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

Tone Mapping and Basic Post-Processing

Although this section is split into separate sub-sections between tone mapping and Post-Processing, tone mapping is technically a type of post-process. It’s an important enough subject within the context of this chapter to warrant a bit of space to explain it.

Post-Processing is a familiar concept wrapped in a potentially unfamiliar language. When you superimpose cat ears on your FaceTime, Zoom, or Teams calls, you are using a post-process. If you select an Instagram filter, you’re using a post-process. When you give yourself a cool motion blur effect in TikTok, you’re using a post-process. Babylon.js comes with several different built-in effects, both subtle and not so, and to avoid you having to remember and create the most common post-process effects, there’s also a Default Rendering Pipeline that comes with all the basics wrapped up in a plug-and-play fashion.

Tone Mapping

As we discussed in the previous...