Verge3D 3.8 pre5 available!

Blender-specific

You can now use Eevee’s dynamic ambient occlusion which in turn is based on the Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion (GTAO) technique.

It turns out to be much faster and more realistic than the effect previously provided by the SSAO puzzle.

We supported normal mapping for reflection plane light probes. Also reflection planes now work much faster, especially on mobile devices.

The Load Unload demo was further updated to show this feature.

3ds Max-specific

You can now use planar light probes, which are enabled by adding V3DReflectionPlane objects. The object can be found in the Create panel -> Helpers category -> Verge3D subcategory.

As a result, you can now implement real-time mirrors or floor reflections! The reflections respect normal mapping as well. See how it works in the updated Load Unload demo.

We added a new setting named Fix Ortho Zoom. You can use it to make your orthographic camera properly work with objects parented to it, so that they don’t move when the user zooms the camera.

Maya-specific

You can now conveniently use the only asset to export both to Verge3D/glTF and USDZ formats. This feature is provided by the usdPreviewSurface material, which – when exported to Verge3D – becomes a glTF-compatible PBR material.

So you can make both WebXR-based and Apple’s USDZ-based augmented reality apps from the same scene! Please not that this node is only available in Maya 2022.

You can now use planar light probes, which are enabled by adding Reflection Plane objects. As a result, you can now implement real-time mirrors or floor reflections!

We added a new setting named Fix Ortho Zoom. You can use it to make your orthographic camera properly work with objects parented to it, so that they don’t move when the user zooms the camera.

We supported Mirror and Wrap modes for the Ramp node.

We fixed an export issue with Nurbs surfaces.

Puzzles

New puzzle, is scene loaded, is available. You can use it to check if a particular scene has been already loaded in dynamic loading scenarios. For real usage example, please refer to the Load Unload demo.

The puzzles save state and undo state can now remove and create objects. Before, they could only change the objects’ state.

The puzzle get camera direction now works with ortho cameras.

The load option has been added to the HTML event puzzle. Thanks for the suggestion!

Other improvements

Information about light probes used in the scene is now shown by the performance profile puzzle (or through P-P-P hot keys).

We fixed the issue with missing background when exiting the AR mode. Thanks for reporting this!

We ensured Verge3D compatibility with upcoming Windows 11, as well as with the ARM version of Windows 10. We also ensured that WebGL 2.0 system works on upcoming iOS 15.

We documented instructions on server side rendering. There were other various updates in the User Manual as well.

We added extensive end-to-end and unit tests for the engine code. It should improve the stability of Verge3D in the long run.