LIVE CODE EXAMPLES

Throughout the book we’ll be using the amazing Codesandbox.io to run code that we can edit directly in our browsers. It will look like this:

All of the code from every example in the book is also available on GitHub.

You can follow along on CodeSandbox, or, if you prefer, you can download the code and run it locally instead. However, CodeSandbox will allow us to get started with zero configuration, so if you’re not familiar with setting up a HTTP server then this will be the easiest approach.

Take a few moments to explore the CodeSandbox interface now - click “edit on CodeSandbox” above to open the example in a new window.

Working Locally

If you prefer, you can take the directory structure from the empty template and create your own local version.

Copy the folder structure above, except for package.json and sandbox.config.json which are used to set up the Codesandbox project environment, and copy the contents of index.html and main.css into your local version. You can leave app.js empty for now.

If you do decide to work locally, be aware that when we come to loading textures in Chapter 1.4 or 3D models in later sections, you are going to have to set up a basic HTTP server to load the files. This is because browsers have security restrictions to prevent malicious websites from loading files directly from your computer.

The How to Run things locally page on the three.js docs has lots of information about how to overcome this problem.