Cauldron3D.Net

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Cauldron3D.Net shows 3D scenes in the browser. A scene server takes the same changes CauldronGPU.submit/2 takes and keeps the scene. It broadcasts each tick as CauldronGPU.Stream bytes over a Phoenix channel. In the browser, cauldron3d.js draws them with three.js.

defmodule MyGame.Web.SceneSocket do
  use Cauldron3D.Net.Socket, channel: MyGame.Web.SceneChannel
end

defmodule MyGame.Web.SceneChannel do
  use Cauldron3D.Net.Channel
end

defmodule MyGame.Web.Endpoint do
  use Phoenix.Endpoint, otp_app: :my_game
  socket "/socket", MyGame.Web.SceneSocket, websocket: true, longpoll: false
  plug Cauldron3D.Net.Page, scene: "courtyard"
end

{:ok, scene} = Cauldron3D.Net.Scene.open(id: "courtyard", events: self())
cube = Cauldron3D.Net.Scene.mesh(scene, CauldronGPU.Mesh.cube(1.0))
Cauldron3D.Net.Scene.submit(scene, [{:instance, 1, %CauldronGPU.Instance{mesh: cube}}])

Cauldron3D.Net.Scene.open/1 starts a scene linked to the caller; under a supervisor use start_link/1 and find the scene with Cauldron3D.Net.Scene.lookup/1. A scene is a CauldronGPU.Target, so the cauldron_gpu converters (CauldronGPU.Bsp.upload/4 and the rest) and any code written against CauldronGPU.Target upload to it as to a renderer.

A browser joining late gets the whole scene, then every tick. Its keyboard, mouse, resize and focus events reach the :events pid as {:cauldron_3d_net, scene_id, session, event}, in the shapes CauldronGPU's windows send.

Installation

def deps do
  [
    {:cauldron_3d_net, "~> 0.3"},
    {:bandit, "~> 1.5"}
  ]
end

Your endpoint needs pubsub_server: Cauldron3D.Net.PubSub (the package starts it) and a web server adapter such as Bandit. The page loads three.js from jsDelivr, so the browser needs to reach it.

Examples

  • mix run examples/showcase.exs serves the cauldron_gpu showcase at http://localhost:4400/; arrow keys or W A S D in the browser move the camera.
  • mix run examples/quake_map.exs ~/quake e1m1 serves a Quake map with its sky.

What the browser draws

The browser draws what WebGL 2 can:

  • physically based materials, with vertex colours, add and multiply blending, scrolling, reflection-mapped and rippling textures, and the shimmer (smear)
  • point, spot and directional lights, and the directional light's shadows
  • fog, the sky and sky pictures, and coloured light styles
  • the overlay and screen tint, bloom and tone mapping
  • 2D layers: sprites and column layers into the frame or into canvases, over the 3D scene or alone when no camera has been sent
  • display-space lighting with light tables, gamma, contrast and brightness
  • camera viewports and low-detail resolution
  • swelling shells, and instances drawn in front, without the depth test or standing in a room
  • poses, blended and skinned on the browser's CPU, and interpolation between ticks

Its bloom is stronger than the native renderer's. The browser ignores ray-traced effects, upscaling and frame generation.