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

Three.js and AR

While VR using Three.js is well supported on a large range of devices and browsers, this isn’t the case for Web-AR. On Android, the support is pretty good, but on iOS devices, it doesn’t work that well. Apple is currently working on adding this to Safari, so once that’s in, native AR should also work on iOS. A good way to check which browsers support this functionality is to check https://caniuse.com/webxr, which provides an up-to-date overview of all major browser support.

So, to test the native AR example, you either need to view it on an Android device, or use the same simulator we used in the Three.js and VR section.

Let’s create a standard scene you can use as a starting point for your AR experiments. The first thing we need to do is tell Three.js we want to use XR:

const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: true,
  alpha: true })
renderer.xr.enabled = true

Note that we need to set the alpha property...