Verge3D 4.0 pre1 available!

Installation, Applications and Demos

The most important visible change with Verge3D 4.0 is that we separated user applications and settings, as well as stock demos, from the software installation. When starting the App Manager for the first time, it will suggest selecting a working folder for your applications (on Windows, this is usually inside Documents). Here all your applications and the custom Puzzles library will now be stored.

You can also choose using “Light” or “Dark” theme in the same dialog. Both these preferences can be changed later in the App Manager settings.

Having a separate folder for applications will make updating for new Verge3D versions easier. Also, you can now use different Verge3D flavors (Blender, 3ds Max, or Maya) with the same applications folder, rather than having to maintain a separate folder for each package.

After installing Verge3D 4.0, you won’t see any stock demos listed in the App Manager (thus the distributions file size is only about 100 Mb now). The demos can now be freely downloaded upon request from the store section of the App Manager. We plan to add to this store various simple examples for more convenient learning how this or that feature works.

Finally, the software itself is installed in a system directory (usually Program Files on Windows). This normally requires admin privileges – if you happen not to have them, simply select a folder that you are permitted to use. All third-party Verge3D plugins must also be copied to this directory.

The personal settings for the App Manager are saved in another system folder (AppData/Roaming/Soft8Soft on Windows). This allows the system administrator to install Verge3D once for all users who can have their own settings each.

Please note that all the UI for the above-mentioned features is still under development and subject to change.

Texture compression

Here goes one of the most important features of this release. Texture compression enables images to use 4x-6x less video memory, decreases the overall size of files a Verge3D app needs to load, and speeds up rendering thanks to more efficient memory access. This feature is especially crucial to hardware-restricted Apple devices, since insufficient memory is the main reason for big scenes crushing on iOS.

Texture compression is performed when you export a scene, if you enable the corresponding option.

Blender:

3ds Max:

Maya:

IMPORTANT: You must also ensure that your app is actually capable to load compressed textures. If you create a new app with Verge3D 4.0, you should leave checked the option Texture Decompressor that provides a JavaScript library for this operation.

If you want to update an existing app created with Verge3D before version 4.0, you must manually copy the files basis_transcoder.js and basis_transcoder.wasm from verge3d/build to each folder of your apps.

Verge3D employs two compression algorithms which you can switch between:

• UASTC is a modern method which offers best quality. It is good for everything including normal maps, ORM textures, etc.
• ETC1S offers best compression and generates smallest files. However, it may cripple textures so you might use it only for non-contrast images (such as grass, wood, bricks, etc).

You can tweak efficiency-vs-quality by choosing the compression algorithm for each individual texture.

Blender:

3ds Max:

Maya:

However, you don’t really need to choose between them and can safely leave the default Auto option, that corresponds to simply using UASTC in the current implementation (this behavior may change in the future).

Besides genuine texture compression, all HDR images are now compressed with LZMA (i.e. same method used for glTF files). This makes the HDR files 4x-6x times smaller, although they still occupy the same amount of video memory. This feature is turned off when you set the texture compression setting to Disabled.

Three.js update

We have updated Three.js, the underlying WebGL library used by Verge3D, for the latest version r137.
Most important features for Verge3D users include:

• Unlimited morph targets (for browsers supporting WebGL 2.0). Before this update, only max 6 morph targets were available in Verge3D.
• Improved rendering quality thanks to advanced texture filtering provided by hardware-accelerated sRGB textures (part of WebGL 2.0 specification).
• Upgraded glTF loader that now supports more glTF extensions. This will be helpful if you are going to use files exported by glTF exporters other than Verge3D’s. The full list of supported extensions includes: KHR_draco_mesh_compression, KHR_lights_punctual, KHR_materials_clearcoat, KHR_materials_ior, KHR_materials_pbrSpecularGlossiness, KHR_materials_sheen, KHR_materials_specular, KHR_materials_transmission, KHR_materials_unlit, KHR_materials_volume, KHR_texture_basisu, KHR_texture_transform, KHR_mesh_quantization, EXT_texture_webp, EXT_meshopt_compression.

glTF format

We refactored the glTF format to make the files more conformant with the glTF specification. Particularly, the S8S extensions were overhauled. Also glTF-compatible materials no longer contain S8S extensions. We recommend reexporting all your scenes after updating for Verge3D 4.0.

Browser compatibility

We have removed legacy modules from the engine, namely Internet Explorer compatibility and legacy VR. Also the browsers must support WebAssembly as it is required for physics and some other features to work. This change will affect only 1-2% end users equipped with IE11 or mobile Safari before version 11 (iOS 11 was released in 2017). Still, if this does not look good to your audience, then you might prefer to stick to Verge3D 3.x until you feel that you can ignore these older browsers.

New puzzles

We added puzzles get procedure and call procedure that you can use to save a procedure to a variable and call it later in some other place. This allows you to implement callbacks and to structure your puzzles better.

The camera, which is by default is restricted in vertical direction, can now rotate in the full 360° mode. You can enable this behavior by using a new option called orbit allow turnover which we added to the puzzle set camera param. Thanks for suggesting this feature.

Blender-specific features

Verge3D now works with Blender 3.1 beta which is to be released in March.

We fixed the bug with animation of curves. Thanks for the report.

We fixed the export crash with armature reported here.

3ds Max-specific features

Verge3D is now compatible with 3ds Max 2023. The version 2019 is no longer officially supported but may still work.

Line render is now available for splines which can be used to implement various graphics effects, wireframes, physical ropes, etc. You can adjust the color and width for lines.

Controllers now properly work with Verge3D in localized variants of 3ds Max (e.g. German or Chinese).

The parameter Cutout (Opacity) is now supported for Physical Materials.

Animation of morph targets is now supported.

The Viewport Fit option (Vertical or Horizontal) is now available for cameras. You can use it to properly adjust your 3D UI elements to the user’s screen resolution. Thanks for suggesting this feature.

Maya-specific features

Line render is now available for splines which can be used to implement various graphics effects, wireframes, physical ropes, etc. You can adjust the color and width for lines.

Other improvements

We optimized loading of images by assigning them to textures asynchronously.

The LZMA unpacker now works faster and occupies less memory thanks to using WebAssembly.

Verge3D Network directory was simplified. It now displays one level less in the list of uploaded files (i.e. skips the “applications“ folder).

All so called “player-based” demos that were causing much confusion among users were converted to “normal” apps, that is, are supplied with a mandatory .html file to run them.

Fixed issues

We fixed the bug with the combination of puzzles not and in list check occurrence.

We fixed banding artifacts with dynamic ambient occlusion.

We fixed the bug with Puzzlers editor when new tabs had no access to all procedures used in a scenario. We also fixed some issues when a tab is deleted. Also tabs are now created faster.

We fixed the bug with Puzzles editor’s context menu option Jump to Procedure Puzzle that didn’t work properly.

We fixed the bug with disintegrating puzzles when a group of puzzles is being dragged (e.g. out of the library).

We fixed crashes occurred upon exiting an AR session.