@pixi/react

Pixi React

Simply the best way to write PixiJS applications in React
_{Write PixiJS applications using React declarative style 👌}

Pixi React is an open-source, production-ready library to render high performant PixiJS applications in React.

Features

• React v17 and v18 support
• PixiJS v8 support

Getting Started

Quick Start

If you want to start a new React project from scratch then we recommend Create React App, but Pixi React should work with any React application (Remix, Next.js, etc). To add to an existing React application, just install the dependencies:

Install Pixi React Dependencies

npm install pixi.js@^8.2.1 @pixi/react@beta

Pixie React Usage

import {
  Application,
  extend,
} from '@pixi/react'
import {
  Container,
  Graphics,
} from 'pixi.js'
import { useCallback } from 'react'

extend({
  Container,
  Graphics,
})

const MyComponent = () => {
  const drawCallback = useCallback(graphics => {
    graphics.clear()
    graphics.setFillStyle({ color: 'red' })
    graphics.rect(0, 0, 100, 100)
    graphics.fill()
  }, [])

  return (
    <Application>
      <container x={100} y={100}>
        <graphics draw={drawCallback} />
      </container>
    </Application>
  )
}

Docs

extend

One of the most important concepts to understand with Pixi React v8 is extend. Normally, Pixi React would have to import all pf Pixi.js to be able to provide the full library as JSX components. Instead, we use an internal catalogue of components populated by the extend API. This allows you to define exactly which parts of Pixi.js you want to import, keeping your bundle sizes small.

To allow Pixi React to use a Pixi.js component, pass it to the extend API:

import { Container } from 'pixi.js'
import { extend } from '@pixi/react'

extend({ Container })

const MyComponent = () => (
  <container />
)

[!CAUTION] Attempting to use components that haven't been passed to the extend API will result in errors.

Components

<Application>

The <Application> component is used to wrap your Pixi React app. The <Application> component can take all props that can be set on PIXI.Application.

Example Usage

import { Application } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  return (
    <Application
      autoStart
      sharedTicker />
  )
}

defaultTextStyle

defaultTextStyle is a convenience property. Whatever is passed will automatically be assigned to Pixi.js's TextStyle.defaultTextStyle.

[!NOTE] This property is not retroactive. It will only apply to text components created after defaultTextStyle is set. Any text components created before setting defaultTextStyle will retain the base styles they had before defaultTextStyle was changed.

extensions

extensions is an array of extensions to be loaded. Adding and removing items from this array will automatically load/unload the extensions. The first time this is handled happens before the application is initialised. See Pixi.js's extensions documentation for more info on extensions.

resizeTo

The <Application> component supports the resizeTo property, with some additional functionality: it can accept any HTML element or it can take a React ref directly.

import { Application } from '@pixi/react'
import { useRef } from 'react'
const MyComponent = () => {
  const parentRef = useRef(null)
  return (
    <div ref={parentRef}>
      <Application resizeTo={parentRef} />
    </div>
  )
}

Pixi Components

All other Pixi React components should be included in your IDE's intellisense/autocomplete once you've installed/imported @pixi/react. If it's exported from Pixi.js, it's supported as a component in Pixi React. The only difference is that Pixi React components will always start with lowercase characters. Here's a selection of commonly used components:

<container />
<graphics />
<sprite />
<animatedSprite />
<text />
<htmlText />

<graphics>

The graphics component has a special draw property. draw takes a callback which receives the Graphics context, allowing drawing to happen on every tick.

const MyComponent = () => {
  return (
    <graphics draw={graphics => {
      graphics.clear()
      graphics.setFillStyle({ color: 'red' })
      graphics.rect(0, 0, 100, 100)
      graphics.fill()
    }} />
  )
}

[!IMPORTANT] You may run into some components that conflict with others. For example, the <text> component conflicts with the <text> component that's built-in to React for use in SVGs. To address this issue, all components are available with the pixi prefix. For example, you can replace the <text> component with the <pixiText> component. It will have the same functionality with none of the collisions.

Custom Components

Pixi React supports custom components via the extend API. For example, you can create a <viewport> component using the pixi-viewport library:

import { extend } from '@pixi/react'
import { Viewport } from 'pixi-viewport'

extend({ Viewport })

const MyComponent = () => {
  <viewport>
    <container />
  </viewport>
}

For Typescript Users

If you're using Typescript, this new <viewport> component will throw type errors. Pixi React exports a PixiReactElementProps type that can be used to solve this. You'll need to pass the Viewport into PixiReactElementProps and inject it into JSX:

import { type PixiReactElementProps } from '@pixi/react'
import { type Viewport } from 'pixi-viewport'

declare global {
  namespace JSX {
    interface IntrinsicElements {
      viewport: PixiReactElementProps<typeof Viewport>;
    }
  }
}

Hooks

useApp

DEPRECATED. Use useApplication hook instead.

useApplication

useApplication allows access to the parent PIXI.Application created by the <Application> component. This hook will not work outside of an <Application> component. Additionally, the parent application is passed via React Context. This means useApplication will only work appropriately in child components, and in the same component that creates the <Application>.

For example, the following example useApplication will not be able to access the parent application:

import {
  Application,
  useApplication,
} from '@pixi/react'

const ParentComponent = () => {
  // This will cause an invariant violation.
  const { app } = useApplication()

  return (
    <Application />
  )
}

Here's a working example where useApplication will be able to access the parent application:

import {
  Application,
  useApplication,
} from '@pixi/react'

const ChildComponent = () => {
  const { app } = useApplication()

  console.log(app)

  return (
    <container />
  )
}

const ParentComponent = () => (
  <Application>
    <ChildComponent />
  </Application>
)

useAsset

DEPRECATED. Use useAssets or useSuspenseAssets instead.

useAssets

The useAssets hook wraps the functionality of Pixi's Asset loader and Cache into a convenient React hook. The hook can accept an array of items which are either an UnresolvedAsset or a url.

import { useAssets } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  const {
    assets: [
      bunnyTexture1,
      bunnyTexture2,
    ],
    isSuccess,
  } = useAssets([
    'https://pixijs.com/assets/bunny.png',
    {
      alias: 'bunny',
      src: 'https://pixijs.com/assets/bunny.png',
    }
  ])

  return (
    <container>
      {isSuccess && (
        <sprite texture={bunnyTexture}>
        <sprite texture={bunnyTexture2}>
      )}
    </container>
  )
}

Tracking Progress

useAssets can optionally accept a ProgressCallback as a second argument. This callback will be called by the asset loader as the asset is loaded.

const bunnyTexture = useAssets('https://pixijs.com/assets/bunny.png', progress => {
  console.log(`We have achieved ${progress * 100}% bunny.`)
})

useSuspenseAssets

useSuspenseAssets is similar to the useAssets hook, except that it supports React Suspense. useSuspenseAssets accepts the same parameters as useAssets, but it only returns an array of the loaded assets. This is because given a suspense boundary it's possible to prevent components from rendering until they've finished loading their assets.

import {
	Application,
	useSuspenseAssets,
} from '@pixi/react'

import { Suspense } from 'react'

const BunnySprite = () => {
	const [bunnyTexture] = useSuspenseAssets(['https://pixijs.com/assets/bunny.png'])

	return (
		<sprite texture={bunnyTexture} />
	)
}

const LoadingText = () => (
	<pixiText text={'Loading...'} />
)

const MyApp = () => (
	<Application>
		<Suspense fallback={<LoadingText />}>
			<BunnySprite />
		</Suspense>
	</Application>
)

useExtend

useExtend allows the extend API to be used as a React hook. Additionally, the useExtend hook is memoised, while the extend function is not.

import { Container } from 'pixi.js'
import { useExtend } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  useExtend({ Container })

  return (
    <container />
  )
}

useTick

useTick allows a callback to be attached to the Ticker on the parent application.

import { useTick } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  useTick(() => console.log('This will be logged on every tick'))
}

useTick optionally takes an options object. This allows control of all ticker.add options, as well as adding the isEnabled option. Setting isEnabled to false will cause the callback to be disabled until the argument is changed to true again.

import { useState } from 'react'
import { useTick } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  const [isEnabled, setIsEnabled] = useState(false)

  useTick(() => console.log('This will be logged on every tick as long as `isEnabled` is `true`'), )

  return (
    <sprite onClick={setIsEnabled(previousState => !previousState)}>
  )
}

[!CAUTION] The callback passed to useTick is not memoised. This can cause issues where your callback is being removed and added back to the ticker on every frame if you're mutating state in a component where useTick is using a non-memoised function. For example, this issue would affect the component below because we are mutating the state, causing the component to re-render constantly:

import { useState } from 'react'
import { useTick } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  useTick(() => setCount(previousCount => previousCount + 1))

  return null
}

This issue can be solved by memoising the callback passed to useTick:

import {
  useCallback,
  useState,
} from 'react'
import { useTick } from '@pixi/react'

const MyComponent = () => {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  const updateCount = useCallback(() => setCount(previousCount => previousCount + 1), [])

  useTick(updateCount)
}