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Three.js Cookbook

You're reading from   Three.js Cookbook Over 80 shortcuts, solutions, and recipes that allow you to create the most stunning visualizations and 3D scenes using the Three.js library

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jan 2015
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781783981182
Length 300 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Author (1):
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Jos Dirksen Jos Dirksen
Author Profile Icon Jos Dirksen
Jos Dirksen
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Toc

Table of Contents (9) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Getting Started 2. Geometries and Meshes FREE CHAPTER 3. Working with the Camera 4. Materials and Textures 5. Lights and Custom Shaders 6. Point Clouds and Postprocessing 7. Animation and Physics Index

Using a cubemap to create reflective materials


With the approach Three.js uses to render scenes in real time, it is difficult and very computationally intensive to create reflective materials. Three.js, however, provides a way you can cheat and approximate reflectivity. For this, Three.js uses cubemaps. In this recipe, we'll explain how to create cubemaps and use them to create reflective materials.

Getting ready

A cubemap is a set of six images that can be mapped to the inside of a cube. They can be created from a panorama picture and look something like this:

In Three.js, we map such a map on the inside of a cube or sphere and use that information to calculate reflections. The following screenshot (example 04.10-use-reflections.html) shows what this looks like when rendered in Three.js:

As you can see in the preceeding screenshot, the objects in the center of the scene reflect the environment they are in. This is something often called a skybox. To get ready, the first thing we need to do...

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