@pmndrs/vanilla

A growing collection of useful helpers and fully functional, ready-made abstractions for Threejs. If you make a component that is generic enough to be useful to others, think about making it available here through a PR!

Storybook demos

Storybook code available under .storybook/stories

npm install @pmndrs/vanilla

Basic usage:

import { pcss, ... } from '@pmndrs/vanilla'

Index

Shaders pcss

Materials MeshReflectorMaterial shaderMaterial MeshDiscardMaterial MeshTransmissionMaterial SpotLight Staging AccumulativeShadows Caustics Gizmos Grid

Shaders

pcss

type SoftShadowsProps = {
  /** Size of the light source (the larger the softer the light), default: 25 */
  size?: number
  /** Number of samples (more samples less noise but more expensive), default: 10 */
  samples?: number
  /** Depth focus, use it to shift the focal point (where the shadow is the sharpest), default: 0 (the beginning) */
  focus?: number
}

Injects percent closer soft shadows (pcss) into threes shader chunk.

// Inject pcss into the shader chunk
const reset = pcss({ size: 25, samples: 10, focus: 0 })

The function returns a reset function that can be used to remove the pcss from the shader chunk.

// Remove pcss from the shader chunk, and reset the scene
reset(renderer, scene, camera)

Materials

shaderMaterial

Creates a THREE.ShaderMaterial for you with easier handling of uniforms, which are automatically declared as setter/getters on the object and allowed as constructor arguments.

const ColorShiftMaterial = shaderMaterial(
  { time: 0, color: new THREE.Color(0.2, 0.0, 0.1) },
  // vertex shader
  /*glsl*/ `
    varying vec2 vUv;
    void main() {
      vUv = uv;
      gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0);
    }
  `,
  // fragment shader
  /*glsl*/ `
    uniform float time;
    uniform vec3 color;
    varying vec2 vUv;
    void main() {
      gl_FragColor.rgba = vec4(0.5 + 0.3 * sin(vUv.yxx + time) + color, 1.0);
    }
  `
)

const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, new ColorShiftMaterial())

TypeScript usage

Uniform types can be inferred from the uniforms argument or passed as a generic type argument.

  type MyMaterialProps = {
    time: number,
    color: THREE.Color,
    map: THREE.Texture | null
  }

  const MyMaterial = shaderMaterial<MyMaterialProps>(
    {
      time: 0,
      color: new THREE.Color(0.2, 0.0, 0.1)
      map: null
    },
    vertexShader,
    fragmentShader
  )

  const material = new MyMaterial()
  material.time
        // ^? (property) time: number

MeshDiscardMaterial

A material that discards fragments. It can be used to render nothing efficiently, but still have a mesh in the scene graph that throws shadows and can be raycast.

const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, new MeshDiscardMaterial())

MeshTransmissionMaterial

An improved THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial. It acts like a normal PhysicalMaterial in terms of transmission support, thickness, ior, roughness, etc., but has chromatic aberration, noise-based roughness blur, (primitive) anisotropicBlur support, and unlike the original it can "see" other transmissive or transparent objects which leads to improved visuals.

Although it should be faster than MPM keep in mind that it can still be expensive as it causes an additional render pass of the scene. Low samples and low resolution will make it faster. If you use roughness consider using a tiny resolution, for instance 32x32 pixels, it will still look good but perform much faster.

For performance and visual reasons the host mesh gets removed from the render-stack temporarily. If you have other objects that you don't want to see reflected in the material just add them to the parent mesh as children.

export type MeshTransmissionMaterialProps = {
  /* Transmission, default: 1 */
  _transmission?: number
  /* Thickness (refraction), default: 0 */
  thickness?: number
  /* Roughness (blur), default: 0 */
  roughness?: number
  /* Chromatic aberration, default: 0.03 */
  chromaticAberration?: number
  /* AnisotropicBlur, default: 0.1 */
  anisotropicBlur?: number
  /* Distortion, default: 0 */
  distortion?: number
  /* Distortion scale, default: 0.5 */
  distortionScale: number
  /* Temporal distortion (speed of movement), default: 0.0 */
  temporalDistortion: number
}

const material = new MeshTransmissionMaterial({
  _transmission: 1,
  thickness: 0,
  roughness: 0,
  chromaticAberration: 0.03,
  anisotropicBlur: 0.1,
  distortion: 0,
  distortionScale: 0.5,
  temporalDistortion: 0.0,
})

SpotLight

A Volumetric spotlight.

const material = new SpotLightMaterial({
  opacity: 1, // volume shader opacity
  attenuation: 2.5, // how far the volume will travel
  anglePower: 12, // volume edge fade
  spotPosition: new Vector3(0, 0, 0), // spotlight's world position
  lightColor: new Color('white'), // volume color

  cameraNear: 0, // for depth
  cameraFar: 1, // for depth
  depth: null, // for depth , add depthTexture here
  resolution: new Vector2(0, 0), // for depth , set viewport/canvas resolution here
})

Optionally you can provide a depth-buffer which converts the spotlight into a soft particle.

MeshReflectorMaterial

Easily add reflections and/or blur to any mesh. It takes surface roughness into account for a more realistic effect. This material extends from THREE.MeshStandardMaterial and accepts all its props.

 AccumulativeShadows

A planar, Y-up oriented shadow-catcher that can accumulate into soft shadows and has zero performance impact after all frames have accumulated. It can be temporal, it will accumulate over time, or instantaneous, which might be expensive depending on how many frames you render.

Refer to storybook code on how to use & what each variable does

Caustics

drei counterpart

Caustics are swirls of light that appear when light passes through transmissive surfaces. This component uses a raymarching technique to project caustics onto a catcher plane. It is based on github/N8python/caustics.

type CausticsProps =  {
  /** How many frames it will render, set it to Infinity for runtime, default: 1 */
  frames?: number
  /** Will display caustics only and skip the models, default: false */
  causticsOnly: boolean
  /** Will include back faces and enable the backsideIOR prop, default: false */
  backside: boolean
  /** The IOR refraction index, default: 1.1 */
  ior?: number
  /** The IOR refraction index for back faces (only available when backside is enabled), default: 1.1 */
  backsideIOR?: number
  /** The texel size, default: 0.3125 */
  worldRadius?: number
  /** Intensity of the projected caustics, default: 0.05 */
  intensity?: number
  /** Caustics color, default: THREE.Color('white') */
  color?: THREE.Color
  /** Buffer resolution, default: 2048 */
  resolution?: number
  /** Caustics camera position, it will point towards the contents bounds center, default: THREE.Vector3(5,5,5) */
  lightSource?: <THREE.Vector3>| <THREE.Object3D>
  /** Caustics camera far, when 0 its automatically computed in render loop, default: 0 .Use this if the auto computed value looks incorrect(Happens in very small models)*/
  far?: number
}

It will create a transparent plane that blends the caustics of the objects it receives into your scene. It will only render once and not take resources any longer!

Make sure to configure the props above as some can be micro fractional depending on the models (intensity, worldRadius, ior and backsideIOR especially).

The light source can either be defined by Vector3 or by an object3d. Use the latter if you want to control the light source, for instance in order to move or animate it. Runtime caustics with frames set to Infinity, a low resolution and no backside can be feasible.

let caustics = Caustics(renderer, {
  frames: Infinity,
  resolution: 1024,
  worldRadius: 0.3,
  ...
})

scene.add(caustics.group) // add caustics group to your scene

caustics.scene.add(yourMesh) // add the mesh you want caustics from into the 'caustics scene'

// call the update() method in your animate loop for runtime (frames=Infinity case) else call it just once to compute the caustics
caustics.update()

// to see the camera helper
caustics.scene.add(caustics.helper)

Caustics function returns the following

export type CausticsType = {
  scene: THREE.Scene // internal caustics scene
  group: THREE.Group // group for user to add into your scene
  helper: THREE.CameraHelper // helper to visualize the caustics camera
  params: CausticsProps // all properties from CausticsProps
  update: () => void // function to render the caustics output

  //internally used render targets
  normalTarget: THREE.WebGLRenderTarget
  normalTargetB: THREE.WebGLRenderTarget
  causticsTarget: THREE.WebGLRenderTarget
  causticsTargetB: THREE.WebGLRenderTarget
}

Grid

drei counterpart

A y-up oriented, shader-based grid implementation.

export type GridProps = {
  /** plane-geometry size, default: [1,1] */
  args?: Array<number>
  /** Cell size, default: 0.5 */
  cellSize?: number
  /** Cell thickness, default: 0.5 */
  cellThickness?: number
  /** Cell color, default: black */
  cellColor?: THREE.ColorRepresentation
  /** Section size, default: 1 */
  sectionSize?: number
  /** Section thickness, default: 1 */
  sectionThickness?: number
  /** Section color, default: #2080ff */
  sectionColor?: THREE.ColorRepresentation
  /** Follow camera, default: false */
  followCamera?: boolean
  /** Display the grid infinitely, default: false */
  infiniteGrid?: boolean
  /** Fade distance, default: 100 */
  fadeDistance?: number
  /** Fade strength, default: 1 */
  fadeStrength?: number
}

Usage

grid = Grid({
  args: [10.5, 10.5],
  cellSize: 0.6,
  cellThickness: 1,
  cellColor: new THREE.Color('#6f6f6f'),
  sectionSize: 3.3,
  sectionThickness: 1.5,
  sectionColor: new THREE.Color('#9d4b4b'),
  fadeDistance: 25,
  fadeStrength: 1,
  followCamera: false,
  infiniteGrid: true,
})

scene.add(grid.mesh)

// call in animate loop
grid.update(camera)

Grid function returns the following

export type GridType = {
  /* Mesh with gridMaterial to add to your scene  */
  mesh: THREE.Mesh
  /* Call in animate loop to update grid w.r.t camera */
  update: (camera: THREE.Camera) => void
}