Re:Physically Based Rendering Comes to WebGL
by bhouston on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @01:31PM
(#8730790)
It isn't yet officially released so I am not yet showing off the demos. But you can try it yourself, just create a new scene and add a Physical material to an object. From a technical perspective, it is an implementation of GGX, Schlick, Anisotropy/Anisotropy Rotation, Translucent SSS, and Clear Coat.
Re:Physically Based Rendering Comes to WebGL
by bhouston on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @01:23PM
(#8730729)
PlayCanvas is very nice! And nice people as well.
It is hard to compete with Unity with the same efficiency on all the non-web platforms platforms supported by Unity when it has to run in a browser/JavaScript. But for web-based games PlayCanvas beats out Unity clearly.
Re:Physically Based Rendering Comes to WebGL
by daredevildave on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @05:01PM
(#8731996)
The Unity WebGL export is great news. It is pushing forward the platform.
However, the reality is that they are desktop only, at least for the foreseeable future. The Emscripten Webplayer generates a significant blob of Javascript which doesn't work well on mobile.
Raw Javascript engine's like PlayCanvas are ~500Kb compared to ~10MB for Unity in Javascript.
Re:Physically Based Rendering Comes to WebGL
by bhouston on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @04:15PM
(#8731745)
To a degree, but Unity 5 isn't at all like a JavaSCript app. It's WebGL approach is basically to convert C++ and C# -> JavaScript via emScripten. It is a messy approach and it doesn't really take advantage of what the web offers -- because you still create your game in C#.
I think anyone that wants to target the web primary should use something that isn't based on a large emScripten blob as their engine. This will become more and more of a liability as time goes on.
But this does give Unity 5 a checkbox besides WebGL.
Re:Physically Based Rendering Comes to WebGL
by duaneb on Wednesday December 10, 2014 @03:39PM
(#8731539)
Maybe, but performance is still pretty terrible for a number of reasons (GC/optimized features vary greatly across browsers) compared to one run by a more static VM. As a raw GPU driver, it works pretty well, though.
PS. https://Clara.io also has support for physically-based rendering in WebGL, just use the "Physical" material. :)
It is hard to compete with Unity with the same efficiency on all the non-web platforms platforms supported by Unity when it has to run in a browser/JavaScript. But for web-based games PlayCanvas beats out Unity clearly.
For the moment at least, if you discount the Unity plugin approach.
Unity 5, the coming version, features a (plugin-less) WebGL-export (and I believe the Unity 5 beta already supports it):
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/18/mozilla-and-unity-b...
However, the reality is that they are desktop only, at least for the foreseeable future. The Emscripten Webplayer generates a significant blob of Javascript which doesn't work well on mobile.
Raw Javascript engine's like PlayCanvas are ~500Kb compared to ~10MB for Unity in Javascript.
I think anyone that wants to target the web primary should use something that isn't based on a large emScripten blob as their engine. This will become more and more of a liability as time goes on.
But this does give Unity 5 a checkbox besides WebGL.
http://www.pbrt.org/
BTW one of the best references is this: http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course...
So I opened it in chrome and it hangs my iMac. I do graphics programming and use 3D a lot, and it is the first time my machine hangs.
Also, by physically-based rendering I assume they mean physically-plausible shaders.