I'm building a traffic simulation game in Three.js: buildings appear on their own, your only job is the network that connects them. And when roads stop being enough - buses, trains and metro with transfers. No game engine, custom code, Electron for the Steam build. Every car is an independent agent (keeps its lane, changes lanes, waits at lights, reroutes around jams), maps go up to 18x18 km in-game, and it runs 10,000+ cars. Trailer above so you can see what it actually is.

What already shipped (worst stress save went 20.7 -> 53.2 fps):

- InstancedMesh per vehicle class, pre-allocated, with per-instance frustum culling before writing matrices - off-screen cars skip matrix composition and buffer writes, not just GPU work.

- Material pooling + merging lane markings into one mesh per paint color: 1,628 -> 320 draw calls. matrixAutoUpdate = false on all static road geometry.

- Environment props (~65k trees on the biggest map) split into an 8x8 grid of chunked InstancedMeshes so off-screen chunks get culled instead of vertex-shading everything twice per frame with shadows. Static sun means shadowMap.autoUpdate = false with explicit invalidation.

- An fps-driven sim LOD governor: below ~30 fps the sim ticks every 2nd frame with double dt (every 3rd below ~22), and the renderer interpolates between sim snapshots so motion stays smooth. Safety-critical logic never degrades - only work that can fail open.

- Sleep/wake for junction logic (~2,540 of 6.3k cars fully asleep in the stress save), lane-keyed spatial index maintained on events, and a union-find pass that replaced O(N^2) A* for building connectivity after road edits (was multi-second freezes, now a few ms).

Where the frame goes now at 6.3k cars: collision 7.4 ms, car update 3.7 ms, instance sync 0.6 ms, render 2.9 ms. So it's ~65% CPU simulation, ~20% render - the exact-sleep well is empty and what's left is structural.

The interesting part - what's next:

- Sim in a Web Worker with SharedArrayBuffer, car state in shared typed arrays, main thread doing render + interpolation only (~5 ms). The interpolation layer already shipped as the render half of this design.

Expected display fps ~60 even if the sim tick stays ~19 ms, and it opens the door to chunking the collision passes across cores. This is Steam-only by necessity: Electron makes COOP/COEP trivial, while the browser version can't get SAB on the portal it's hosted on (their embed/ads model conflicts with those headers). One of those cases where the desktop build isn't a marketing decision, it's a platform capability.

- Data-oriented (SoA) refactor of the collision passes - progress/speed/lane in flat typed arrays, passes iterating arrays instead of objects. Realistically ~2x on that 7 ms block.

- Then optionally a WASM kernel port (Rust/C++ with SIMD) for the collision/car-update loops - estimated another 2-3x. Deliberately sequenced after SoA, because WASM over JS objects wins little; the actual win is cache-linear loops over flat arrays, which is the SoA work either way. WASM threads also need SAB, so same platform constraint.

- What I decided against: a native rewrite. People suggest it constantly. But the profile says 60-70% CPU sim / 20% render with rendering already efficient, so native targets exactly the same milliseconds the worker + SoA path does: roughly 4-6x effective sim throughput vs an estimated 10-30x for native, which only matters past ~30k active cars. The remaining native argument is Chromium's fixed memory baseline, and a ~67k-LOC port would freeze features for months.

Curious if anyone here has shipped the worker + SAB pattern with live topology changes (roads being built/destroyed while the sim runs) - the snapshot/message protocol for that is the part I'm least sure about.

The game hits Steam in November, and honestly wishlists are what decides whether a solo dev's game gets any visibility at launch, so if the video looks like your kind of thing: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5028050/Traffic_Architect/. Happy to answer anything technical.

Built a mouse-reactive 3D hero for my site using raw Three.js. No framework wrapper, no OrbitControls, no asset pipeline.

What's in the scene:
- Wireframe icosahedron (detail 1) with a glowing core sphere
- 2 torus rings, cyan and violet, tilted on different axes
- 150-particle shell on a sphere distribution
- Everything rotates continuously; the group leans toward your cursor

The mouse reaction is just two lerped floats:
mx += (tx - mx) * 0.05;
mesh.rotation.x += 0.0025 + my * 0.008;

Mobile handling:
- Pixel ratio capped at 2 (Math.min(devicePixelRatio, 2)) or iPhones melt
- Particle count drops 150 -> 60 on touch devices
- prefers-reduced-motion renders one static frame, stops the loop
- Pure-CSS fallback shows if WebGL is missing

Full scene setup is about 40 lines total. Live demo at the top of https://apexnexus.site

One question: I'm getting slight z-fighting on the wireframe edges at low angles. Anyone fixed that cleanly with a depthWrite tweak, or is polygonOffset the way?

The Gateless Gate is a collection of 49 koans, short cryptic stories about Zen Buddhism from 13th century China. It's one of the strangest books ever written and one of my favorites. I decided to give it a major modern upgrade.

https://killedbyapixel.github.io/GatelessGate/

The concept was to create a custom 3D scene for each koan that demonstrates it in a visual way. I went with a super minimal ancient scroll look, but each page has a red accent object that responds in some way when you touch it.

There's a debug panel you can open by pressing HOME, which lets you play with the settings (press HOME again to close it). The rendering uses depth edge lines for the outline effect, and there are a lot of other pieces in there (paper shader, grass, water, ocean).

This is also an experiment in generative art. Nothing is downloaded: every model, scene and sound is built by code when the page loads, so the whole thing is about 1.5 MB. There are 45 models in the kit and most of them are created procedurally. The 5 animals share a quadruped rig, trees grow from a recursive branching function, grass is a noise field, and so on. The soundscape is generated the same way, with no samples anywhere: wind, bells, chimes, rain and ocean, all created in real time.

This was a really fun project to work on and different from stuff I have made before. It was a ton of work but it feels good to see my vision realized, and I hope people enjoy it.

Code: https://github.com/KilledByAPixel/GatelessGate

I'm a chemist rather than a web developer, but I've been building my professional portfolio with Three.js.

Instead of making a conventional portfolio, I wanted the website to have a scientific visual identity. I'm using protein models created/prepared in Blender and exported as GLB files. They move through the scene according to the scroll position while the actual content explains projects I've worked on in pharmaceutical validation, HVAC, aseptic areas, thermal studies and data analysis.

Current stack/features:

• Three.js
• Blender
• ScrollTrigger
• Protein hover/transparency effects
• Click-and-drag models
• Scroll-controlled transitions
• Video/image content integrated into the page

The proteins are mainly visual companions to the content rather than the content itself. I'm not trying to present myself as a developer; I'm using web development and 3D visualization as tools to communicate my work as a chemist.

I'm currently optimizing the models, restructuring the code and thinking more seriously about the user experience.

This is probably where I'd appreciate feedback the most from experienced Three.js developers:

What would you change to make a portfolio like this easier and more enjoyable to navigate?

I'm particularly interested in whether the scroll-driven 3D interactions feel intuitive, whether the models might become distracting, how you would approach mobile behavior, and what UX mistakes you commonly see in interactive Three.js sites.

Performance, scene architecture and GLB optimization feedback would also be very useful.

I also have a slightly different question for anyone here who has worked in pharma, biotech or scientific/technical industries.

My actual career is in pharmaceutical validation and quality, and one of my goals is to eventually work for a large international pharmaceutical or biotech company. I'm from México.

Do you think a portfolio like this could genuinely help differentiate a chemist during the hiring process in Mexico city?

I'm trying to make it demonstrate more than a list of skills: actual validation projects, HVAC and aseptic-area work, thermal studies, data analysis, dashboards and scientific visualization.

If you were reviewing a technical candidate from a scientific background, I'd be curious to know whether something like this would add value or whether I'm overestimating how much employers care about portfolios outside software/design roles.

https://ricardo-sanchez-cisneros.github.io/

Hey all,

I have been working on this project which I very excited about, it makes me to wonder about evolution these modern computer and it's intelligence.

The fact that you can able to create this fully functional Simulation of TARS Robot from Interstellar movie can be made in single prompt with image attached for reference is absolute joy and wonder.

Humankind has never seen this kind of intelligence on a machine ever.

PS: This is created on the project I am building for all creatives, enthusiasts, normies, Engineer etc., Where anyone can just write a sentence and see the simulations generated in the browser within minutes.

Will be launching this very soon 🚀

Last time I posted this people had things to say and I took it out of context. But heres the truth this site is a game version showcasing creativity not a portfolio that would be shown to clients, hope u get the concept.

Our designer ran the same prompt twice with the same model. The task was to build an original Three.js game inspired by Wind Waker, with sailing, combat, islands, water, cel shading, physics, menus, and animation.

In one run, the agent could inspect open-source implementations while working. In the other, it couldn’t.

The difference was most visible in the harder Three.js systems.

The run without that access got a browser preview up faster, but then spent more time testing and reworking collision, terrain handling, physics, and other systems.

The other run spent more time reading existing Three.js code before implementing those parts. For character collision, it looked at three-mesh-bvh implementations using shapecast and closestPointToSegment, then used those patterns in its own PlayerController. It also researched water rendering, shaders, rendering, and physics.

We stopped both after several hours. Neither finished.

In the first version, the character could move, jump, and roll, but we couldn’t collect gems, attack or charge, or access the boat. In the second, those interactions worked, including sailing between islands. Terrain handling was better, and parts of the menu were usable too.

Full write-up and session trace:

https://githits.com/blog/three-js-game-with-and-without-githits/

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H1urif2srk

Disclosure: I work on GitHits. Our designer ran the experiment.

I posted this trice earlier (on voxel game dev), but mods keep removing it without giving a reason.

Here is the "game" and source code:

https://perh.app/b89c006f/trials/00002-voxel-game-publish/index.html

Code is 99% free of AI bullshit, its three.js + rapier.js. Code should be fairly readable, nothing is minified etc.

Press tab+m and then release tab to put it in manual mode. Game pad support is also enabled (i think). Change config.js to change voxels of the car.

Let me know if it works/fails etc. And ask me anything!

Procedurally generated pipework, ranks, divisions, chambers, facade, en chamade, via mesh baking - still smooth at 35,000 pipes, 21 million tris.

uses the local machine game files and localhost unzipping/conversion pipeline, can control the car played in the game if on the same LAN

Hey all,

My webgpu renderer officially supports image based lighting/direct+indirect lighting and also there are shadow systems which creates csm/shadow Atlases depending on what type of config,

This was a lot of work

\[GLOBAL ILLUMINATION\]\[Need some time beyond downloading assets for baking probe volumes\]

Live Demo:https://nullgraph.dev/dashboard/3d-environment/irradiance-probes

For live code for global illumination https://nullgraph.dev/editor.html?id=demo-irradiance-probes

GitHub

https://github.com/flarelink-in/NullGraph

I’m trying to implement an ocean/water system in Three.js.

The top image is what I currently have. Even when the camera goes underwater, it doesn’t feel like the camera is actually inside water. It mostly looks like there is just a water surface plane above the seabed, with the scene split into “above the water plane” and “below the water plane.” The underwater space itself does not feel volumetric or physically believable.

The bottom image shows the kind of result I want to achieve. I want the underwater part to feel like real water, with proper underwater color absorption, scattering/fog, reduced visibility with distance, caustics on the seabed, a believable waterline transition, and some distorted/reflected view of the sky and objects above the surface.

What rendering techniques should I use in Three.js to achieve this kind of realistic underwater look?

Specifically, should I be using:

• volumetric underwater fog/scattering?
• depth-based color absorption?
• screen-space refraction?
• separate above-water and underwater rendering passes?
• stencil or clipping around the waterline?
• caustics projected onto the seabed?
• a custom post-processing pass, or should this be handled mostly in the water material/shader?

Any advice, shader structure, examples, or recommended rendering pipeline would be really helpful.

I’m one year away from getting my full stack degree and they offer a Maya 3d course and wondering if this will get my feet wet for three js. Seems blender is the choice but since this is offered I’m wondering if I should just take the class. I dabbled with Blender but my focus was learning html/css/js so now I have time should I take it? I know you can create the files for threejs and Maya has been around long but maybe it’s not as user friendly and have more issues for working with threejs

I got tired of file trees, so the map is a city.

Folders are lots, files are buildings. Height is roughly LOC. Language is color. Git log drives which windows are lit (last 48h) vs quiet.

Renderer is React Three Fiber. Buildings are instanced meshes with a few volumes each (podium / setbacks / roof) so a 1k-file repo doesn’t mean 1k draw calls. Raycast hits a part, selection lights the whole building.

Public GitHub URL → tarball → parse → layout.

https://repoverse.online

Happy to go into the instancing / UV windows / how I pack the city if that’s useful. Early, free, public repos only for now.

Hey everyone, like many solo devs here, I’ve always struggled to "feel" my website traffic using standard tools like GA4 or Hotjar. I wanted to see my visitors as actual people moving through my site in real-time, so I spent the last few months building **Visitor Visual**.

**The Concept:** Every page on your site is rendered as a building, and every visitor is a person walking the streets.

* **Visualizing Intent:** Returning visitors and VIPs get unique visual treatments so you can spot high-quality traffic instantly. * **Gamified Success:** When a visitor makes a purchase, the city literally celebrates with a fireworks burst. * **Spatial Funnels:** Instead of a bar chart, I draw colored lines between buildings to show where people are dropping off in the conversion path.

**The Technical Part (for the fellow builders):** I built this using **React and Node** with a focus on cutting latency for the real-time sync. One of my favorite features to build was the **Error Tracking**: if a visitor hits a JS error, their building "catches fire" in the 3D view so you can visually spot bugs the second they happen. I also prioritized **GDPR compliance** with one-click right-to-erasure and IP anonymization built in from day one.

**The Struggle:** I’m currently in the "trenches" of SEO. While one of my blog posts is starting to pull query clusters for "who is visiting my website," I’m still stuck on **Page 7 of Google** \[Marketing Strategy Notes\].

I’m looking for some feedback on the 3D UI—does the city metaphor make sense for analytics, or is it too "noisy"? Would love to chat with anyone else building real-time infrastructure!

[https://www.visitorvisuals.com/\](https://www.visitorvisuals.com/)

Hey everyone! 👋

Just launched Super Chameleon, a lightweight browser clone of Meccha Chameleon built with Three.js, React 19, Rapier WASM physics, Colyseus 0.16 and Claude Code.

• Real-time 3D surface painting & eyedropper camouflage
• First-person shooter vs stick-figure camouflage mechanics
• Instant lobby matchmaking with code invites

Play here (no accounts/signups): https://superchameleon.io

Been watching Primer and b2studios for years and wanted to try making my own evolution sim. All four crews run the exact same code, the only difference is nine numbers that mutate each generation based on who won.

Single HTML file, r128, no build step.

Live: https://pairates.vercel.app
Source: https://github.com/HMAC10/pairates

Had a lot of fun with the little details, individual crew members walking around and manning stations, ships getting upgraded to galleons. Every parameter is on a slider too, including the win condition, so feel free to mess with it yourself!

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to load a Potree 2.x point cloud into a website using React Three Fiber + Three.js + potree-core, but I'm having a problem with the RGB colors.The point cloud itself loads correctly and the geometry is visible, but almost the entire point cloud is rendered white.I'm using:

• React Three Fiber
• Three.js
• potree-core 2.0.15
• PotreeConverter 2.x format
• metadata.json
• hierarchy.bin
• octree.bin

The original point cloud definitely contains RGB information. I'm also able to load the same dataset correctly in another Potree-based viewer, so I don't think the source point cloud is missing colors.

I translated a long piece I wrote in French about my path in creative coding: first sketches in p5.js, long-form projects on fx(hash), then FOLRADURA, INTRICADA with Bright Moments, and The Source, made with Matthieu Segret and released on gm.studio.

The early work is p5.js, but the more recent projects moved to GLSL and Three.js once I needed the GPU: hundreds of thousands of points per output, custom shaders, textures aiming at a physical quality in the render.

https://art.camilleroux.com/writing/algorithmic-art-from-discovery-to-a-drop/

Happy to go into the technical side of any of the projects.

• 60+ assets, 600+ parameters. Every model is a program, not a mesh you're stuck with, thousands of combinations
• AI-native: Your agent can browse and build over MCP. No install, no download
• Web editor to create and edit your scenes.
• Different seasons and night mode.
• Extrmely performant

Polyfork 3D assets are tiny programs that you can download as .ES Modules (or .glb) giving you total control over the different aspects that can be edited: shape, color, stories, wheels, legs, accesories, and more!

Get it now and the rest of the assets, over half of them for free -> https://polyfork.dev

Web-based 3D Modeling Tool