Shadow Pixelation Issue in Three.js 0.182.0

Questions
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11

A bit late to the party, but I thought I’d chip in.

I use a lot of enums in meep and shade, here’s my approach to help the API user, here’s a real function from shade:


/**
 *
 * @param {ShadeMaterial[]} output Where the output goes
 * @param {number} output_offset Where to start writing
 * @param {TransparencyMode} alpha_mode
 * @param {ShadeDrawMode} draw_mode
 * @param {ShadeDrawSide} draw_side
 * @param {ShadeMaterial[]} materials inputs to filter
 * @param {number} count number of inputs to read
 * @returns {number} number of materials that were filtered
 */
export function filter_materials_by_bucket(
    output,
    output_offset,
    alpha_mode,
    draw_mode,
    draw_side,
    materials,
    count
) {
    assert.enum(alpha_mode, TransparencyMode, 'alpha_mode');
    assert.enum(draw_mode, ShadeDrawMode, 'draw_mode');
    assert.enum(draw_side, ShadeDrawSide, 'draw_side');
    assert.isNonNegativeInteger(count, 'count');
    assert.isArray(materials, 'materials');
    assert.isNonNegativeInteger(output_offset, 'output_offset');
    assert.isArray(output, 'output');
....

The let’s look at just one enum here, the TransparencyMode

assert.enum(alpha_mode, TransparencyMode, 'alpha_mode');

The enum is defined as

/**
 *
 * @enum {number}
 */
export const TransparencyMode = {
    Opaque: 0,
    AlphaTested: 1,
    /**
     * Blended
     */
    Transparent: 2,
}

So if the user supplies anything other than 0,1 or 2, they get an asertion error, let’s assume the user provided value 3, they would get an error:

alpha_mode(=3) is not a valid enumerable value, valid values are: [0, 1, 2]

Assertions can be compiled out, most packaging modules out there support those, here’s an example for vite:

// vite.config.js
import strip from '@rollup/plugin-strip';
export default defineConfig({
    plugins: [{ ...strip(), apply: 'build' }]
});

I remember when three.js used to do more input validation, with assertions you get best of both worlds - more validation and no production overhead.

It’s a different philosophy, but good error checking/messaing is a valuable thing in an API.

Well, there’s also TypeScript, but that’s for the weak of will

Just in case anyone find it confusing, the assertions here are from @woosh/meep-engine/src/core/assert