What is three.js?

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Hey @Fyrestar,

I get what you’re saying. I don’t mean to say that three.js is :poop:

I like it, heck, I wouldn’t have picked it or kept using it as the rendering backend for my game engine.

What I am saying is - I am confused, and I have been confused for a very long time. What is three.js has as its goal?

Because that matters. What is git? What is Unity? What is a llama? - those things are pretty clear in my head. Three.js - I know what it has, but I have no idea what the core maintainers see it as, and what direction this ship is sailing. And you know what? Having invested a ton of time into it - it makes me worried.

Have you ever gotten onto a long-haul flight with no knowledge of the exact destination when you really needed to be somewhere specific? Well, I feel I have.

I have raised a bunch of issues on github over time, and I can see that some people share my views on what I perceive three.js as, but I also have gotten a distinct feeling through those discussions that @mrdoob and West don’t share my view. In a recent discussion, @Mugen87 stated:

TBH, I doubt that deferred rendering will ever be part of the engine’s core. The resources of the project are limited and there are a lot of other issues which have a higher priority.

I personally think that WebGL 2 as well as WebGPU are a bit overrated. You can already build great applications with the existing technologies. A way more important feature request than let’s say a WebGPURenderer is a more advanced scene editor .

Am I the sole arbiter of what three.js should be? - of course not. For that matter, I am not even trying to steer this ship. But statements like this give me pause. Because that’s really confusing. Based on that statement - I expect three.js to turn into a casual game engine, friendly to most newbies. Graphics quality is unimportant. Advanced feature-set is unimportant. Beyond that - it is not even seen as viable in the scope of three.js.

So… what is three.js? Or perhaps a better question is - what are the goals of the project, and what are the priorities?

Tell me, are you happy with the answer “it’s a 3d library” when you’re picking a graphics engine to use for the next 5 years? I’m not. I like three.js, but this lack of clarity in direction is most definitely not the reason why I like three.js.

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