Book Image

Going the Distance with Babylon.js

By : Josh Elster
Book Image

Going the Distance with Babylon.js

By: Josh Elster

Overview of this book

Babylon.js allows anyone to effortlessly create and render 3D content in a web browser using the power of WebGL and JavaScript. 3D games and apps accessible via the web open numerous opportunities for both entertainment and profit. Developers working with Babylon.js will be able to put their knowledge to work with this guide to building a fully featured 3D game. The book provides a hands-on approach to implementation and associated methodologies that will have you up and running, and productive in no time. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and links to fully working self-contained code snippets, you’ll start by learning about Babylon.js and the finished Space-Truckers game. You’ll also explore the development workflows involved in making the game. Focusing on a wide range of features in Babylon.js, you’ll iteratively add pieces of functionality and assets to the application being built. Once you’ve built out the basic game mechanics, you’ll learn how to bring the Space-Truckers environment to life with cut scenes, particle systems, animations, shadows, PBR materials, and more. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to structure your code, organize your workflow processes, and continuously deploy to a static website/PWA a game limited only by bandwidth and your imagination.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Part 1: Building the Application
7
Part 2: Constructing the Game
13
Part 3: Going the Distance

Introducing the Babylon.js GUI Editor

Boilerplate code is a term given to code that has the characteristics of being simple, standardized, and frequently repeated. As a software developer, it’s generally best not to write that type of code yourself for some very good reasons. First, the nature of boilerplate code is that it is repetitive, making it prone to syntax or other superficial logical defects (that is, typos, fat-fingers, and more). Second, it’s tough to maintain, since when changes need to be introduced, those changes are generally needed throughout the expanse of the boilerplate. Finally (at least for our purposes), it’s really, really, really boring to read and write code of this nature.

To solve these (and other related) problems, the Babylon.js team created the GUIE. As just one of a huge number of new tools and features introduced with v5.0 of Babylon.js the GUIE fills an important niche in the Babylon.js ecosystem. Like its brethren, the Animation...