Releases & Changelogs

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.6.3

Needle Engine

• Update Vite alias plugin to make sure the same postprocessing module is used
• Improve postprocessing stability
• Fix: Postprocessing with transparent background

Unity Integration

• Move Team selection to the top of the Needle Engine component
• Update UI wording in EULA window

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.7.0

Needle Engine

• Improved Postprocessing performance and stability - Live Example
• Fix: Issue where Tonemapping would not be applied
• Change: Improve <needle-engine background-image="<url>" /> support and deprecate the old skybox-image attribute

Unity Integration

• Add: ShaderGraph MaterialX export: To use select your Shader and choose MaterialX in the Shader Export Type Dropdown.
  Then install the MaterialX package by running npm i @needle-tools/materialx or add the MaterialX Npmdef asset that ships with Needle Engine to your Dependencies array in the Needle Engine component.
• Add: Compression settings per mesh and texture
• Update Needle Engine editor UI

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.7.1

Needle Engine

• Add: LODsManager parameter skinnedMeshAutoUpdateBoundsInterval
• Fix: Issue where model fetch with query parameters was constructing a wrong URL

Unity Integration

• MaterialX: Add nodes export for SwizzleNode and PositionNode (position and scale)
• Fix: Bug where setting labels on a Shader with Subassets would crash the editor in Unity 6.x

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.7.2

Needle Engine

• Add: loading-blur attribute to <needle-engine> web component. With this attribute the 3D scene will be blurred using CSS during loading of initial LOD level.
  This feature can be used to hide initial low-resolution textures and meshes while already getting an interactive preview visible in the browser (e.g. when displaying high quality product models where the 3D model download should be fast and not block the website but low-res assets should never be visible to the user)
  Currently loading-blur is disabled by default but can simply be enabled:
  • Enable default blur: <needle-engine loading-blur></needle-engine>
  • Or to control the blur amount a pixel value can be passed in <needle-engine loading-blur="30px">
• Add: You can now await LOD loading at any time by calling context.lodsManager.manager?.awaitLoading(). The method accepts an optional options argument and returns a promise that will resolve when all requested LOD level during the next frame have completed loading. Please review the jsdoc code documentation for details.
• Add: The physics.raycast options now accept an optional argument (allowSlowRaycastFallback) which controls wether or not the traditional three.js raycast method is allowed. If this parameter is set to false then only objects with a finished bvh mesh will be used for raycasting to ensure raycasts are always fast and never fallback to the slow route. This is especially important for relative frequent raycasts like mouse-movements or camera-target updates where it’s not crucial if objects are ignored for a few frames. Needle Engine does automatically calculate mesh BVHs for all meshes in the scene on a worker at the first time they’re discovered to ensure optimal performance.
• Add: OrbitControls methods for pan(<delta-x>, <delta-y>), zoomIn(<scale>) and rotateLeft<angleInRadians>. These methods can be used to control camera movement from code or via custom key-bindings.
• Update gltf-progressive which adds support awaiting LOD level + improved LOD level calculations where meshes have multiple primitives/submeshes.
• Fix: useKeys in OrbitControls - it requires tabindex on the <needle-engine> web component to receive keyboard events
• Fix: Clamp of tonemapping exposure in AgX
• Fix: Issue in Vite plugin with logging of very large objects

Unity Integration

• Update Needle Engine component inspector UI
• Update dependencies

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.7.3

Needle Engine

• Add: OrbitControls rotateUp(<radians>) function
• Add: OrbitControls support for setting targetElement (e.g. orbitControls.targetElement = myNewHtmlElement;)
• Fix: RemoteSkybox loading relative URIs like “folder/image.exr”, catch errors in loadAsync
• Update gltf-progressive dependency with improved performance when using skinned meshes and a concurrent LOD request limit (default: 100 concurrent requests)

Unity Integration

• Fix: MaterialX export NullReferenceException when opacity is unconnected

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.7.4

Needle Engine

• Update @needle-tools/gltf-progressive to version 3.1.1

Unity Integration

• Update UnityGLTF to version 2.17.6

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.0

Needle Engine

• Add: Gizmos.DrawWireBox now takes an optional rotation parameter
• Add: Physics boxOverlap function
• Fix: Vite plugin improvements
• Fix: Issue where re-applying Postprocessing effects with custom devicePixelRatio did falsely reset devicePixelRatio
• Update @needle-tools/gltf-progressive to version 3.2.0 with experimental javascript worker support. It can currently only be enabled by adding the URL query parameter ?gltf-progressive-worker

Unity Integration

• Add: MaterialX export of multiple MaterialX documents if needed
• Add: MaterialX placeholder material when importing and displaying .mtlx files
• Add: New Build window (File/Needle Engine/Build Window)
• Add: Support for exporting to a vanilla three.js web project without Needle Engine
• Remove: Custom Needle Engine Build Target, please use the new build window
• Remove: Custom Texture import settings on Texture Assets. Please use the Compression component for fine tuning settings
• Change: Warn if building without optimizations enabled
• Change: Move Disable Compression toggle to the Needle Engine Compression component
• Update: build pipeline dependency

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.1

Needle Engine

• Fix: SceneSwitcher dispose of background and environment texture causing lighting issues when useSceneLight is disabled in SceneSwitcher component
• Fix: Detection of model/gltf+json by file header

Unity Integration

• Allow GltfObject component multi-editing
• Update vscode workspace in Vite template

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.3

Needle Engine

• Change: Clamp devicePixelRatio to 2 by default. This can be overriden by setting the Needle Engine Context’s devicePixelRatio to e.g. window.devicePixelRatio
• Update @needle-tools/gltf-progressive dependency to expose overrideLodLevel. This can be used to override which LOD level will be loaded instead of calculating the LOD level based on screen coverage:
  For example context.lodsManager.manager!.overrideLodLevel = 0; will always load the highest quality mesh + texture

Unity Integration

• Improve NeedleCloudAsset component caching and instantiation when using the same asset multiple times in the scene.
• Improve MaterialX importer when importing a package with .mtlx files that reference textures in the same package
• Update build pipeline dependency with new default draco compression settings

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.4

Needle Engine

• Update @needle-tools/gltf-progressive dependency which adds a waitForFirstCapture bool option to awaitLoading(<opts>). With this you can call manager.awaitLoading({waitForFirstCapture:true}) to get a promise that does not resolve until the next requested LOD levels have finished to load.
  Here is an example deployed to Needle Cloud + here is a example on Stackblitz which makes use of this feature to add a custom loading overlay.
• Fix: When using Needle Engine in Gemini Editor the webrtc dependency caused issues due to Gemini making getUserMedia read-only.
  Example React Shopping App built by Gemini with Needle Engine (Code on Stackblitz)
• Fix: When using pre-bundled Needle Engine (e.g. from jsdelivr) the mesh-bvh worker path was not correctly resolved
• Change: <needle-engine> CSS z-index setting where the <needle-menu> element would be rendered above elements outside the <needle-engine> component. This would cause issues where e.g. a sidebar should overlay the page.
• Change: Reduce default z-index for Needle loading logo

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.5

Needle Engine

• Add: Much faster loading for skyboxes and environment maps when using presets. E.g. <needle-engine environment-image="studio"></needle-engine>. Supported values are studio, blurred-skybox, quicklook, quicklook-ar
• Change: TransformControls now also enable fastMode on the SyncedTransform component
• Change: The mobile javascript console now needs to be explictly enabled using the ?console flag. This change has been made to improve the local development experience. Previously the javascript console would be initialized in local development environments but stay invisible until e.g. an error would be detected. This did sometimes cause performance issues when very large objects would be logged in development

Unity Integration

• Update UnityGLTF dependency to 2.17.7
• Fix GLTF "failed setting material" import issue

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.6

Needle Engine

• Bump three dependency to fix issue caused by KTX2Exporter

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.7

Needle Engine

• Add: We now use the @needle-tools/three-animation-pointer package to make KHR_animation_pointer support available to all three.js engines
• Add: Improved FastHDR support.
  The internal loadPMREM(<url>) function is now exposed as well and can be used to load EXR, HDRI or KTX2 (FastHDR) textures. This function is already used internally when assigning the background-image or environment-image attribute on <needle-engine>.

Unity Integration

• Fix: MaterialX shader properties should not be renamed for animation. Updated UnityGLTF dependency to 2.17.9 to mark materials as custom shader export
• Fix: MaterialX shader export fixes (missing set outputname when injecting extra nodes, fixed wrong “separate” output type used in Input, fixed input type conversion)

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.8

Needle Engine

• Fix: iOS AR image tracking bug where having multiple WebXRImageTracking components in the scene cause unexpected behaviour or invalid USDZ files
• Fix: DropListener loadFromURL now returns the promise to make awaiting the loaded asset much easier
• Fix: Issue where <needle-engine autoplay> would play animations faster than expected
• Change: OrbitControls with locked target constraint is now updating the constraint position when calling e.g. setTargetPosition
• Add: setCameraFocusRect method on Needle Context for easier responsive layouting.
  With this you can e.g. overlay the webgl scene with HTML elements and pass in a div element for keeping important elements visible.
  Example 1 Website | Code on Stackblitz
  
  Example 2 Website | Code on Stackblitz
  

Unity Integration

• Improve Needle Component inspectors
• Change: Improve WebXRImageTracking gizmo rendering to make it easier to align content on images in the editor

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.8.9

Needle Engine

• Add: OrbitControls fitCamera has now additional options for fitDirection, cameraOffset, relativeCameraOffset, targetOffset and relativeTargetOffset giving more fine-grained control over the final camera view where necessary (Stackblitz).
• Add: ContactShadows properties to fitShadows and static ContactShadows.auto() for more fine-grained control over which objects to fit the shadow to or to apply slight offsets to the shadow plane
• Add: NestedGltf component loaded event property
• Fix: OrbitControls should not override the camera FOV
• Fix: Updating the scene.background when setting both background-color and background-image or switching between one or the other
• Fix: When setting <needle-engine environment-image="url"> the assigned image should be respected by the engine and loaded glTF files (even if they bring their own skybox and environment images)
• Fix: Issue with <needle-engine autoplay> animation speed and when using the AnimationUtils.autoplay feature where animations would play faster than expected
• Fix: Minor fixes in Vite plugins
• Change: ReflectionProbes are not applied on Objects that use lightmapping

Unity Integration

• Minor export improvements

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.9.0

Needle Engine

• NEW: Scrollytelling Example
  Project files will be added to the next samples package release
• NEW: Spline support with SplineContainer and SplineWalker components
  • SplineContainer: Holds the spline data. Use addKnot and removeKnot to modify the spline and getPointAt(t01:number) to get a point on the spline curve. Splines currently only support cubic interpolation.
  • SplineWalker: Component for moving objects along a spline. It can automatically move along the spline or be controlled by animations or other components by setting the position01 property.
• NEW: Attractor component – Add Rigidbodies to the list to attract physical objects towards a point in space (or apply repulsion).
• NEW: CursorFollow component – Does what it says! Add the component to an object to make it follow your cursor (or touch) on screen.
• NEW: ScrollFollow component – Use browser scroll to influence animation, audio, light… in your scene.
• Add: WebXRImageTracking methods for setPrimaryImage and addImage to simplify image tracking changes at runtime.
• Add: Object3D worldForward can now be set (e.g. myObject.worldForward = new Vector3(0,0,1))
• Fix: [XR] Issue where NeedleXRSession would invoke controller-added callback twice
• Fix: [XR] Issue where invalid value in XRControllerMovement would break rendering when using hand tracking
• Fix: [XR] NeedleXRController getButton for xr-standard-trigger and getStick(“primary”)
• Fix: Capsule collider height
• Fix: Issue where disposing object resources would cause errors in three.js

Unity Integration

• Add: Spline export support
• Fix: Automatically add compression settings when exporting a sample scene where the settings are not present

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.9.1

Needle Engine

• Update ScrollFollow component documentation
• Update Renderer sharedMaterial typescript type

Unity Integration

• Add: Scrollytelling web project template
• Add: Rigidbody drag & angularVelocity export support for Unity 6000.2
• Update: Font export tool dependency
• Update: Component documentation links

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.9.3

Needle Engine

• Fix: SpriteRenderer index issue when animated where animation precision issue was causing the wrong sprite to be selected (issue)
• Fix: Scaling scene in AR with multitouch causing camera projection issue for a frame (issue)

Unity Integration

• Update UnityGLTF dependency to 2.17.10, fixing an issue where the selected UV index was not exported (issue)

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.10.0 beta

Needle Engine

• NEW: HoverAnimation component. Use this component to get a scale hover animation of an object when the cursor is hovering over the object or one of it’s children.
• Add: fitCamera function
• Add: <needle-engine poster> attribute. It works with an URL to an image that should be shown as a poster image. If no URL is assigned then the poster that is automatically generated during the first frame will be used
• Fix: Renderer material accessing error when component was not yet initialized
• Fix: Poster screenshot glitch during the first frame (development only)
• Change: Loading display does not show Needle logo anymore by default
• Change: Use fallback raycast method for lowpoly meshes while BVH is being generated

Unity Integration

• Add: ScrollMarker that can be used to control scroll-based animations
• Add: Support for exporting custom timeline marker
• Fix: Camera inspector error when no skybox was assigned in the scene
• Fix: Minor Unity inspector improvements
• Update: Needle Optimization Pipeline to use new (mesh) attribute aware simplification for even better LOD meshes

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples

[needle-bot]

Needle Engine 4.10.0

Needle Engine

• NEW: Scrollytelling Bike Example – This example uses ViewBox, FocusRect and ScrollFollow to create a scrollytelling experience. All project files are available on Github.
• NEW: HoverAnimation component. Use this component to get a scale hover animation of an object when the cursor is hovering over the object or one of it’s children.
• NEW: ViewBox component. Use this component to automatically perfectly fit your 3D scene into the camera view. Try the Scrollytelling Example to see it in action, test the example on Stackblitz or see the ViewBox documentation for details.
• Add: fitCamera function
• Add: <needle-engine poster> attribute. It works with an URL to an image that should be shown as a poster image. If no URL is assigned then the poster that is automatically generated during the first frame will be used.
• Add: <needle-engine focus-rect="<html_selector"> attribute. Assign a HTML selector to the attribute to use a specific HTML element on screen offset the 3D camera center to the center of the HTML element. (The same can be done programmatically using ctx.setCameraFocusRect(<html_element|DOMRect>))
• Add: Timeline ScrollMarker for Unity and Blender timeline animations to control timing based on HTML visibility.
• Fix: Renderer material accessing error when component was not yet initialized
• Fix: Poster screenshot glitch during the first frame (development only)
• Fix: HTC Vive Focus 3 controller movement (forum post)
• Change: Loading display does not show Needle logo anymore by default
• Change: Use fallback raycast method for lowpoly meshes while the faster mesh BVH is being generated

Unity Integration

• Add: ScrollMarker that can be used to control scroll-based animations. Add ScrollMarker to the Marker Track in the Unity Timeline and annotate HTML elements with data-timeline-marker in your HTML to mark when the timeline position should be reached.
• Add: Support for exporting custom timeline marker
• Fix: Camera inspector error when no skybox was assigned in the scene
• Fix: Minor Unity inspector improvements
• Update: Needle Optimization Pipeline to use new and improved (mesh) attribute aware simplification for improved LOD mesh generation

Download Unity Plugin Install from NPM
Changelog on Github Needle Engine API
Get started Samples