Build & Deployment

The current version of Zephyr3D supports one-click packaging of your project into a deployable Web page, which can be used for local preview or uploaded to any static website hosting service (such as GitHub Pages, a self-hosted Nginx server, etc.).

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One-Click Web Build

Steps

1. In the editor menu, click Build Project;
2. The editor will automatically build the current project and generate:
   • An index.html file that can be opened directly in a browser;
   • All required runtime scripts and asset files (such as JavaScript, WASM, textures, models, audio, etc.);
3. After the build is complete, the editor will provide a Zip archive for download:
   • The Zip contains index.html and all its dependencies;
   • After extracting, you can use the files locally or on a server.

Deployment (Quick Overview)

• Local preview:

  • Extract the downloaded Zip;
  • Use any local static file server (such as http-server, live-server, etc.) to serve the directory;
  • Open the corresponding URL in your browser to run the project.

• Deploying online:

  • Upload all extracted files to any static hosting environment, for example:
    • Nginx/Apache static directory;
    • GitHub Pages / GitLab Pages;
    • Object storage static website hosting such as S3 + CloudFront, etc.;
  • As long as index.html is directly accessible, the application can be opened and run in the browser.

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Limitations & Planned Improvements

The build & deployment feature is still evolving. Known and planned improvement areas include (but are not limited to):

1. Limited build configuration options

   • Currently, there is no fine-grained build configuration inside the editor, such as:
     • Enabling/disabling code minification or obfuscation;
     • Switching between development and production builds (Debug/Release);
     • Customizing the output directory structure, etc.
   • A future “Build Settings” panel is planned to let users adjust build strategies for different release scenarios.

2. Limited environment and platform presets

   • The current build pipeline primarily targets generic Web environments;
   • There are no one-click optimization presets yet for specific targets (such as mobile Web, low-end devices), for example:
     • Different asset compression levels;
     • Texture format selection per platform;
     • Multi-resolution asset switching strategies.

3. Build logs and error messages are not very detailed

   • When a build fails, or when some assets are not packaged correctly, the error feedback can be quite minimal;
   • Future improvements may include:
     • A dedicated build log panel;
     • More explicit error types and locations (for example, indicating which script or asset caused the build to fail).