Just a heads up, when folks say “complex 3d objects”, it’s usually assumed that they’re talking about things like GLTF files, which contain geometry, materials, lighting elements, animations, etc, and which Unity/Unreal can absolutely load/unload at runtime or even stream from a media server online (so they don’t have to be in the binary).

However, once you cross over into scripting code, you are in fact crossing a barrier, and it does become harder to hot-reload the way you can in a JS app. Like, the fact that Unity scripts are written in C# and have to be compiled and linked is a pretty huge impediment that you don’t face when loading almost any other kind of asset.

I’m right there with you: Hot-reloading and 3D is a thrilling combination, and tools like react-three-fiber are miles ahead of anything I’ve seen in Unity-land in terms of laying foundations for stuff like this. I’d recommend emphasizing “hot-reloading code” when drawing this distinction with Unity/Unreal folks to better get across the magnitude of what you’re looking for.

I wrote up a post on my R3F based WebXR hot reloading setup here:

https://github.com/gregfagan/blog/blob/main/xr-remote-displa...

You don’t actually need this if you’re just working on graphics, as usually a flat projection is fine, but it is quite nice to work inside your own XR app while iterating on the interaction.

Nice. I also started looking into possible WebRTC sources and servers since at least this could be integrated quite well into WebXR.

Unfortunately I find myself cycling thru needed components for interactivity these day and being stuck between competing SW and HW constraints.

Will give it a closer read next week.

IMO, the main impedance towards scripted graphics facilitating hot reloading is that they are generally coded in object hierarchies whose nested state is difficult to serialise. I have found using the 2d canvas context as an immediate mode renderer alongside a single global store allows me to create workflows more similar to what one would expect with React.

Thanks for both hints.

I recently had more contact with gaming engines than I originally wanted and there's always this kind of community-specific vocabulary whenever you cross borders. Oh no,like in real life.

Is hot-reloading code useful past the development stage? In what way? (I'm not familiar with 3D development at all).

For me it's about allowing more than plain UI interaction and about interactively building immersive working enviroments and tool-spaces.

Ah, that's an interesting option, thanks!

Oh, code? I assumed you meant geometry and/or materials.

Yes, it's possible. I can think of several ways to approach it. Not quite as cleanly as with javaScript, mind.

Heh. What would be your favourite thoughts/combo here?

Sorry for not being clear on the code part. I assumed USD and the like would be the norm now. "Complex objects" is not really helpful in this context, though.

USD is fairly widely used. But it's not "code" in the sense that I mean it. It's (mostly) declarative (like HTML) so I lump it in with obj, fbx and gltf.

I am assuming code means "executable code" - I know the boundaries are fuzzy here and some file formats are Turing complete - but I guess what I'm saying is that I'm still not sure what you're asking!

Code that I can create during runtime. Ideally interactively.