meesrutten/gltfjsx

Turns GLTF assets into dynamic, re-usable react-three-fiber JSX components. See it in action here: https://twitter.com/0xca0a/status/1224335000755146753

The usual GLTF workflow is cumbersome: objects can only be found by traversal, changes are made by mutation, making contents conditional is hard.

With gltfjsx the full graph is declarative and immutable. It creates look-up tables of all the objects and materials inside your asset, it will not touch or modify your files in any way.

Usage

$ npx @react-three/gltfjsx model.gltf [Model.js] [options]

Options

  --types, -t         Adds Typescript definitions                [boolean]
  --verbose, -v       Verbose output w/ names and empty groups  [boolean] [default: false]
  --precision, -p     Number of fractional digits               [number ] [default: 2]
  --draco, -d         Draco binaries                            [string ] [default from Google CDN]
  --root, -r          Sets directory from which .gltf is served [string ]
  --help              Show help                                 [boolean]
  --version           Show version number                       [boolean]

Requirements

The GLTF file has to be present in your projects /public folder
react-three-fiber version 5 or later
@react-three/drei version 2 or later

A typical result will look like this

/*
auto-generated by: https://github.com/react-spring/gltfjsx
author: abcdef (https://sketchfab.com/abcdef)
license: CC-BY-4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
source: https://sketchfab.com/models/...
title: Model
*/

import React from 'react'
import { useLoader } from 'react-three-fiber'
import { useGLTF } from '@react-three/drei/useGLTF'

function Model(props) {
  const { nodes, materials } = useGLTF('/model.gltf')
  return (
    <group {...props} dispose={null}>
      <group name="Camera" position={[10, 0, 50]} rotation={[Math.PI / 2, 0, 0]}>
        <primitive object={nodes.Camera_Orientation} />
      </group>
      <group name="Sun" position={[100, 50, 100]} rotation={[-Math.PI / 2, 0, 0]}>
        <primitive object={nodes.Sun_Orientation} />
      </group>
      <group name="Cube">
        <mesh material={materials.base} geometry={nodes.Cube_003_0.geometry} />
        <mesh material={materials.inner} geometry={nodes.Cube_003_1.geometry} />
      </group>
    </group>
  )
}

This component is async and must be wrapped into <Suspense> for fallbacks:

import React, { Suspense } from 'react'

function App() {
  return (
    <Suspense fallback={null}>
      <Model />
    </Suspense>

Draco compression

You don't need to do anything if your models are draco compressed, since useGLTF defaults to a draco CDN (https://www.gstatic.com/draco/v1/decoders/). By adding the --draco flag you can refer to local binaries which must reside in your /public folder.

Animation

If your GLTF contains animations it will add a THREE.AnimationMixer to your component and extract the clips:

const actions = useRef()
const [mixer] = useState(() => new THREE.AnimationMixer())
useFrame((state, delta) => mixer.update(delta))
useEffect(() => {
  actions.current = { storkFly_B_: mixer.clipAction(gltf.animations[0]) }
  return () => gltf.animations.forEach((clip) => mixer.uncacheClip(clip))
}, [])

If you want to play an animation you can do so at any time:

<mesh onClick={(e) => actions.current.storkFly_B_.play()} />

Preload

The asset will be preloaded by default, this makes it quicker to load and reduces time-to-paint. Remove the preloader if you don't need it.

function Model(props) {
  const { nodes, materials } = useGLTF('/model.gltf')
  ...
}

useGLTF.preload('/model.gltf')

Types

Add the --types flag and your GLTF will be typesafe.

type GLTFResult = GLTF & {
  nodes: {
    cube1: THREE.Mesh
    cube2: THREE.Mesh
  }
  materials: {
    base: THREE.MeshStandardMaterial
    inner: THREE.MeshStandardMaterial
  }
}

function Model(props: JSX.IntrinsicElements['group']) {
  const { nodes, materials } = useGLTF<GLTFResult>('/model.gltf')

meesrutten / gltfjsx