INBrowser
The No Frills Web View
Summary
When we began work on Imagine Nations, we also looked into a modular approach to our engine and how we could offer it piecemeal to the community. The largest portions of our game, the CellSystem and the SimulationSystem, are two modules that we would like to offer in the future for anyone that is building expansive voxel games, or just wants to utilize a highly efficient simulation engine that can handle whatever NPC load you want to throw at it (within reason).
INBrowser is the first module we’re offering, and came about due to recent needs. A simple to use browser interface is lacking currently within Unity. We weren’t after a full fledged browser, nor a full UI system. All we needed was a simple drag and drop interface with Canvas to output an interactive web page to the screen. With our main menu, we are currently showing the latest news, a link to our Wiki page, and a connected Twitch page whenever we stream. We wanted these to be easily accessible for anyone playing our game rather than needing to access them externally.
What is INBrowser?
INBrowser is a no frills web view. Its not meant to offer full browser functional, or be used for a UI system. Right now, it does exactly what we need within Imagine Nations. It allows you to setup a Canvas UI, drop in the INBrowser script, connect a RawImage to the INBrowser, and set a URL to view. Its that simple. Rather than stopping at a static image, however, we wanted a better experience for our community and provided the full Chromium backend (we are built off of ChromiumFX at https://bitbucket.org/chromiumfx/chromiumfx/overview) so you get a fully interactive experience. Videos, browser games, and whatever else you want to show on the defined URL just work.
Everything is automated. You don’t have to do anything else with INBrowser in your game or application. Update the URL in INBrowser, and it will update. Change the size of the RawImage connected to INBrowser, and it will resize appropriately. We want this to be accessible to everyone with or without coding experience.
Who should use INBrowser?
If you’re looking for a simple web view that still allows you to properly interact with the webpage (play videos, host chat, post on forums, etc.) then INBrowser is for you. We promise to offer all functionality that we currently need within our game, and as we identify new areas that are needed within Imagine Nations, those new features will be added here.
Why use INBrowser?
This is something that we personally need within our game. We hold the quality of our game to a high standard, and this is approached equally to as high a standard as everything else. The real benefit of INBrowser is that not only will we be able to identify issues and handle critiques through the wonderful community in the Asset Store, but we will also be running INBrowser through the grinder with our Imagine Nations backers and community. If issues or quality concerns arise, we’re seeing them both from the developer and end user sides at the same time.
When will INBrowser launch?
INBrowser is feature complete and going through heavy testing within the team. As soon as we are confident it is running appropriately for all of us, we will launch it. Ideally we’d like to have this submitted to the Asset Store within the next week unless bugs or performance concerns crop up. We’re testing this on a wide range of hardware to see how well it handles for all users.