What is pixi.js?
Pixi.js is a fast 2D rendering engine that uses WebGL and HTML5 Canvas to create interactive graphics and animations. It is widely used for creating games, interactive applications, and other visual content on the web.
What are pixi.js's main functionalities?
Creating a Basic Application
This code initializes a new Pixi.js application with a specified width and height, and appends the canvas element to the document body.
const app = new PIXI.Application({ width: 800, height: 600 });
document.body.appendChild(app.view);
Loading and Displaying a Sprite
This code loads an image and creates a sprite from it. The sprite is then positioned at the center of the canvas and added to the stage.
PIXI.Loader.shared.add('bunny', 'path/to/bunny.png').load((loader, resources) => {
const bunny = new PIXI.Sprite(resources.bunny.texture);
bunny.x = app.renderer.width / 2;
bunny.y = app.renderer.height / 2;
bunny.anchor.set(0.5);
app.stage.addChild(bunny);
});
Animating a Sprite
This code adds an animation loop that rotates the sprite continuously. The `delta` parameter ensures smooth animation regardless of the frame rate.
app.ticker.add((delta) => {
bunny.rotation += 0.1 * delta;
});
Creating Graphics
This code creates a new graphics object, draws a filled rectangle, and adds it to the stage.
const graphics = new PIXI.Graphics();
graphics.beginFill(0xDE3249);
graphics.drawRect(50, 50, 100, 100);
graphics.endFill();
app.stage.addChild(graphics);
Other packages similar to pixi.js
three
Three.js is a popular 3D library that provides a wide range of features for creating 3D graphics and animations. While Pixi.js focuses on 2D rendering, Three.js is more suitable for complex 3D scenes and visualizations.
phaser
Phaser is a fast, robust, and versatile game framework that supports both 2D and 3D rendering. It is more game-oriented compared to Pixi.js, offering built-in physics, input handling, and other game development features.
konva
Konva is a 2D canvas library that provides a high-level API for creating complex shapes, animations, and interactions. It is similar to Pixi.js but focuses more on ease of use and simplicity for creating interactive graphics.
PixiJS — The HTML5 Creation Engine
The aim of this project is to provide a fast lightweight 2D library that works
across all devices. The PixiJS renderer allows everyone to enjoy the power of
hardware acceleration without prior knowledge of WebGL. Also, it's fast. Really fast.
If you want to keep up to date with the latest PixiJS news then feel free to follow us on twitter
(@doormat23, @rolnaaba, @bigtimebuddy, @ivanpopelyshev)
and we will keep you posted! You can also check back on our site
as any breakthroughs will be posted up there too!
Your support helps us make PixiJS even better. Make your pledge on Patreon and we'll love you forever!
What to Use PixiJS for and When to Use It
PixiJS is a rendering library that will allow you to create rich, interactive graphics, cross platform applications, and games without having to dive into the WebGL API or deal with browser and device compatibility.
PixiJS has full WebGL support and seamlessly falls back to HTML5's canvas if needed. As a framework, PixiJS is a fantastic tool for authoring interactive content, especially with the move away from Adobe Flash in recent years. Use it for your graphics rich, interactive websites, applications, and HTML5 games. Out of the box cross-platform compatibility and graceful degradation mean you have less work to do and have more fun doing it! If you want to create polished and refined experiences relatively quickly, without delving into dense, low level code, all while avoiding the headaches of browser inconsistencies, then sprinkle your next project with some PixiJS magic!
Boost your development and feel free to use your imagination!
Learn
- Website: Find out more about PixiJS on the offical website.
- Getting started: Check out @kittykatattack's comprehensive tutorial.
- Examples: Get stuck right in and play around with PixiJS code and features right here!
- Docs: Get to know the PixiJS API by checking out the docs.
- Wiki: Other misc tutorials and resources are on the Wiki.
- Forums: Check out the forum and Stackoverflow, both friendly places to ask your pixi questions.
- Inspiration: Check out the gallery to see some of the amazing things people have created!
- Chat: You can join us on Gitter To chat about PixiJS. We also now have a Slack channel. If you would like to join it please Send me an email (mat@goodboydigital.com) and I will invite you in.
Setup
It's easy to get started with PixiJS! Simply download a prebuilt build!
Alternatively, PixiJS can be installed with npm or simply using a content delivery network (CDN) URL to embed PixiJS directly on your HTML page.
Note: After v4.5.0, support for the Bower package manager has been dropped. Please see the release notes for more information.
NPM Install
$> npm install pixi.js
CDN Install (via cdnjs)
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/pixi.js/4.5.1/pixi.min.js"></script>
Note: 4.5.1
can be replaced by any released version.
Demos
Thanks to @photonstorm for providing
those last 2 examples and allowing us to share the source code :)
Contribute
Want to be part of the PixiJS project? Great! All are welcome! We will get there quicker
together :) Whether you find a bug, have a great feature request or you fancy owning a task
from the road map above feel free to get in touch.
Make sure to read the Contributing Guide
before submitting changes.
Current features
- WebGL renderer (with automatic smart batching allowing for REALLY fast performance)
- Canvas renderer (Fastest in town!)
- Full scene graph
- Super easy to use API (similar to the flash display list API)
- Support for texture atlases
- Asset loader / sprite sheet loader
- Auto-detect which renderer should be used
- Full Mouse and Multi-touch Interaction
- Text
- BitmapFont text
- Multiline Text
- Render Texture
- Primitive Drawing
- Masking
- Filters
- User Plugins
Basic Usage Example
const app = new PIXI.Application();
document.body.appendChild(app.view);
PIXI.loader.add('bunny', 'bunny.png').load((loader, resources) => {
const bunny = new PIXI.Sprite(resources.bunny.texture);
bunny.x = app.renderer.width / 2;
bunny.y = app.renderer.height / 2;
bunny.anchor.x = 0.5;
bunny.anchor.y = 0.5;
app.stage.addChild(bunny);
app.ticker.add(() => {
bunny.rotation += 0.01;
});
});
How to build
Note that for most users you don't need to build this project. If all you want is to use PixiJS, then
just download one of our prebuilt releases. Really
the only time you should need to build PixiJS is if you are developing it.
If you don't already have Node.js and NPM, go install them. Then, in the folder where you have cloned
the repository, install the build dependencies using npm:
$> npm install
Then, to build the source, run:
$> npm run dist
This will create a minified version at dist/pixi.min.js
and a non-minified version at dist/pixi.js
with all the plugins in the PixiJS project.
If there are specific plugins you don't want, say "interaction" or "extras", you can exclude those:
$> npm run dist -- --exclude extras --exclude interaction
You can also use the short-form -e
:
$> npm run dist -- -e extras -e interaction -e filters
How to generate the documentation
The docs can be generated using npm:
$> npm run docs
The documentation uses Jaguar.js and the jsdoc format, the configuration file can be found at scripts/jsdoc.conf.json
License
This content is released under the (http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) MIT License.