Newsletter – Issue 015

🔥 Headlines

🎙 The Interview with Steven Yau (yaustar) is out! Learn about the games industry from a veteran game developer who has worked for EA, King, and PlayCanvas at Snapchat. Steven shared his thoughts on the web games ecosystem, monetization, web engines, and more. Come find Steven and the rest of us on Discord!

Microsoft released Babylon.js 6.0! See the announcement article and video. The release includes Performance Priority modes that can produce up to 50x faster rendering and performance, fluid rendering, improved screen-space reflections, texture decals, new glTF extensions support, Node Material Ray Marching, new Tri-Planar and Bi-Planar nodes, and the v1 of the GUI Editor. But the feature that is getting the most attention is the integration of Havok, a physics engine that powers numerous AAA games. This Havok integration comes with a complete overhaul of the Babylon.js Physics API with Physics V2. Physics V2 performs up to 20x faster than V1, which is based on either Cannon.js, Oimo.js, or Ammo.js. Try Havok in the Playroom demo!

This is all fantastic news for Babylon.js users, but that doesn’t end there. Havok for the Web is also available as an MIT-licensed standalone Wasm library that can be used with any engine and is available on NPM with TypeScript typings! 😍 N8 already created a Three.js integration demo (repo) with 10.000 rigid bodies.

Chrome 113 is out of the beta channel and rolling out to stable, so WebGPU is now available to up-to-date Chrome users without any flag. Let the revolution begin! 🎉

🛠 Tools & Updates

• Three.js r152 – Includes the ColorManagement API enabled by default, a Rapier physics instancing example, and Node-based WebGPU backdrop and shadows. (changelog, migration guide).
• Drei v9.66 – Adds <Resize> by Antoine Bernier, which resizes your meshes to 1 via a boundary box while preserving proportions. It makes it easier to size models in your scene (demo).
• react-three-offscreen (repo) – Offscreen worker canvas for R3F by 0xca0a.
• react-three-next v2 by Renaud – Adds portal divs, synced DOM/3D views and events, App Router support.
• AutoFocusDOF (demo) for R3F by Anderson Mancini. Available in react-postprocessing 2.10.0.
• control-kit – Composable camera controls by Neftaly.
• TresJS 2.0.0-beta.11 – Adds abstractions like Levioso and Smoke. There is now a TresJS Twitter account.
• PlayCanvas – A brand new in-editor Asset Store with real-time previews.
• Phaser 3.60 – The last newsletter went out right before the announcement post was published!
• Phaser Editor 2D v3.60 is now out of beta.
• A-Frame v1.4.2 – Bug fixes and improvements.
• Needle 3.3.x – Screenspace UI and improved RectTransform support.

ion 3D Engine by Samrun – A new library for building 3D websites and VR experiences, powered by Three.js. It seems particularly useful to create 3D UIs for VR.

🤖 recast-navigation-js – A WebAssembly port of Recast Navigation with Three.js integration by Isaac Mason, bringing Recast’s navmesh generation, pathfinding, and crowd simulation to JavaScript (demo 1, demo 2).

🎾 Jolt Physics by Jorrit Rouwe reached v3.0.0 and is now available on NPM. Isaac Mason created a R3F demo.

📡 PartyKit, an early-access platform to build real-time apps and games deployed at the edge by Sunil Pai (creator of Glamor, ex-React core team), went open source.

And last but not least, WebGPU devtools (repo, Chrome extension) by takahiro.

🎬 Videos

• Build SimCity with Three.js (playlist) by Dan Does Dev
• Three.js Optimization - Best Practices and Techniques by Valentin Vannay
• How to Learn Three.js in 2023 by Visionary 3D
• Dynamic Character Controller With Three.js + Rapier by Visionary 3D
• Slider with masked images in Three.js by akella, based on this portfolio
• React Three Fiber Tutorial - Rapier Physics Engine by Wawa Sensei
• TresJS v2 beta - What’s hot? by Alvaro Sabu
• Babylon 6 Engine - Massive Update by Game From Scratch
• Phaser April 2023 Games Showcase by Richard Davey

✍️ Content

• How we built the Storybook Day 3D animation by Varun Vachhar
• 🎙 Three.js Monthly Talk - April 2023 with Anderson Mancini, N8, Palash Bansal and Prashant Sharma

🎮 Games

• BAPBAP by BAP HQ – A very polished MOBA Battle Royale game ⚔️
• Raccoon Retail by Pelican Party – Shoppers are making a mess in your raccoon supermarket! 🦝
• Nugget Royale by Pelican Party – Fight against other chickens to survive! 🐓
• Enion Online by Ertuğrul Çetin – Orcs vs Humans MMORPG in early access 🧙
• Threltemania by Grischa Erbe – TrackMania-inspired game to showcase the upcoming Threlte 6 🏎
• Rocket Bot Royale by Winter Pixel Games – A tank battle royale 2D game on Worms-like maps 🚀
• Ciabatta’s Revenge (video) by Drew Conley – DOM-based puzzle game about a bread corporation! 🥖

✨ Demos

• Hordes.io’s new login screen by dek (this is a test server, the live game is here) and map editor.
• Conundrum by Daniel Esteban
• Skydiving (demo) by Sébastien Lempens, uses a Blockade Labs skybox
• One, Stop, a new musical experience from A Number From the Ghost by Peter Adams
• Hand-drawn and pencil shaders by Will Maddicott
• WebGPU with React Three Fiber by Faraz
• Cyberpunk example project, available for free in the Cocos Store
• CSS-only checkbox games demo by Jamie Coulter – Check out his DOM-based games.
• Prototyping hex grids with line of sight by u/coque
• 🤖 Visualization of implementing bot AI by Rémi Vansteelandt for Earth’s Greatest Defender

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