threejs-lighting

What problem does it solve?

This skill provides a concise, practical guide to implementing robust lighting in Three.js, covering ambient, directional, point, spot, and area lights, along with shadows and environment lighting.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Comprehensive light types: explains when and how to use AmbientLight, HemisphereLight, DirectionalLight, PointLight, SpotLight, and RectAreaLight to shape scene mood and realism.
• Shadows & performance: guidance on enabling shadows, shadow map sizes, bias, and frustum tuning to balance visual quality and rendering cost.
• Environment lighting: techniques for Image-Based Lighting (IBL) with HDR environments, PMREM generation, and optional background usage.
• Helpers & debugging: tips on using light helpers to visualize light influence and diagnose scene lighting.
• Production patterns: best practices for scalable lighting setups, including layer-based lighting and organized scene illumination.

Quick Start

Create a basic lighting setup in a Three.js scene:

• Import Three.js
• Create a scene and renderer with shadow mapping enabled
• Add ambient and directional lights, enabling shadows on the latter
• Start a render loop to observe lighting changes Example: import * as THREE from 'three'; const scene = new THREE.Scene(); const ambient = new THREE.AmbientLight(0xffffff, 0.5); scene.add(ambient); const dirLight = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xffffff, 1); dirLight.position.set(5, 5, 5); dirLight.castShadow = true; scene.add(dirLight); // ... continue with camera, renderer, and animation loop