful if you could share information later if there is any improvement in this area. Thanks!

 

@jonas echterhoff can you offer any updates on the progress of WebAssembly? Would you say this is 6 months away? A year? (I know that's hard, but I have to ask)

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/06/18/webgl-webassembly-and-feature-roadmap/#com

 

soon will out Unity 5.3 and what benefit will we have on webGL - ? I look a roadmap, but have nothing.. what do I expect: fast start loading; working standard shaders; used low memory; low build size; quick project building;...

 

Update for automatic compression; in other words we don't need to configure our web servers to serve compress data folder anymore? We can now build a compress build of our project, upload, and it just works?

 

@jonas echterhoff Out of interest, how easy will it be for pirates to download/reverse engineer WebGL games built with Unity, my understanding is they have access to all the Javascript source code now right?

And will the move eventually to WebAssembly help mitigate this?

 

standard shaders doesn't work on 5.3.0f4 : img
5.3(5.3.1) is worse than 5.2, out of memory in point when 5.2 worked

 

I wonder if there have been any prototypes with this, https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/01/webgl-off-the-main-thread/.

 

A few webGL rendering bugs in 5.3:
-all materials are reflective instead of matt - it's possible that reflection probes crap out the renderer 764325
-lightmaps don't show up with realtime on and look horrible in static only 764316
-point pixel sprites become mipmapped for no reason 764781

 

Switch Platform for WegGl Build disabled.

Has anyone an idea what I can do to enable the WebGl build? I work with Unity version 5.3.1 - 64-bit on a Windows10 PC.
It is not only with one project I encounter this issue, but any I try to build for WebGl. (I also can only build for Windows, but not for Linux or Mac.)

 

When was this bug introduced? I've been pulling my hair out working on this!

 

It's not a regression, webGL has never supported RT GI (QA dixit). Switch to static GI.

 

Oh, yeah, I read that wrong. I am not expecting realtime GI any time soon, ever possibly. The roadmap says they aren't even working on it.

I'm having trouble with my static lightmaps disappearing when I introduce a realtime light in directional. It works in directional specular. I swear I used to work, but i'm beginning to even question that.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ba...hen-real-time-directional-light-added.386374/

 

Yea, I got all of that except the part about the directional light. I'm getting the same results in the editor and standaI misunderstood the post by @laurentlavigne and didn't mean to hijack this thread. But your input on either of the two threads below would be very welcome. Thank you.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ba...hen-real-time-directional-light-added.386374/

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/5-4-0b6-baked-lightmaps-and-a-realtime-light.386550/

 

@topofsteel you have to distinguish between a "directional light" and "directional lightmapping". It sounds similar but is different.

A directional light is an infite lightsource with parralel light rays. a very bright far away light sourcelike the sun. This sort of light illuzminates the whole scene from the same angle in every place.

Directional lightmaps refers to a secondary texture set in the lightmaps. This secondary set is sort of like a normal map in the way that it defines a vector from which baked light hits the surface in this exact area. With directional lightmapping you can bake light into your scene but still retain the details from normalmaps (because the normalmap in that place can read the secondary texture which tells it from where the light hits in that place).

A directional lightsource does not need to have a directional lightmap to be baked into the scene. A dircetional lightmap helps to gain more detail but needs more ressources.

Please refer to the documentation for more in depth explanations

(edit) - also: have you made sure to select a shader that actually supports Lightmaps?
When not using the standard shader but Mobile shaders not everyone of them sctually supports lightmapping.

 

Quick question; is there any rough ETA on when we're likely to see Linear lighting supported in WebGL?

 

Thanks Marco - I guess a related question (I google'd already), any idea when WebGL2 is likely to hit commercial browsers?

 

Thanks! I have to say, Unity's WebGL implementation has matured a lot in the last 3-6 months - it's really gone from being totally unusable for us, to something that's reasonably stable (still not quite perfect, but it's getting there). Big kudos.

 

Looks like WebAssembly to shrink download sizes and speed start up is maturing very nicely. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/03/a-webassembly-milestone/

 

Hello All,

I am working on a multiplayer game for WebGL platform and i am using (http://lockstep.io/ - SocketIo & node.js server ) for handling the game.

I am facing these issues as shown in the attached image.

I have no idea about what these errors state?

I don't think that the issue is from my coding side as my multiplayer game runs perfectly in standalone builds with more than 4 instances of the standalone build.

But it does not even open in my WebGL build.


Does WebGL does not support threading??

Please guide.
What are these errors all about?
Can these issues be solved??
or
Do i have to change my whole project implementation?

Thank you!

 

Annoying question I know - but would it be possible to get this post updated now we're past 5.0/5.1? It'd be useful to know what is on the horizon over the next 3-6-9 months.

 

The current release version is Unity 5.3.4.

Please add Microphone support to the WebGL roadmap. Feel free to prioritize.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/webgl-and-microphone.308197/

The use case should be apparent if you've used Siri/Alexa recently. It's useful.

 

I'd like to know when WebGL is passing the 'preview' state and should build most code or at least report a good error if you try to do something unsupported. Right now I just see [mainly] unreadable errors trying to build some projects.

 

Is there much in 5.3.5 webGL wise that makes it worth upgrading from 5.3.4f1?

 

What about UNET, more specifically the MatchMaker and Relay Server? What are my alternatives for the time being if anyone knows?

Thanks

 

I think this subject has been many times on the table, but becauce post is over half year old I would like get updated answer. Is mobilebrowser support coming soon or not at all? I know it depends heavily on mobilebrowsers and their workflow and developement. But I would like to get your thoughts about what direction this is going? Are you using your stakes more on WebGL 2 than WebGL 1?

 

I suspect mobile performance for WebGL will continue to suck for the near future (i.e. until 2020+). Unless what you're doing is ridiculously simple; native is going to be far superior.

 

We're not targeting mobile but have seen noticeable improvements in mobile browser performance over the past few months without doing anything on our end. Things seem to be moving along fast.

 

When does WebAssembly be work in real? We want to make a cool games)

 

Since it requires browser vendors to progress on that area I would not expect anything or wide spread thing this year

 

I see release chrome build already have WebAssembly and WebGL 2 options under chrome://flags/ but of course they are disabled by default

 

Any updates on substances in WebGL? Will they be available at any time?

 

Substances are available in Fire Fox

 

yes but not procedural right?

 

That Substance was set as "Build on Load", so procedural in the Inspector. Not sure if the WebGL build bakes sbsar's by default however.

Here's another I just built with 15 x sbsar's at 1024x1024 res and "Build on Load". Takes 6 secs to load up in FireFox. It's only a simple scene of cubes though with a single directional light and a 1st person controller to run around. Scene size is 25mb instead of the 10mb from the 512x512 res version.

 

Apparently these are just baked at runtime

 

So its Allegorithmic who should make it?

 

You can already publish Substances to WebGL via Sketchfab, there is even a built-in exporter. Here are some examples: