Unity WebGL and LeapMotion

[pauloiu1991]

Hi all,

I would like to make a webgame with leap motion. Why web game? Because it's really simple to update without having to bother the client.

The problem is that my main knowledge is in Unity3D.
So is it possible to create the game in Unity and then export as an WebGL build and use LeapMotion for input?

Thanks a lot,
Paul

[Joe_Ward]

TL;DR: Yes, it should be possible to access the Leap Motion data in WebGL through the WebSocket interface, although our core assets don't support it.

The Leap Motion service supports two types of communication. The first type uses interprocess-communication through native shared libraries. This is the form supported by our core assets and which supplies a C# programming interface to access the data. The second type is a WebSocket connection, which serves up the data as a series of JSON-formatted messages. This form is used by our JavaScript library and is intended for Web use.

Now Unity recently added support for WebSockets, though that support is still a bit raw. This could be used to get the Leap Motion data from the WebSocket connection. See:

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/webgl-interactingwithbrowserscripting.html

I tried this approach and was able to get the data. I also refactored the C# interface code to feed the Core Asset scripts with data coming from the WebSocket rather then the LeapCSharp shared library. This actually worked reasonably well in the Editor, but, and it is a big but, exporting to WebGL (or the Web Player) didn't produce anything that ran. I think the reason is that the Core Assets are too complex for the emscripten translation -- or it could be the assets are just too large -- or something else, I didn't have time to investigate further.

Unity has a WebSocket plugin in the Asset Store that may help (I haven't tried it):
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/38367

[pauloiu1991]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the thorough investigation and explanation. It seems that I will just have to stick to a desktop version for now, at least until Unity manages to give us a proper WebGL exporting solution. I will get a patcher plugin from the store to at least simplify the update process.

Best regards,
Paul

[Joe_Ward]

To be clear, I could export and run simpler projects that accessed the Leap data via WebSockets. The problems occurred in projects that included our full Core Assets.

[epartalidou]

Hello everyone,
I am having the same issue with Leap Motion and Unity. I would like to export a sample scene using WebGL but I get the following error:

To use dlopen, you need to use Emscripten's linking support, see https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki/Linking

Any idea how to resolve this issue? Is there an alternative package in Unity to export scenes with Leap Motion components successfully?

[dkucukahmetler]

I am struggling with the same issue. Could you solve it?

[dkucukahmetler]

Hello Joe. I am trying to do the same now. I couldn't find any sources or previously done web app games with Unity, using WebGL which takes Leap Motion tracking data as input. I completed my game but gives errors every time I build it with WebGL. I wasn't aware of the web sockets usage until I read your comment. Any updates on that topic? Perhaps a documentation or web socket package that could be used?

Thanks in advance!