Babylon.js — Professional 3D Engine for the Web

Overview

Babylon.js is a complete 3D engine written in TypeScript: scene graph, cameras, lights, PBR materials, animation, particles, glTF and other loaders, Havok physics, a 2D/3D GUI and WebXR, running on WebGL or WebGPU. In a bundled app use the @babylonjs/* ES module packages (core, loaders, gui and materials share one version number, currently 9.x; @babylonjs/havok is versioned separately); the babylonjs UMD package is for pages without a bundler, and the CDN scripts are for playgrounds and quick experiments.

Instructions

Installation

npm install @babylonjs/core @babylonjs/loaders @babylonjs/gui
npm install @babylonjs/havok                # Physics (optional)
npm install @babylonjs/materials            # Advanced materials (optional)
npm install --save-dev @babylonjs/inspector # Debug inspector (optional)

The page needs a canvas: <canvas id="renderCanvas" style="width:100%;height:100%"></canvas>.

Scene Setup

// src/main.ts — Babylon.js scene
import {
  Engine, Scene, ArcRotateCamera, HemisphericLight,
  Vector3, MeshBuilder, PBRMaterial, Color3, Color4,
} from "@babylonjs/core";

const canvas = document.getElementById("renderCanvas") as HTMLCanvasElement;
const engine = new Engine(canvas, true, { adaptToDeviceRatio: true });   // 2nd argument: antialiasing

const scene = new Scene(engine);
scene.clearColor = new Color4(0.1, 0.1, 0.15, 1);

// Camera (orbit around target)
const camera = new ArcRotateCamera("camera", Math.PI / 4, Math.PI / 3, 10, Vector3.Zero(), scene);
camera.attachControl(canvas, true);
camera.lowerRadiusLimit = 3;              // Min zoom
camera.upperRadiusLimit = 20;             // Max zoom

// Lighting
const light = new HemisphericLight("light", new Vector3(0, 1, 0), scene);
light.intensity = 0.7;

// PBR Material
const material = new PBRMaterial("pbr", scene);
material.albedoColor = new Color3(0.8, 0.2, 0.3);
material.metallic = 0.3;
material.roughness = 0.4;

// Mesh
const sphere = MeshBuilder.CreateSphere("sphere", { diameter: 2, segments: 32 }, scene);
sphere.material = material;

// Render loop
engine.runRenderLoop(() => scene.render());
window.addEventListener("resize", () => engine.resize());

Loading 3D Models

import { ImportMeshAsync, LoadAssetContainerAsync } from "@babylonjs/core";
import { registerBuiltInLoaders } from "@babylonjs/loaders/dynamic";

registerBuiltInLoaders();                 // once at startup; each loader is downloaded on first use

// Load a glTF/GLB model: the URL comes first, the scene second
const result = await ImportMeshAsync("/models/product.glb", scene);
const model = result.meshes[0];           // "__root__" node that parents the glTF content
model.scaling = new Vector3(0.5, 0.5, 0.5);

// Access specific meshes by name
const body = scene.getMeshByName("Body");
if (body?.material instanceof PBRMaterial) {
  body.material.albedoColor = new Color3(1, 0, 0);   // Red
}

// Load without showing, then add (and later remove) everything in one call
const container = await LoadAssetContainerAsync("/models/showroom.glb", scene);
container.addAllToScene();

SceneLoader.ImportMeshAsync("", "/models/", "product.glb", scene) from older tutorials still works but is deprecated in favour of these module-level functions.

Physics (Havok)

import { HavokPlugin, PhysicsAggregate, PhysicsShapeType } from "@babylonjs/core";
import HavokPhysics from "@babylonjs/havok";

// Initialize Havok (downloads and compiles HavokPhysics.wasm)
const havok = await HavokPhysics();
scene.enablePhysics(new Vector3(0, -9.81, 0), new HavokPlugin(true, havok));

// Add physics to meshes
const ground = MeshBuilder.CreateGround("ground", { width: 20, height: 20 }, scene);
new PhysicsAggregate(ground, PhysicsShapeType.BOX, { mass: 0 }, scene);  // mass 0 = static

const ball = MeshBuilder.CreateSphere("ball", { diameter: 1 }, scene);
ball.position.y = 10;
new PhysicsAggregate(ball, PhysicsShapeType.SPHERE, {
  mass: 1,
  restitution: 0.7,                      // Bounciness
}, scene);

GUI (2D UI in 3D)

import { AdvancedDynamicTexture, Button, Control, Rectangle, StackPanel, TextBlock } from "@babylonjs/gui";

// Full-screen UI overlay
const ui = AdvancedDynamicTexture.CreateFullscreenUI("UI");

const panel = new StackPanel();
panel.width = "220px";
panel.horizontalAlignment = Control.HORIZONTAL_ALIGNMENT_LEFT;
panel.verticalAlignment = Control.VERTICAL_ALIGNMENT_TOP;
panel.paddingTop = "20px";
panel.paddingLeft = "20px";
ui.addControl(panel);

const button = Button.CreateSimpleButton("btn", "Change Color");
button.width = "200px";
button.height = "40px";
button.color = "white";
button.background = "#6366f1";
button.onPointerClickObservable.add(() => {
  material.albedoColor = Color3.Random();
});
panel.addControl(button);

// Label that follows a mesh on screen
const label = new Rectangle("label");
label.width = "140px";
label.height = "32px";
label.thickness = 0;
label.background = "#000000aa";
ui.addControl(label);                    // must be added to the texture before linking
label.linkWithMesh(sphere);
label.linkOffsetY = -80;

const text = new TextBlock("labelText", "Trail Runner 2");
text.color = "white";
text.fontSize = 16;
label.addControl(text);

WebXR (VR/AR)

// VR: adds an "enter VR" button, teleportation on the floor meshes and controller pointers
const xr = await scene.createDefaultXRExperienceAsync({
  floorMeshes: [ground],
});

// AR instead of VR
const xrAR = await scene.createDefaultXRExperienceAsync({
  uiOptions: { sessionMode: "immersive-ar", referenceSpaceType: "local-floor" },
  optionalFeatures: true,
});

WebGPU and the Inspector

import { Engine, WebGPUEngine } from "@babylonjs/core";

// WebGPU must be initialized asynchronously; fall back to WebGL where it is missing
const engine = (await WebGPUEngine.IsSupportedAsync)
  ? await WebGPUEngine.CreateAsync(canvas, { adaptToDeviceRatio: true })
  : new Engine(canvas, true);

if (import.meta.env.DEV) {                 // Vite dev server only: scene explorer, properties, stats
  const { ShowInspector } = await import("@babylonjs/inspector");   // a static import would ship it to production
  ShowInspector(scene);
}

Examples

Example 1: A product viewer with Vite

User request: "Show our shoe model in the browser so people can orbit around it and change its color."

npm install @babylonjs/core @babylonjs/loaders @babylonjs/gui
npm install --save-dev vite typescript

Put the canvas in index.html with <script type="module" src="/src/main.ts"></script>, copy the model to public/models/product.glb, and assemble src/main.ts from the Scene Setup, Loading 3D Models and GUI blocks above — without the demo sphere and the showroom.glb lines (a failed load rejects the top-level await, so the GUI code never runs), with the button setting body.material.albedoColor and the label linked to model. Then npx vite serves it and npx vite build produces the deployable files (two of about 1,100 output lines, because the dynamic imports split the engine into many chunks):

dist/assets/glTFLoader.pure-CG7fbjTQ.js      69.17 kB │ gzip:  18.79 kB
dist/assets/index-8MhFnHTx.js             4,063.46 kB │ gzip: 874.64 kB
✓ built in 684ms

The glTF loader is a separate chunk that is fetched only when the first model loads; the scene shows the model on a dark background, dragging orbits the camera, and the button assigns a random albedo color to the Body mesh.

Example 2: Shrink the bundle

User request: "Our Babylon.js bundle is several megabytes. Can you cut it down?"

Importing from the package root pulls in the whole engine because many modules have side effects. Import each class from its own module instead (folders start with an upper-case letter, files with a lower-case one):

import { Engine } from "@babylonjs/core/Engines/engine.js";
import { Scene } from "@babylonjs/core/scene.js";
import { ArcRotateCamera } from "@babylonjs/core/Cameras/arcRotateCamera.js";
import { HemisphericLight } from "@babylonjs/core/Lights/hemisphericLight.js";
import { Vector3 } from "@babylonjs/core/Maths/math.vector.js";
import { Color3, Color4 } from "@babylonjs/core/Maths/math.color.js";
import { CreateSphere } from "@babylonjs/core/Meshes/Builders/sphereBuilder.js";
import { PBRMaterial } from "@babylonjs/core/Materials/PBR/pbrMaterial.js";

const sphere = CreateSphere("sphere", { diameter: 2, segments: 32 }, scene);   // instead of MeshBuilder.CreateSphere

For the Scene Setup block above, the entry chunk of the Vite build goes from 6,676 kB (1,475 kB gzip) to 967 kB (236 kB gzip). Features added through module augmentation need their own side-effect import, for example import "@babylonjs/core/Physics/physicsEngineComponent.js" for scene.enablePhysics and import "@babylonjs/core/Helpers/sceneHelpers.js" for scene.createDefaultXRExperienceAsync.

Guidelines

1. PBR materials — use PBRMaterial for realistic rendering; set metallic/roughness and give the scene an environment texture (scene.environmentTexture), because PBR reflections come from it.
2. Asset loading — call registerBuiltInLoaders() once, then ImportMeshAsync(url, scene); without a registered loader a .glb cannot be read. Compress large models with Draco or Meshopt.
3. Havok physics — Havok is the recommended engine (Physics V2); the Ammo, Cannon and Oimo plugins are deprecated. It needs WebAssembly SIMD (not available on iOS before 16.4), and in Node the wasm must be passed in: HavokPhysics({ wasmBinary }).
4. Inspector — keep @babylonjs/inspector out of production bundles (it brings React and Fluent UI): load it with a dynamic import() behind a dev check, because a guarded static import is not tree-shaken; the older scene.debugLayer.show() call still works once @babylonjs/core/Debug/debugLayer.js and @babylonjs/inspector are imported.
5. Node Material Editor — build custom shaders visually at nme.babylonjs.com instead of writing GLSL/WGSL; npx -y @babylonjs/mcp-servers nme starts an MCP server for that editor (gui, nge and npe do the same for the GUI, geometry and particle editors).
6. GUI for UI — Babylon GUI draws buttons, panels and sliders inside the canvas, as a fullscreen overlay or on a mesh (AdvancedDynamicTexture.CreateForMesh); labels that track an object use linkWithMesh. For forms and long text use regular HTML over the canvas.
7. WebGPU — new WebGPUEngine(canvas) is unusable until await engine.initAsync() (or use WebGPUEngine.CreateAsync); always keep the WebGL fallback.
8. XR — WebXR only runs on HTTPS (or localhost) and must start from a user gesture, which the default enter-XR button provides. XR on a WebGPU engine is experimental and needs { xrCompatible: true } at engine creation; use the WebGL engine for XR otherwise.
9. Clean up — in single-page apps call scene.dispose() and engine.dispose() when the view unmounts, or WebGL contexts and listeners leak.
10. CDN scripts are not for production — the Babylon team asks that cdn.babylonjs.com be used for learning and experiments only; bundle or self-host for a live site.
11. When not to use — to only display a model with orbit controls, the @babylonjs/viewer package is enough; for a 2D game or chart a 3D engine is overhead.