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Babylon.js, webpack and es6 modules

A Babylon.js sample project using typescript, latest babylon.js es6 core module, webpack 4 with webpack dev server, hot loading, eslint, vscode support and more.

Before getting started

This is a basic demo using Babylon's core module only. It is based on the Getting started guide at the documentation page. A lot of the engine's features are not covered here. I will slowly add more and more projects and more examples.

If you have any questions, you are very much invited to the Babylon.js forum where I am hanging around almost daily.

Getting started

To run the basic scene:

  1. Clone / download this repository
  2. run npm install to install the needed dependencies.
  3. run npm start
  4. A new window should open in your default browser. if it doesn't, open http://localhost:8080
  5. ????
  6. Profit

Running npm start will start the webpack dev server with hot-reloading turned on. Open your favorite editor (mine is VSCode, but you can use nano. we don't discriminate) and start editing.

The entry point for the entire TypeScript application is ./src/index.ts. Any other file imported in this file will be included in the build.

To debug, open the browser's dev tool. Source maps are ready to be used. In case you are using VSCode, simply run the default debugger task (Launch Chrome against localhost) while making sure npm start is still running. This will allow you to debug your application straight in your editor.

Loading different examples

The ./src/scenes directory contains a few examples of scenes that can be loaded. To load a different scene change the import in ./src/createScene.ts to the scene you want to load.

More and more scenes will be slowly added.

Note - the build process will be very slow if you keep all scenes for production. To speed up the build process, remove all scenes except for the one you want to build.

WebGPU? yes please

Open the URL in a webgpu-enabled browser and add "?engine=webgpu" to the URL. If you want to add a different scene, add it as a query parameter: http://localhost:8080/?scene=physicsWithAmmo&engine=webgpu.

Running validation tests

It is possible to run validation tests to the scenes using playwright. To run the tests, run npm run test:visuals. This will run the tests in headless mode. To configure the tests see the /tests/ directory, and the validation.spec.ts file.

To generate the snapshots after adjusting the tests you can run npm run test:visuals -- --update-snapshots. This will auto-generate the snapshots for the tests.

Unit tests

To run the unit tests, run npm run test:unit. This will run the tests in headless mode. To add new tests, add a file anywhere in the source folder, called FILENAME.unit.spec.ts. The tests will be automatically picked up by jest.

What else can I do

To lint your source code run npm run lint

To build the bundle in order to host it, run npm run build. This will bundle your code in production mode, meaning is will minify the code.

Building will take some time, as it will build each sample (and create a different module for each). If you want to speed up the process, define the scene you want to render in createScene.ts (you can see the comment there)

What is this

That's an abstract question! What is which one of those wonderful things?

Babylon.js is the world's leading WebGL engine that starts with a 'b'. You should give it a try and leave those other numbers and letters behind. To read more about it and see some amazing samples, go to the Babylon.js website, Babylon's Playground or Babylon's documentation.

The rest? You should know already, this is why you are here.

What is covered

It takes too long to build

To speed up production build time remove all of the scenes except for the one you want to build. This project is meant as a way to show different ways to use Babylon.js and not as a way to efficiently build a production-ready application.