Large scenes in Verge3d?

There are limitations to webGL, the device memory and browser memory…all of these things combine to determine your scene complexity. This is compounded if you plan on this being a web deployment vs an an app (electron or other).

As you already know, WebGL and specifically Verge3D, have limited memory capabilities and have very limited triangle, redraw and map size requirements along with many other factors that affect performance. Unfortunately, WebGL has many more limitations than a game created with Unity for local playback or on a console and you will never get that level of performance…but you could probably fake it.

The scrolling game is a low bit simple poly background that you could easily do in Verge3D using a simple repeatable texture and a simple instanced/cloned polys to make up the background. The city scape…well…as long as its stays in the distance…you could also just texture that to a plane and use it as a scrolling background.

Verge3d is a tool and a great tool when used to do the things its best at. Its not a game engine although it has some of the traits of a game engine. Its best at being an interactive web based deployment engine that allows you to deploy to multiple simultaneous platforms. Its brilliance is in its simplicity not its complexity. You as a interactive artist/developer has to choose the right tool for the right job knowing that you will need to have a wide set of tools in your tool bag. Verge3d is one of those tools. But like a hammer, it can’t be the only tool you have at your disposal or you will be wishing your hammer was a screwdriver, instead of having a screwdriver to use in your tool bag.

Alternatively…you have two options. Find a different tool or wait and hope the one you are using catches up to your needs. I think you will be happier adding another tool to the tool box.

LOD – I have been hoping for a good implementation for this for years.

With that said, I would suggest reframing the question to help you achieve your desired effect. Given what Verge3D can do and its limitations how do I make this background effect work in my project. Hopefully you are at the start of a new project.

When taking on a project, you have to account for the background, maps, objects everything all at once to determine how your scene will work. Often it starts with someone blocking out scenes with objects and determining the poly counts, maps needed, etc. and determining a technological approach that will work with the desired design/creative. Unfortunately, many people start their project then decide they want to add something significant and realize they are already out of memory and things have bogged down and the new addition would make things worse. In those cases….its either lack of experience, oversight or the customer changed their mind and in some cases we are the customer and it happens. The answer is regardless….you have to go back and block it all out…determine you max polys, max textures, shader network efficiency and performance you are willing to live with and then with that information build your app.

With that all said… can it be done…yes, but you will need a lot of tools in the tool bag to make it work in V3D.