Why doesn't GLTFExporter support ShaderMaterials?

Questions
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1

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to export GLTF files in three.js, but all my meshes are using ShaderMateraials and GLTFExporter doesn’t support them.

I would like to know the reasons why this specific material is not supported in order to find an alternative to my problem.

If I can’t fix it via WebGL (Three.js) I was wondering if I could do the exportation using OpenGL, does that make sense? Do you think It may be possible?

Thanks!
J.

2

glTF has a material specification whereas ShaderMaterials represent custom and thus arbitrary shader code. This code can’t be just exported to glTF and no other 3D standard.

No. three.js is a WebGL engine. OpenGL is totally unrelated.

3

Hi Mugen, thanks for your answer!

So, what alternative do you recommend to export a scene with ShaderMaterials in gltf file? Or can not be done in any way?

4

The only way to retain shader materials is the usage of the three.js JSON format. You can produce this format by using calling scene.toJSON();. The resulting JSON can be loaded via ObjectLoader.

5

Hi,

Thanks! Seems that the JSON file is exporting well, but when I try to load the resulting JSON, I have the following error:

THREE.ObjectLoader: You have to import LegacyJSONLoader in order load geometry data of type “Geometry”.

I saw that LegacyJSONLoader is now removed, what can I do?

6

The idea is to use BufferGeometry.

7

Hi Mugen,
The exportation with JSON seems to work fine for me, but it is huge in size in my model. There’s a way to export the ShaderMaterial (vertex+fragment) and the OBJ Model and then load this data?

Thank you!