Is it possible to make a light weight Unreal 5 web browser extension/plugin? Just spent the better part of the morning, but none of my searches are coming up with anything. I really do not know where to start. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.
Hey there @ProgenitorSystem! Welcome to the community! Are you attempting to make a plugin/extension using UE or an extension for the documentation?
We are attempting to make a plugin/extension for Google Chrome, that uses Unreal Engine 5. Like java embedded on a website. We are aware of the UE4 web tools, but it appears UE5 is lacking with its pixel streaming. Our software relies on showing a 3D model of a building to a building management employee and displaying equipment in a room or even the equipment itself.
Any help would be great.
Ahh yeah my apologies that’s a tough one! As you’re probably aware, HTML5 support itself ended back in UE4.24 due to the growing requirements of the engine, and what’s usually recommended these days for web applications is now Pixel Streaming, but as you say it’s lacking a couple of things full web support would have, so it may not fit your use case. I don’t believe there are other native options in that regard. There was a user attempting modern web support but I can’t seem to find the repo, though last I heard it was abandoned due to difficulty.
I know Wonder Interactive is attempting it for UE5. But if I recall, I think they might be lacking the pixel streaming part. I was thinking maybe the engine could be inside a chrome extension/addon(much like java enabled web browser). We need something that can pull the model down from an internet site and display it. I’m not sure what resources I should turn to for more answers. Would it be a web-app dev? A UE5 dev? I’m just very new to this and not sure where to start for looking for more information. What are your thoughts?
I’m not the strongest resource here as I mostly work with native UE. What portion of pixel streaming is barring your use case?
Specifically who you’re looking for is dependent on your bottleneck. For archvis in browser pixel streaming is usually the recommended mechanism, but maybe the hosting and requesting is probably not ideal for an extension in your case?
If you want to modify the engine to be able to work natively in browsers without downgrading to 4.24 or using pixel streaming, you’ll likely need a mix of intermediate UE dev who has worked with the source a good deal, and a basic knowledge of web dev.
Creating a lightweight Unreal Engine 5 web browser extension/plugin is not feasible due to Unreal’s focus on high-performance, graphics-intensive applications. For web extensions, use technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly.
For more guidance on creating browser extensions, check out my Chrome extension development guide.