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

Adding Encounter Visuals

This is where our previous work in the Marking Out the Route section comes into play. Recall that as our CargoUnit falls through its trajectory, it is constantly laying down a line of breadcrumbs to mark out its path. This is visualized by the CargoUnit.trailMesh component, which other than needing to be initialized and disposed of during scenario resets, takes care of itself without much need for us to intervene. We need an equivalently hands-off way to similarly render visualizations for encounters when and where they occur along the route, and that’s precisely what the work we just covered is meant to enable.

Important note:

While the following section is ultimately cut from the game, the technique demonstrated is helpful to have in your pocket.

Putting 2D Labels into 3D Space

Although there is a 3D GUI system in Babylon.js, our current needs don’t require the use of a full 3D UI. Still, one of the advantages of a 3D GUI is that...