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Setting Up Three.js — Your First Step into 3D Web

Alright — Now that we know what Three.js is and why it’s so awesome, it’s time to actually start building something! 🛠️✨

But before we jump into magical 3D worlds, let’s take a tiny step back — and look at

🧱 How Normal Websites Work (HTML, CSS, JS)

If you've ever built a simple website before, you know the usual trio:

  • — the structure (your building blocks)
  • — the style (making it look good)
  • — the brain (making things interactive)

You usually have a folder with files like this:

index.html
styles.css
main.js

The browser reads these and creates your web page. Simple and powerful!

But if we want to move into ... 👉 we’ll need something extra: something that can act like a canvas for us to paint our 3D scenes onto.

🖼️ Meet the canvas

Imagine a blank painting canvas. 🎨 An empty space where you can draw anything you want.

In web development, we have something exactly like that: the canvas tag!

<canvas class="world"></canvas>

This little canvas is about to become your window into another world. 🌌

📦 How We'll Add Three.js (NPM Install))

At a professional level, we don’t just link Three.js from a URL.

Instead, we usually using a package manager like .

This way, our project is more organized, and we have full control over versions. 🔥

📄 Official Documentation

You can always find the official Three.js install guide 👉 here

🛠️ Setting up with NPM

To install Three.js, simply open your terminal and run:

npm install three

That’s it!

Three.js will be added inside your project's node_modules folder.

Learning

stands for Node Package Manager.
It's a tool that helps you like Three.js into your project —
without needing to manually download and add files yourself.

Imagine it like an app store, but for code packages! 📦✨

With just one command like:

npm install three

you grab the latest version of Three.js and it’s ready to use in your project!

— we'll use it step-by-step together throughout this course. 🚀

Now you have all the power of Three.js loaded into your page!

🛠️ Your Project Structure

Here’s what your project files will look like:

index.html
styles.css
main.js

And your index.html will look something like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>My First Three.js Scene</title>
    <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/three@0.160.2/build/three.min.js"></script>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <canvas class="world"></canvas>
    <script src="script.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

🚀 Let’s Make Your First 3D Cube! Now, inside your mian.js, let’s write some magic:

🧠 How to Import Three.js in Your Code

Now that Three.js is installed, instead of relying on a global script tag, let's properly into our JavaScript files:

/ Import Three.js
// Import Three.js
import * as THREE from 'three';

This way, you can use all the Three.js features cleanly inside your code.

✨ Example: Setting Up Your First Scene

Your main.js would now look like this:

import * as THREE from 'three';

// Create a scene
const scene = new THREE.Scene();

// Create a camera
const camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(75, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 0.1, 1000);
camera.position.z = 5;

// Create a renderer
const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ canvas: document.querySelector('canvas.world') });
renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);

// Create a cube
const geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry();
const material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({ color: 0x00ff00 });
const cube = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
scene.add(cube);

// Animate the scene
function animate() {
  requestAnimationFrame(animate);
  cube.rotation.x += 0.01;
  cube.rotation.y += 0.01;
  renderer.render(scene, camera);
}
animate();

And just like that... ✨ You have a spinning cube in 3D! ✨

You literally just created a mini universe inside your browser! 😎🌍

Don't worry, we will learn what's happening in the next lesson.

✅ Now your project is using a real professional setup — clean, maintainable, and ready to scale bigger!

💬 Quick Recap

  • Install Three.js using
  • Import Three.js with
  • Set up your scene, camera, renderer, and 3D objects in your JavaScript file

🎯 Coming Up Next:

We’ll dive deeper into the of Three.js — learning how scenes, cameras, lights, and objects all work together!

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Basic Three.js Structure