Depth Section

What's a depth section? The best way to learn is by checking out the storybook examples.

Depth sections add visual depth to your page with 3D elements that respond to the user's scroll position.

Stay tuned! New background models and features are on the way!

Install

In your React project, run:

npm install depth-section three @react-three/fiber @react-three/drei

Or

yarn add depth-section three @react-three/fiber

Usage

import { Fragmented } from 'depth-section'

const App = () => (
    <>
      <div style={{height: '100vh'}} />
      <div style={{height: '100vh'}}>
        <Fragmented />
      </div>
      <div style={{height: '100vh'}} />
    </>
  )
}

export default App

Roadmap

Render-on-Demand Performance Improvement

Do not update when the background isn't moving.

Self-Hosting GLTF Files

Right now, the GLTF files used in the backgrounds can only be served from this repository's Github Pages. Users should be given the option to download the files and self-host them. Here are some options:

1. Simply pass a URL to the component. For example: <Fragmented url='/fragmented.glb'>. The user would have to manually download the file and put it in their public directory.
2. Provide a cli command which will download the files to a directory specified by the user. For example: npm run depth-section --download public. The user would then have to specify the directory where the files are located with an environment variable.

Design Principles

DepthSection is the core component of the the library on which all other components are built. It has two main responsibilities:

• Render its children on a Three.js canvas with the camera offset needed to create a parallax effect when it is scrolled through the viewport. DepthSection does not change the position of child elements. It is the responsibility of the child element to adjust its own position in the world space. The getCameraAimPos() helper functions make this quite easy.
• Render its htmlOverlay prop inside of a container which fills 100% of the canvas's height and width.

DepthSection's children are @react-three/fiber components. They are simply 3D elements that appear in the scene.

Let's see how we can use DepthSection to create a new 3D background:

import { DepthSection } from '../DepthSection/DepthSection'
import type { GroupProps } from '@react-three/fiber'

/** The component to be exported to the application.
 *
 * This is very simplified. In a real component, you would probably want to at
 * least animate the mesh's vertical position to match the camera offset.
 */
export const TorusKnotSection = (props: { children?: React.ReactNode }) => (
  <DepthSection htmlOverlay={props.children}>
    <mesh>
      <torusKnotBufferGeometry />
      <meshStandardMaterial color='#ffff00' />
    </mesh>
    <ambientLight />
  </DepthSection>
)

And then in the application:

import { TorusKnotSection } from 'depth-section'

/** An "About" section with a Depth Section background. */
const AboutSection = () => (
  <TorusKnotSection>
    <div className='about-section'>
      <h1>About</h1>
      {/* cspell: disable */}
      <p>
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec euismod,
        nisi eu aliquam consectetur, nisl nisi consectetur nisl, eget tincidunt
        nisl nisl vitae nisl.
      </p>
      {/* cspell: enable */}
    </div>
  </TorusKnotSection>
)