react-three-fiber

react-three-fiber is a React reconciler for Threejs on the web and react-native.

npm install three react-three-fiber

These demos are real, you can click them! They contain the full code, too.

Why?

Building dynamic scene graphs declaratively with re-usable components makes dealing with Threejs easier and brings order and sanity to your codebase. These components react to state changes, are interactive out of the box and can tap into React's infinite ecosystem.

Does it have limitations?

None. Everything that works in Threejs will work here. In contrast to "bindings" where a library ships/maintains dozens of wrapper components, it just reconciles JSX to Threejs dynamically: <mesh /> simply is another expression for new THREE.Mesh(). It does not know or target a specific Threejs version nor does it need updates for modified, added or removed upstream features.

Is it slower than raw Threejs?

No. Rendering performance is up to Threejs and the GPU. Components may participate in the renderloop outside of React, without any additional overhead. React is otherwise very efficient in building and managing component-trees, it could potentially outperform manual/imperative apps at scale.

What does it look like?

Let's make a re-usable component that has its own state, reacts to user-input and participates in the render-loop. (live demo).

import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'
import React, { useRef, useState } from 'react'
import { Canvas, useFrame } from 'react-three-fiber'

function Box(props) {
  // This reference will give us direct access to the mesh
  const mesh = useRef()

  // Set up state for the hovered and active state
  const [hovered, setHover] = useState(false)
  const [active, setActive] = useState(false)

  // Rotate mesh every frame, this is outside of React without overhead
  useFrame(() => (mesh.current.rotation.x = mesh.current.rotation.y += 0.01))

  return (
    <mesh
      {...props}
      ref={mesh}
      scale={active ? [1.5, 1.5, 1.5] : [1, 1, 1]}
      onClick={(e) => setActive(!active)}
      onPointerOver={(e) => setHover(true)}
      onPointerOut={(e) => setHover(false)}>
      <boxBufferGeometry attach="geometry" args={[1, 1, 1]} />
      <meshStandardMaterial attach="material" color={hovered ? 'hotpink' : 'orange'} />
    </mesh>
  )
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <Canvas>
    <ambientLight />
    <pointLight position={[10, 10, 10]} />
    <Box position={[-1.2, 0, 0]} />
    <Box position={[1.2, 0, 0]} />
  </Canvas>,
  document.getElementById('root')
)

API

Eco system

🌭 drei, useful helpers for react-three-fiber
💣 use-cannon, physics based hooks
🤳 react-xr, VR/AR controllers and events
🎮 gltfjsx, turns GLTFs into JSX components
🐻 zustand, state management
✌️ react-spring, a spring-physics-based animation library
👇 react-use-gesture, mouse/touch gestures
🧪 react-three-gui, GUI/debug tools

News, updates, community

@0xca0a's twitter
github discussions

How to contribute

If you like this project, please consider helping out. All contributions are welcome as well as donations to Opencollective, or in crypto BTC: 36fuguTPxGCNnYZSRdgdh6Ea94brCAjMbH, ETH: 0x6E3f79Ea1d0dcedeb33D3fC6c34d2B1f156F2682.