The document discusses the author's experience developing a simple 3D engine called A3. It provides biographical information about the author and explains his motivations for creating the engine, including learning opportunities and a desire to share his work. It outlines goals such as keeping the API and codebase lean, generating documentation automatically, and recording tutorial videos. Key features implemented so far include geometry, lighting, texturing and cameras. Sample applications are provided. The conclusion encourages setting goals, refactoring, asking for help, writing samples, sharing work, and pursuing ambitious ideas.

2. A Simple 3D Engine

3. Who am I?

4. Who am I?
• My name is Paul

5. Who am I?
• My name is Paul
• I’m a developer with about 10 years of experience

6. Who am I?
• My name is Paul
• I’m a developer with about 10 years of experience
• I work for HUGE in London

7. Who am I?
• My name is Paul
• I’m a developer with about 10 years of experience
• I work for HUGE in London
• Findable on Twitter as @aerotwist

8. Who am I?
• My name is Paul
• I’m a developer with about 10 years of experience
• I work for HUGE in London
• Findable on Twitter as @aerotwist
• Findable on the interwibble at http://aerotwist.com

9. “I know, I’ll make a
3D engine!”

10. Why bother?

11. Why bother?
• There are already loads: Three.js, J3D, PhiloGL, etc

12. Why bother?
• There are already loads: Three.js, J3D, PhiloGL, etc
• A great opportunity to learn

13. Why bother?
• There are already loads: Three.js, J3D, PhiloGL, etc
• A great opportunity to learn
• An even better opportunity to share

14. Why bother?
• There are already loads: Three.js, J3D, PhiloGL, etc
• A great opportunity to learn
• An even better opportunity to share
• ... and Bartek Drozdz suggested it

15. “I have no idea how
to make a 3D engine.”
:(

16. “I’ll try anyway!”

17. Elevator Pitch

18. Elevator Pitch
• Make a simple 3D engine

19. Elevator Pitch
• Make a simple 3D engine
• Make it feature-limited... feature-selective ;)

20. Elevator Pitch
• Make a simple 3D engine
• Make it feature-limited... feature-selective ;)
• Make it Open Source and available on GitHub

21. Elevator Pitch
• Make a simple 3D engine
• Make it feature-limited... feature-selective ;)
• Make it Open Source and available on GitHub
http://github.com/paullewis/a3

22. Goalz

23. Goalz
• Try and write a 3D engine a developer can use

24. Goalz
• Try and write a 3D engine a developer can use
• Get API documentation “for free”

25. Goalz
• Try and write a 3D engine a developer can use
• Get API documentation “for free”
• Keep it lean and mean

26. Goalz
• Try and write a 3D engine a developer can use
• Get API documentation “for free”
• Keep it lean and mean
• Record videos explaining the process

27. Developer APIs

28. Developer APIs
• Really difficult

29. Developer APIs
• Really difficult
• You know your own code

30. Developer APIs
• Really difficult
• You know your own code
• You don’t know what a developer wants to do

31. Developer APIs
• Really difficult
• You know your own code
• You don’t know what a developer wants to do
• You may screw it up a bit :)

32. Developer APIs
• Really difficult
• You know your own code
• You don’t know what a developer wants to do
• You may screw it up a bit :)
• Advice: get help

33. For your Renderer class why did you go
with a shortcut namespace of A3.R
instead of A3.Renderer?
That tripped me up initially because it was
inconsistent with how you shortcut
namespaced your other class files.
- Joshua Perez, via email

35. Free Documentation

36. Free Documentation
• Really easy

37. Free Documentation
• Really easy
• With JavaScript just use JavaDoc comments

38. Free Documentation
• Really easy
• With JavaScript just use JavaDoc comments
• Run jsdoc-toolkit against it as part of the build

39. Free Documentation
• Really easy
• With JavaScript just use JavaDoc comments
• Run jsdoc-toolkit against it as part of the build
• Automagic wonders will follow

40. Keeping It Small

41. Keeping It Small
• Really hard

42. Keeping It Small
• Really hard
• Functionality is either core or addon

43. Keeping It Small
• Really hard
• Functionality is either core or addon
• Core is always included, addon toggled in the build

44. Keeping It Small
• Really hard
• Functionality is either core or addon
• Core is always included, addon toggled in the build
• 99% right now is core

45. Keeping It Small
• Really hard
• Functionality is either core or addon
• Core is always included, addon toggled in the build
• 99% right now is core
• The engine is about 13KB gzipped (53KB normal)

46. Videos

47. Videos
• Really time consuming

48. Videos
• Really time consuming
• Hard to distil knowledge in a meaningful way

49. Videos
• Really time consuming
• Hard to distil knowledge in a meaningful way
• Hard to work out how useful they are

50. Videos
• Really time consuming
• Hard to distil knowledge in a meaningful way
• Hard to work out how useful they are
• I’m running behind

51. Features

52. Features
• Geometry abstraction

53. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading

54. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading
• Lighting

55. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading
• Lighting
• Cameras

56. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading
• Lighting
• Cameras
• Scene graph

57. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading
• Lighting
• Cameras
• Scene graph
• Cube mapping

58. Features
• Geometry abstraction
• Phong and Lambert shading
• Lighting
• Cameras
• Scene graph
• Cube mapping
• Texturing

60. http://lab.aerotwist.com/webgl/a3/samples/07

62. http://lab.aerotwist.com/webgl/strange-attractor

64. http://lab.aerotwist.com/webgl/undulating-monkey

65. Conclusion

66. Conclusion
• Have goals

67. Conclusion
• Have goals
• Be willing to refactor and change things

68. Conclusion
• Have goals
• Be willing to refactor and change things
• Ask a few people to help you

69. Conclusion
• Have goals
• Be willing to refactor and change things
• Ask a few people to help you
• Write plenty of samples

70. Conclusion
• Have goals
• Be willing to refactor and change things
• Ask a few people to help you
• Write plenty of samples
• Share and be open

71. but mainly...

72. if you have a
crazy idea...

73. DO IT!
:)

74. Cheers
http://aerotwist.com/a3