Book Image

Learn Three.js - Fourth Edition

By : Jos Dirksen
5 (1)
Book Image

Learn Three.js - Fourth Edition

5 (1)
By: Jos Dirksen

Overview of this book

Three.js has become the industry standard for creating stunning 3D WebGL content. In this edition, you’ll learn about all the features of Three.js and understand how to integrate it with the newest physics engines. You'll also develop a strong grip on creating and animating immersive 3D scenes directly in your browser, reaping the full potential of WebGL and modern browsers. The book starts with the basic concepts and building blocks used in Three.js and helps you explore these essential topics in detail through extensive examples and code samples. You'll learn how to create realistic-looking 3D objects using textures and materials and how to load existing models from an external source. Next, you'll understand how to control the camera using the Three.js built-in camera controls, which will enable you to fly or walk around the 3D scene you've created. Later chapters will cover the use of HTML5 video and canvas elements as materials for your 3D objects to animate your models. You’ll learn how to use morph targets and skeleton-based animation, before understanding how to add physics, such as gravity and collision detection, to your scene. Finally, you’ll master combining Blender with Three.js and creating VR and AR scenes. By the end of this book, you'll be well-equipped to create 3D-animated graphics using Three.js.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Up and Running
5
Part 2: Working with the Three.js Core Components
7
Chapter 5: Learning to Work with Geometries
10
Part 3: Particle Clouds, Loading and Animating Models
14
Part 4: Post-Processing, Physics, and Sounds

Summary

In this chapter, we explored how you can extend the basic 3D functionality of Three.js by adding physics. For this, we used the Rapier library, which allows you to add gravity to your scene and objects, have objects interact with each other and bounce when they collide, and use joints to limit the movement of objects relative to each other.

Besides that, we also showed you how Three.js supports 3D sounds. We created a scene where you added positional sound using the THREE.PositionalAudio and THREE.AudioListener objects.

Even though we’ve now covered all of the core functionalities provided by Three.js, there are two more chapters dedicated to exploring some external tools and libraries that you can use together with Three.js. In the next chapter, we’ll dive into Blender and see how we can use Blender’s functionality, such as baking shadows, editing UV maps, and exchanging models between Blender and Three.js.