Hello, I was wondering if it is safe to develop in Unreal a full website based in html5 (including common features like users and community management, online purchases, forums) or there are known issues, bugs, incompatibilities, etc…
Is it safe to do a full html5 website with Unreal? Does it work?
I know there is plenty of frameworks around, but, I would do it also as an UE learning experience.
Thank you!
Hello @JRamon,
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘safe’. The only way to know what will work and what wont, is to go for it!..and that’s exactly what I’m doing and I would encourage you to do the same. I think the challenges will be Fullscreen Rendering, and general Performance.
I plan to develop a full website with UE4 following the dev of WoOSaH a Wordpress-powered Online Subsystem. WoOSaH will facilitate online services via HTTPs communication between our UE4 Multi-user 3D Object HyperBasher Server/Client and Player Creation Community Marketplace. I think this approach is a very good way to work out how you’ll handle UE4 HTTP communications.
My Focus is on 3D Audio/Visuals. Any 2D would be implemented similar to UI elements in Games. Thus, I would not even use the traditional Web Suite {HTML,CSS,Javascript etc}. I’m going to use my own version of VRML as a Client-side markup Language using UE4 Concepts of Actors in JSON format. The VRML Format is very similar JSON and its closer to what I’m already doing to store and transfer Hyperbsher game data in JSON format.
I’ve already have the framework for a Markup Parser based on JSMN Parser ready to go, just a matter of adding a few more expression functions to have a decent Interpreter. I can still use of Server-side Parsers such as PHP to generate dynamic markup if needed.
Hi TechLord, safe in a sense of Unreal being really viable for website creation and compatibility with browsers without making it an adventure for your users to load your website.
Thank you for your time to answer!
If you are building a complete website in Unreal, then by that very definition it won’t be HTML, but rather simply pixels rendered to a canvas.
If you are doing this for production purposes I have to strongly recommend against this. You need to use the right tools for the job, and if you need to build a website, those tools are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Sure, you will be able to get something going on Unreal, but consider the following:
Your website will be at least 70MB for starters and will then need to be compiled in the browser before people can use it. This is a no-go on mobile, especially if someone is on a mobile network.
You will quickly drain the battery of mobile users. Rendering in the engine is more taxing on hardware than plain HTML and CSS a couple of times over.
Your website’s content cannot be properly indexed by search engines since it’s pixels in the engine.
Interactions you take for granted on a normal web page, such as copy-paste, drag-and-drop, and find, will need to be implemented in the engine.
Ad blockers tend to block the canvas unless permitted by the user because it’s a commonly used for fingerprinting your browser for tracking purposes. Your website will only be usable if the user disabled the ad blocker.
Honestly, there are so many more caveats and pitfalls I don’t even know how to go on. If you are looking to get started learning Unreal, then play to its strengths and build a simple game.