So as I have been using BabylonJS for over 2 years now ( amazing engine! Great work!! ) I was having a couple of ideas running through my head which I think are worth discussing.
First of all, the Babylon.GUI library. Great library, I have used it on every project, however, it is a little bit hard to work with in Javascript. I was thinking that it would be awesome if we could use XML as a markup language and then translate it to Javascript. I have in plan to make something for my projects but maybe it makes sense library level?
Second, I think Babylon is the greatest 3D html5 gaming engine around, I truly believe it and I think it deserves much more exposure and usage. A barrier many developers face is the lack of assets. Not everyone can make 2D or 3D assets, the assets which are online most likely are not optimized for the web or would not work well with Babylon. How about an assets store? Babylon is already an html5 3D gaming ecosystem, maybe an assets store would really help people join. It could be anything, from scenes to animated 3D models or GUI and they can be tested right away through the sandbox.
These are just a couple of ideas running through my head and I thought to share them with you. Let me know guys what you think about them.
It does a lot!. Just wondering if XML is the right language. What about json? Better, more complciated? what do you think?
Can’t agree more
We initially started a tiny repo for that but that requires much more energy that what we can invest on. I could encourage people to check Google Blocks or Sketchfab websites to get 3D content
I agree JSON is a much more “native” way of doing it, it’s also easier and faster to parse, but XML is more clean to designe layouts in my opinion. JSON works too though!
I was thinking something like Unity store. The assets don’t have to be free and anyone could share/sell. This might be a little bit out of scope, I agree, but why not? Maybe someone from the community could set it up as well, I think it would be a nice addition nevertheless.
Thanks for considering my ideas anyway and for building this amazing engine!
I had started to make a shop with exported models for Babylon (free and paid). But the feedbacks I got was that I was not in https, so no confidence. Basically we do things and people are not satisfied. There is always to improve things, of course, but it is not because a site is not https that it is not trusted too.
So, I had stop the shop since it was not useful that I continue.
Did you know you can setup ssl pretty easily and for free with https://letsencrypt.org/ ? If this is the only concern people have it is very easily solvable. I don’t think you should stop it, I would be the first sharing and buying / selling assets there! I am sure other will follow! I might think of starting the store myself if no other solutions exist but am not sure when I will have time. Also, that would be fair only if the BJS team would choose not to have / host it.
Atm, I think the main issue with a asset store is that we’re not big enough yet.
For a start, how about a sub-domain with a simple website, populated with the free models, etc from the repo? This can always be expanded upon if the demand is there in the future.
Yeah that makes sense. I totally agree that for a full store it’s too early, starting with a website with free models would be great though, it could be expanded later on if demand is high enough.
I like the idea of a simple collection of consistent assets to test the range of babylon functionalities. I know there are already, a bunch of objects here:
In my opinion a simple website with a preview would make it more visible an accessible for new people. Also it would be a great addition to start coding with assets you know that are valid.
Is there a type of asset that’s crucially missing? Maybe we could start a list with Objects that are missing. I can see what I can build in my spare time
I use BABYLON rarely, but I’ve been following the project for a long time and I think that Babylon is really great, but the UI-lib is the creation of a bicycle i think. In the World, we have any options for creating a user interface. Browsers allow you to use any elements on top of the canvas. jQUI, VUE (with reactivity) and more more others. We can also use XML-XSLT technology standardized by W3C to separate the data from the design code (in server-side and in front-side). This is simple and powerful tool for convert any XML to any XML(HTML). JSON is more flexible for use in JS, but XML is similar to DOM and is easy to use to create templates or interface elements if you are familiar with HTML.
In the case of Babylon, the UI-lib was required only to create truly three-dimensional interfaces (interfaces within the scene), but this task is unusual, right?
Keeping assets (like Unity assets) is a great idea! Scripts, materials, models, textures, skyboxes, (HDR for PBR specially :), shaders… mmm…)
The platform for receiving and publishing should be easy to use. Perhaps use for this anything e-commerce CMS engine…
. Let me know if you decide to work on it 
