Prerequisites

Before getting started we recommend you install Nodejs (if you don't have it already)



After having installed the tools listed above you might have to restart your machine once!

Then continue below at Needle Engine for Unity or Needle Engine for Blender





Needle Engine with Unity

We support Unity 2021 and 2022 LTS

  • Drop the downloaded .unitypackage file into a Unity project (or double click to open) and confirm that you want to import it.

  • Wait for the installation and import to finish.

  • A window may open stating that "A new scoped registry is now available in the Package Manager.". This is our Needle Package registry where packages are downloaded from. You can safely close that window and continue with the next step below.

  • Continue....

    • Option 1: Explore Samples
      Select Needle Engine > Explore Samples to view, open and modify all available sample scenesopen in new window.

    • Option 2: Create a new scene from a template
      Select File > New Scene and choose from one of the Needle templates.
      We recommend the Collaborative Sandboxopen in new window template which is a great way to get started with interactivity, multiplayer,and adding assets.

Video: Starting from a fresh Unity project

Create a new scene from a Scene Template

We provide a number of Scene Templates for quickly starting new projects.
These allow you to go from idea to prototype in a few clicks.

  1. Click on File > New Scene
  2. Select one of the templates with (needle) in their name and click Create.
  3. Click Play to install and startup your new web project.

20220822-140539-wqvW-Unity_oC0z-needle

Create a new scene from scratch

If you don't want to start from a scene template, you can follow these steps.
Effectively, we're going to recreate the "Minimal (Needle)" template that's shipping with the package.

  1. Create a new empty scene

  2. Set up your scene for exporting
    Add an empty GameObject, name it "Exporter" and add an ExportInfo component to it.
    In this component you create and quickly access your exported runtime project.
    It also warns you if any of our packages and modules are outdated or not locally installed in your web project.

Note

By default, the project name matches the name of your scene. If you want to change that, you can enter a Directory Name where you want to create your new runtime project. The path is relative to your Unity project.

  1. Choose a web project template Now, select a web project template for your project. The default template is based on Viteopen in new window, a fast web app bundler.

  2. Click Play to install and start your new web project




Needle Engine with Blender

We support Blender 3.6 and Blender 4.0

With Needle Engine for Blender you can build fully interactive 3D websites running on three.js.
They can easily deployed to the web and get optimized automatically by the Needle Engine Build Pipeline (needs Node.js installed)

  • The Blender addon is downloaded as a zip file.
  • In Blender go to File / Settings / Add-ons and click the Install button.
  • Then select the downloaded zip to install it.

Continue reading Needle Engine for Blender for a full feature list and instructions




Needle Engine without Editor

Needle Engine is built ontop of three.js. If you just want to work with the Needle Engine runtime and don't want to use any Editor integration just yet then go ahead and install it from npm by running:

npm i @needle-tools/engine

To quickly test Needle Engine in the browser use engine.needle.tools/newopen in new window
It creates a new project on StackBlitz

Alternatively you can add a prebundled version of Needle Engine to your website:

https://unpkg.com/@needle-tools/engine/dist/needle-engine.min.js
https://unpkg.com/@needle-tools/engine/dist/needle-engine.light.min.js no physics module




Questions?

The local website shows a warning: website not secure

You might see a warning in your browser about SSL Security depending on your local configuration.
This is because while the connection is encrypted, by default there's no SSL certificate that the browser can validate.
If that happens: click Advanced and Proceed to Site. Now you should see your scene in the browser!

Something is not working as expected? Where can I see logs?

Keep an eye for console warnings! We log useful details about recommended project settings and so on. For example, your project should be set to Linear color space (not Gamma), and we'll log an error to the Unity console if that's not the case.

Please also have a look at our FAQ if your question is not answered here.

What's next?

In case you need more troubleshooting help, please see the Questions and Answers section.
You can also join our Discord Communityopen in new window or Forumopen in new window