Book Image

Learning Three.js - the JavaScript 3D Library for WebGL

By : Jos Dirksen
Book Image

Learning Three.js - the JavaScript 3D Library for WebGL

By: Jos Dirksen

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Learning Three.js – the JavaScript 3D Library for WebGL Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
8
Creating and Loading Advanced Meshes and Geometries
Index

Chapter 7. Particles, Sprites, and the Point Cloud

In the previous chapters, we discussed the most important concepts, objects, and APIs that Three.js has to offer. In this chapter, we'll look into the only concept we've skipped until now: particles. With particles (sometimes also called sprites), it is very easy to create many small objects that you can use to simulate rain, snow, smoke, and other interesting effects. For instance, you can render individual geometries as a set of particles and control these particles separately. In this chapter, we'll explore the various particle features provided by Three.js. To be more specific, we'll look at the following subjects in this chapter:

  • Creating and styling particles using THREE.SpriteMaterial

  • Using a point cloud to create a grouped set of particles

  • Creating a point cloud from existing geometries

  • Animating particles and the particle system

  • Using a texture to style the particles

  • Using the canvas to style a particle with THREE.SpriteCanvasMaterial...