Author: Amal V K Das

Large 3D maps, open-world scenes, and VR environments often suffer from floating-point precision issues when the player moves far from (0,0,0). This causes jitter, shaky physics, inaccurate raycasting, and unstable VR tracking. A Floating Origin System solves this by keeping the player near the origin and shifting the world instead. Core Idea Without Floating Origin… Continue reading Floating Origin System: Precision for Large Three.js Worlds

In large-scale 3D environments, especially open-world or VR/WebXR scenes, tracking player interactions and generating world effects like vegetation placement can become performance-intensive. Traditional methods, such as per-frame raycasting to determine ground contact or placement zones, quickly degrade performance with large terrains or multiple dynamic elements. A THREE.DataTexture provides an efficient alternative — storing environmental or… Continue reading DataTexture Mapping: Optimizing Player Tracking and Procedural Grass Placement

Physics simulations in real-time 3D experiences depend on discrete time steps to update motion, collisions, and forces. When objects move too far between frames—due to frame drops, high velocities, or gravity—they may pass through solid surfaces without registering a collision. This issue is known as tunneling. Substepping addresses this by splitting each frame’s physics update… Continue reading Substepping: Reducing Character Tunneling

Lighting and shadows define mood, depth, and realism in 3D experiences, but they can also be performance bottlenecks—especially in WebXR and browser-based environments. Three.js provides multiple lighting techniques, ranging from baked lightmaps to real-time dynamic shadows. Balancing realism with performance is key to creating immersive yet smooth-running applications. By combining efficient shadow techniques, light probes,… Continue reading Real-Time Lighting and Shadow Optimization in Three.js

Description: In large-scale 3D experiences—such as virtual open worlds, learning platforms simulating geography, or nature-based games—handcrafting every detail becomes impractical. Procedural generation empowers developers to algorithmically create terrains, landscapes, and objects dynamically at runtime. By using height maps, noise functions, and GPU-accelerated techniques, Three.js can render complex, high-detail terrain with smooth performance, even in WebXR.… Continue reading Procedural World Generation and Terrain Rendering in Three.js

Description: In immersive WebXR experiences like simulations, sci-fi learning environments, or natural ecosystems, visual feedback plays a major role. Particle systems—used for effects like fire, smoke, dust, magic, electricity, or even swarm behaviors—can become performance bottlenecks if CPU-bound. Three.js, combined with GPU-based computations, enables real-time visual effects by offloading heavy tasks to the GPU using… Continue reading GPU-Driven Particle Systems and Visual Effects in Three.js

Description: Three.js does not have built-in physics, but can integrate seamlessly with libraries like: Cannon.js / cannon-es (lightweight, good for rigid bodies and VR). Ammo.js (Bullet-based, accurate but heavier). Rapier.js (WASM-based, high performance for complex interactions). Physics simulation includes rigid bodies, constraints, raycasting, vehicle physics, collision detection, and more. When integrating physics: Use THREE.BufferGeometryUtils.mergeVertices() for… Continue reading Physics Integration in Three.js: Canon.js, Rapier.js, Ammo.js

Description: Lighting is key to realism. In Three.js, real-time lighting can be achieved via a mix of techniques: Light Probes (LightProbe & SH Coefficients): Low-cost ambient light sampling. Baked Lighting (via Blender/3D Tool): Precomputed light stored in texture maps, used for static scenes. Image-Based Lighting (IBL): Uses HDR environment maps for reflections and soft lighting.… Continue reading Real-Time Lighting Techniques: Light Probes, Baked Lighting, and IBL

Description: In large scenes, such as virtual campuses or open-world levels, performance becomes a key concern. Three.js provides multiple strategies to manage performance: Level of Detail (LOD): Load different geometries depending on the camera’s distance from the object. InstancedMesh: Share a single geometry and material across thousands of objects (e.g., trees, bricks, etc.). Frustum Culling:… Continue reading Optimized Scene Management with LOD, Instancing, and Culling

Description: Effect Composer in Three.js is a powerful tool that allows stacking and managing post-processing effects in a pipeline. It works by rendering the scene to a framebuffer and then applying a series of shader-based passes (like UnrealBloomPass, SSAO, FXAA, GlitchPass, DotScreenPass, etc.) on the rendered image, rather than directly to the screen. This decouples… Continue reading Advanced Post-Processing with EffectComposer