MSquared is known for delivering real-time social experiences at massive scale. Our Morpheus platform has powered events with thousands of concurrent users, blending high-fidelity graphics with fluid, low-latency interaction across vast virtual spaces.
With Web Worlds, we’re bringing that expertise to a new frontier - lightweight, browser-based 3D environments built entirely with open source tools.
This latest update introduces crowd support to Web Worlds. Through a combination of a custom networking protocol, dynamic asset handling, and a visual 'imposter' system, Web Worlds can now render hundreds of users in real time on consumer devices. It’s a major step forward in making large, social, multiplayer experiences more accessible to developers and creators working on the open web.
Here’s how it works.
DeltaNet: A Custom Protocol for Crowds
Rendering multiple users smoothly in real time requires efficient communication. To support this, we developed DeltaNet - a purpose-built networking protocol for Web Worlds.
Rather than sending full component states every tick, DeltaNet calculates changes to each component’s value over time, then sends only those differences. This enables responsive, low-bandwidth updates even as the number of users grows.
Prioritised Avatar Rendering
Each user in a Web World has their own avatar, often made up of multiple high-fidelity mesh components. Rendering all of them simultaneously isn’t feasible on most devices, so we introduced a system to load, cache, and prioritise “real” avatars based on proximity and relevance. The system ensures nearby users appear in high fidelity, while background participants transition seamlessly into lighter representations.
Imposters with Visual Identity
To represent users beyond the detailed mesh limit, Web Worlds now uses a lightweight imposter system. These aren’t generic placeholders. Each imposter reflects the core identity of the user it represents.
On the client side, Web Worlds generates approximate body part colours - hair, top, bottoms- based on the user’s avatar. These values are shared across the network and used to render a simplified animated figure that maintains the correct silhouette and palette. The result is a crowd that feels alive, expressive, and legible, even when simplified for performance.
Performance-Ready Visuals
To support the increased load of real-time crowds, we made several enhancements to visual rendering:
- Postprocessing effects have been refined to reduce GPU overhead while preserving clarity and style.
- A new procedural sky system replaces static backgrounds, offering a dynamic environment that blends more naturally with high fidelity assets.
These changes improve both framerate stability and overall visual cohesion across a wide range of devices.
Open, Accessible, and Built for the Future
This release brings one of MSquared’s key capabilities - real-time social presence - into the hands of developers. While Morpheus supports thousands of concurrent users in high-end virtual events, Web Worlds now gives creators a way to support hundreds of users in a browser, with no plugins, no installs, and full creative control.
Crowd support is now available in both our Web Worlds service and the open source 3d-Web-Experience that forms its foundation. Sign up today to get started for free!
We’re committed to building an immersive internet that’s open, performant, and creator-owned. This is another step toward that future.
