react-three-renderer

react-three-renderer

Render into a three.js canvas using React.

Would you like to know more? See the wiki or go straight to the API documentation.

Live examples.

This is still an experimental and work in progress project, use at your own risk!

Installation

npm install --save react react-dom three
npm install --save react-three-renderer

Usage

The default export of the module is a react component. When mounted, any children of it will be placed into the three.js environment.

Here's a simple example that implements the getting started scene for three.js.

import React from 'react';
import React3 from 'react-three-renderer';
import THREE from 'three';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

class Simple extends React.Component {
  constructor(props, context) {
    super(props, context);

    // construct the position vector here, because if we use 'new' within render,
    // React will think that things have changed when they have not.
    this.cameraPosition = new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 5);

    this.state = {
      cubeRotation: new THREE.Euler(),
    };

    this._onAnimate = () => {
      // we will get this callback every frame

      // pretend cubeRotation is immutable.
      // this helps with updates and pure rendering.
      // React will be sure that the rotation has now updated.
      this.setState({
        cubeRotation: new THREE.Euler(
          this.state.cubeRotation.x + 0.1,
          this.state.cubeRotation.y + 0.1,
          0
        ),
      });
    };
  }

  render() {
    const width = window.innerWidth; // canvas width
    const height = window.innerHeight; // canvas height

    return (<React3
      mainCamera="camera" // this points to the perspectiveCamera which has the name set to "camera" below
      width={width}
      height={height}

      onAnimate={this._onAnimate}
    >
      <scene>
        <perspectiveCamera
          name="camera"
          fov={75}
          aspect={width / height}
          near={0.1}
          far={1000}

          position={this.cameraPosition}
        />
        <mesh
          rotation={this.state.cubeRotation}
        >
          <boxGeometry
            width={1}
            height={1}
            depth={1}
          />
          <meshBasicMaterial
            color={0x00ff00}
          />
        </mesh>
      </scene>
    </React3>);
  }
}

ReactDOM.render(<Simple/>, document.body);

To go further, follow the white rabbit.

Building

Fork and clone this repository, then do a npm install.

npm run compile produces es5 compatible code in the 'lib' directory.

You can use npm link or local npm install if you would like to play with your fork.

Testing

# make sure that you have run compile first
npm run compile
npm test

Currently it runs tests on Chrome, but other browser support can be added if necessary. More information on testing will be added here.

Influences

I have been heavily inspired by react-three by Izzimach.

After finding out about React 0.14, I have decided to see how someone would approach writing their own custom renderer.

This is the outcome of that curiosity.

Implementation Details

I have looked very deeply into how react-dom works. It is internally referred as ReactMount.

Starting from ReactMount#render, I duplicated the functionality, function by function, line by line.

Wherever the DOM was mentioned, I replaced them with generic equivalents.

I tried to point to existing functions as long as they were not corrupted by the DOM.

Then I wrote my own internal components, these are things like <span/>, <div/>, <table/>. Except, now they are <scene/>, <object3D/>, <mesh/>.

This way, you don't need to import a gazillion different modules.

Another benefit is that it allows me to make things super fast and not depend on composite components at all!

In effect, a <scene/> has the same effort, and similar effects as creating a <div/>.

TODO

• More Documentation
• More Testing
• More examples
• More Performance optimizations
• Implement rest of three.js library ( See #2 )
• Make it generic and allow the world to create their own custom react renderers!
  • It's not that hard, trust me ;)