Book Image

Game Development with Three.js

By : Isaac Sukin
Book Image

Game Development with Three.js

By: Isaac Sukin

Overview of this book

The advent of WebGL and its inclusion in many browsers enabled JavaScript programs running in a web browser to access the GPU without a plugin or extension. Three.js is a next generation high-level library that makes it possible to author complex 3D computer animations that display in the browser using nothing more than a simple text editor. The development of these new tools has opened up the world of real-time 3D computer animations to a far broader spectrum of developers. Starting with how to build 3D games on the web using the Three.js graphics library, you will learn how to build 3D worlds with meshes, lighting, user interaction, physics, and more. Along the way, you'll learn how to build great online games through fun examples. Use this book as a guide to embrace the next generation of game development! Moving on from the basics, you will learn how to use Three.js to build game worlds using its core components, including renderers, geometries, materials, lighting, cameras, and scenes. Following on from this, you will learn how to work with mouse and keyboard interactions, incorporate game physics, and import custom models and animations. You will also learn how to include effects like particles, sounds, and post-processing. You will start by building a 3D world, and then create a first person shooter game using it. You will then be shown how to imbue this FPS game with a “capture the flag” gameplay objective. With Game Development with Three.js, you will be able to build 3D games on the Web using the Three.js graphics library.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

The wonderful world of Three.js


Three.js is a JavaScript library that simplifies displaying 3D graphics in web browsers. Artists, major brands, and many others are increasingly using Three.js to power immersive online experiences that can reach millions of people across many platforms. There are many inspiring demos of the technology at http://threejs.org/.

Three.js is usually used with a new technology called WebGL, a JavaScript API for rendering graphics without plugins. The API is based on OpenGL, a desktop graphics API (GL stands for graphics library). Because it uses the client's graphics processing unit to accelerate rendering, WebGL is fast! However, many mobile browsers as well as Internet Explorer 10 and below do not support WebGL. Luckily, Three.js supports rendering with the HTML5 Canvas API as well as other technologies such as Scalable Vector Graphics instead.

Note

You can find up-to-date information on browser support at http://caniuse.com/webgl.

Three.js is originally written and maintained by Ricardo Cabello, who is also known as Mr.Doob. The library is open source (MIT-licensed) and is available from its GitHub page, https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js. The documentation of Three.js is available online at http://threejs.org/docs/. When the documentation is insufficient, the best place to look is the examples folder of the project, which contains a large collection of examples demonstrating different features. You can browse the examples online at http://threejs.org/examples/. The source code in the src folder is also worth browsing if you need to know how a certain class works or what methods and properties it exposes. Developers respond to questions about Three.js on the Q&A site StackOverflow, so if you are confused about something, you can browse questions with the three.js tag or ask your own.

Tip

This book was written with Version r61 of the Three.js project. Certain parts of the API are still under development, but anything that is likely to change will be pointed out when it is introduced.