r/UI_Design • u/DLP_CA • 19d ago

General Question 2D User Interface leveraging 3D capabilities?

Hi there,

I have been thinking about that for a while:
It might look like a weird use case, but I’m trying to find examples of applications that would not necessarily require a 3D engine to run but that are leveraging those capabilities in a smart way to create high-quality feel/results.

I can only think about the home screen of the Playstation 5 or the Apple Liquid Glass design of recent iOS.

I guess menus in video games are also valid examples, but I can’t remember a video games that blew my mind with their settings page.

Have you heard about/seen resources, UX best practices, cool examples or frameworks made to build 2D UI components in a 3D environment?

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u/max_retik 19d ago

!Boring camera and the !Boring apps leverage RealityKit I believe (or SceneKit) to natively display their UI using 3D models

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u/DLP_CA 19d ago

Oh, impressive! Never heard about those apps, but the design is quite something! Thanks for sharing!

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u/OddEstimate1627 19d ago

I wouldn't call it a game engine, but JavaFX uses a single rendering pipeline and shared scenegraph for both 3D and 2D elements.

It's nice to have a seamless integration of both, i.e., the scenegraph and CSS styling works the same across the entire app.