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

Tracing out a Path to Advanced Rendering

Our last stop on our Extended Topics, Extended tour is with musician, engineer, and graphics wizard Erich Loftis. He’s going to guide us with the story of his journey to achieving Real-Time Path Tracing (RTPT) with Babylon.js. RTPT – also referred to as Ray Tracing or just RT – is a rendering technique built on top of Path Tracing that companies such as Nvidia and AMD are only just beginning to make available in AAA commercial titles, and only in select ways. Through the retelling of Erich’s journey, the reason why the technique has been so difficult to accomplish in real-time games and simulations will hopefully become abundantly clear.

Ray Tracing and its History by Erich Loftis

RT is a technique for rendering realistic images and effects on a computer. It follows the laws of optics and models how physical light rays behave in the real world. Therefore, RT can produce truly photo-realistic images. RT is the...