Unlock the Power of 3D Game Development with Three.js
The game industry is booming, with revenues surpassing those of the music and movie industries combined. As a result, game production is on the rise, and consoles like Xbox and PlayStation are flying off the shelves. With the evolution of game development, games have begun to migrate to browser territory, thanks to the numerous game engines available to help developers create 3D games for the web more efficiently. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to get started with Three.js, a popular JavaScript library for creating stunning 3D animations.
What is Three.js?
Three.js is a powerful library for creating three-dimensional models and games. With just a few lines of JavaScript, you can create anything from simple 3D patterns to photorealistic, real-time scenes. You can build simple and complex 3D geometries, animate and move objects through a lifelike scene, and more. Three.js enables you to apply textures and materials to your objects, providing various light sources to illuminate your scene, advanced postprocessing effects, custom shaders, and more.
Getting Started with Three.js
To begin, download the Three.js file and create a new folder, threejs-prj, with two subfolders: src and libs. Create an index.html file at the root folder and a main.js file at the src folder. Then, copy three.min.js to the libs folder. main.js will contain your game code, while three.min.js is the minified Three.js framework, and index.html is the main page where Three.js will render your objects.
The Basics of Three.js
Before we dive into creating objects and scenes, let’s review the basics of Three.js. A scene in a 3D game consists of a coordinate system, objects, geometry, material, camera, and renderer. A scene can contain objects like cubes, pyramids, cars, houses, etc. Geometry refers to the shapes we create, such as cubes, squares, pyramids, etc. Three.js provides basic, primitive shapes, the surfaces and vertices of which you can modify to create more complex shapes.
Creating Objects and Scenes in Three.js
To create a basic object, use the BoxGeometry class in the THREE variable. This creates a cube that is 10 units in length, 10 units wide, and 10 units thick. You can also create more complex shapes, like an icosahedron.
Mesh and Material
To style your objects, use lights and materials to apply colors, textures, etc. Material is used to apply texture and color to a shape. To create material for color and texture, use the THREE.MeshBasicMaterial class. This will pass our custom shades and textures.
Camera and Renderer
A camera is an eye to see objects in a scene. A scene must have at least one camera. The camera in Three.js controls what you can see in a scene from a certain perspective. You can move the camera to look around. Three.js features many types of cameras, but the basic one is THREE.PerspectiveCamera.
The renderer paints the scene and camera on the browser. Three.js provides several rendering engines, including a WebGL-based renderer, Canvas, SVG, CSS, and DOM. Using the WebGL renderer, THREE.WebGLRenderer is used.
Lights
Lights are used to illuminate a specified area in a scene. There are many light sources available in Three.js, including Point, Ambient, Directional, Hemisphere, and Spot.
Animation
Animations bring the objects in the scene to life. You can move objects in any direction in their spatial coordinate system. The Geometry and Camera classes have methods and properties you can use to scale, move, and rotate objects.
Bringing it all Together
Open the main.js file and paste the following code. This will rotate the cubeMesh 0.4, 0.2, and 0 along its x, y, and z axes, respectively. Load the index.html in your browser, and you will see a light blue cube rendered on your browser.
Wireframe Cube
To make a wireframe cube, add the following code and edit the cubeMesh variable accordingly. Reload index.html, and you should see a wireframe cube.
The Power of Three.js
This is just the beginning of what you can do with Three.js. With its powerful features and flexibility, Three.js is an ideal choice for creating stunning 3D animations and games. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting out, Three.js is an excellent tool to have in your toolkit.