u/MayorOfMonkeys

I wanted to see if you could connect two Gaussian Splat scenes through a portal you can physically walk through — no teleport, no cut, just continuous motion between two captured environments. Turns out it works pretty cleanly.

Runs entirely in the browser (WebGL2 / WebGPU), built in PlayCanvas.

Try it live: https://engine-8q342hfzj-playcanvas.vercel.app/#/gaussian-splatting/splat-portal

A few things I liked about how it came together:

• Two LOD-streamed splat scenes (a Roman parish + a skatepark), seen through a stone archway acting as the portal.
• Crossing the portal plane swaps which world you're "in" — and the same physics works symmetrically from either side, so you can walk back the way you came.
• The world you're in stays fully visible around you; the other one only shows inside the portal opening, with a proper "window" feel (no peek-around clipping).
• Subtle translucent glass inside the opening picks up specular highlights from the environment.
• The skatepark side has its own weather — procedural snow that's only visible while you're actually there (or peeking through).

Source for the example (PlayCanvas engine repo): https://github.com/playcanvas/engine/pull/8738

I just landed two new examples in the PlayCanvas engine that let you walk around *inside* a real Gaussian Splat scan — both first-person and third-person, with proper collision against the scene.

### Try them yourself

- 🚶 First-person walk: https://engine-cmbu8r47z-playcanvas.vercel.app/#/gaussian-splatting/first-person

- 🕺 Third-person with animated character (press **Q** to dance): https://engine-cmbu8r47z-playcanvas.vercel.app/#/gaussian-splatting/third-person

Controls: **WASD** to move, **Shift** to sprint, **Space** to jump, **Mouse** to look / orbit, **Scroll wheel** to zoom (third-person only).

### What's in it

- A new reusable **third-person camera controller** (`scripts/esm/third-person-controller.mjs`) modelled after the existing FPS controller. Handles:

- Orbit camera with mouse + gamepad + touch

- Wall-collision avoidance via raycast, smoothed so it doesn't pop

- Scroll-wheel zoom (smoothed, clamped)

- Configurable initial pitch, min height above character, look invert, sensitivity, damping for every axis

- Fires `speed` (0/1/2 → idle/walk/jog) and `jump` events that consumers wire into an anim state graph — no coupling to the anim system

- First-person example: capsule character + `FirstPersonController`, jumps, sprints, walks the gsplat

- Third-person example: bitmoji character, full anim state machine (idle / walk / jog / jump / dance) driven by the controller events, env-atlas IBL ambient (skybox layer disabled so the splat is the visible background), shadow catcher that follows the character on the ground via a downward raycast

### How the collision works

The "ground" is the Gaussian Splat (visual only), and physics happens against a hidden mesh GLB loaded alongside it:

- The collision mesh was **generated directly from the splat** using **splat-transform**.

- Then simplified down to **~1 MB** with https://polyforge.xyz/optimize so Ammo's BVH builder can handle it (huge meshes will OOM the WASM heap).

### Credits

Huge thanks to **zeitgeistarchivescans** for the gorgeous *Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum* scan (CC BY 4.0):

https://superspl.at/scene/d5d397aa

### Source / PR

https://github.com/playcanvas/engine/pull/8736

Hi everyone! Three big SuperSplat upgrades shipped today! 🚀

🧱 One-Click Collision Generation
We've wired the SplatTransform 2.0 collision pipeline directly into SuperSplat Studio's backend. Open your splat, head to the Assets panel and hit Generate. Pick from Indoor, Outdoor or Object presets and Studio takes care of the rest. Walk-ready splats in seconds, no command line required.

🛠️ Software Attribution
You can now tag your splats with the software you used to make them, choosing from a curated catalog including Brush, Postshot, LichtFeld Studio, RealityScan, KIRI Engine, Luma, Polycam and more. Click any logo chip on a scene page to discover other splats made with the same tool - a great way to find new creators and learn techniques.

📊 GPU-Powered Histogram
The SuperSplat Editor's Data Panel just got faster and smarter. The histogram is now GPU-driven, computing per-property statistics across millions of Gaussians in milliseconds, even on modest hardware. You can also drag a range directly on the histogram to select splats by position, color, scale, depth, opacity, surface area, orientation and more - isolating the splats you care about with a single drag instead of nudging sliders.

Try SuperSplat → https://superspl.at/
Read the full announcement → https://blog.playcanvas.com/new-in-supersplat-software-attribution-collision-generation-and-histogram/
Join the SuperSplat community on Discord → https://discord.gg/RSaMRzg

Thanks to the awesome Stéphane Agullo for the splat used in the video!

Videogame technology is starting to disrupt real estate 🏡

The workflow is getting surprisingly simple:

📷 Scan a house (LiDAR scanners in particular make this a smooth experience)
🪄 Train a 3D Gaussian Splat
🌐 Publish it to the web with PlayCanvas / SuperSplat

Instead of clicking through static photos or watching a fixed video tour, buyers can explore a property like a videogame level - directly in the browser.

Here’s the house from the video by Camera Cone on SuperSplat:

https://superspl.at/scene/91c1e47e

What do you think: will splat-based property walkthroughs enter the mainstream this year?

PlayCanvas just released SplatTransform 2.0!

For anyone working with 3D Gaussian Splats, SplatTransform is an open source CLI tool and library for processing splats.

The big new feature in 2.0 is fully automated, fast generation of high-quality collision for splats. It outputs collision in two formats:

🧊 Voxel format
🔼 Mesh format

This should be useful for anyone experimenting with splat-based games, interactive scenes, or navigable splat-based environments at scale.

Release notes:
https://github.com/playcanvas/splat-transform/releases/tag/v2.0.0

Example splat used in the video, with thanks to Paolo Tosolini:
https://superspl.at/scene/b0703bc1

Would love to hear your feedback - what does this unlock for you?

PlayCanvas v2.18.0 is officially live, and we’re pushing Gaussian Splatting into the WebGPU era. 🚀

• ⚡️ WebGPU Compute Splatting: We’ve launched a prototype Compute-based renderer for splats. This is the future of performance - up to 3x faster than our WebGL2 renderer depending on hardware.
• 🌦️ Splat-Based Weather: You can now generate procedural weather effects (rain, snow, etc.) using splats. It’s an incredibly lightweight way to add heavy atmosphere to your scenes.
• 🌫️ Volumetric Fog: Splats now natively respect engine fog - everything composites together perfectly.
• 👁️ Fish-eye Projection: New support for fish-eye camera projections for 3DGS - turn your splats into tiny planets!

PlayCanvas is free and open source. If you’re building for the web, this is for you.

GitHub Release & Source: 🔗https://github.com/playcanvas/engine/releases/tag/v2.18.0

I'm part of the team - if you have questions about the WebGPU implementation or the new weather effects, drop them below! 👾

SuperSplat is evolving - it's now a hub for the Gaussian Splatting community. 🚀

We just dropped a major update to help you share your work and get the credit you deserve. Here’s the rundown:

• 📥 Downloadable Splats: Owners can now toggle a "Downloadable" flag on their scenes. Make your raw data available to the community with one click.
• 📜 CC Licenses & Easy Attribution: Assign any of the six Creative Commons 4.0 licenses to your splats. The download dialog now includes a ready-to-copy credit line to make attribution effortless.
• 🔗 Social Profiles: Link your Website, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube to your user page. Turn your published splats into a professional 3D portfolio.

Whether you're using these for research, creative tools, or dropping them into the PlayCanvas Engine, it's now easier than ever to move your data where you need it.

SuperSplat is free and open source.

Check it out: 👉 https://superspl.at/?features=downloadable&time=all

Full breakdown on the blog: 🔗https://blog.playcanvas.com/new-in-supersplat-downloadable-splats-licenses-and-social-links/

Join the Discord to meet other splat creators: https://discord.com/invite/qcydPEtn65

I’m part of the team, so if you have any feedback or feature requests, let’s chat in the comments! 👾