Summary
This repository, pixijs-userland/lights, provides a PixiJS plugin for adding dynamic, deferred lighting effects to 2D web applications. It enables developers to achieve more sophisticated visual lighting, simulating how light interacts with surfaces in real-time.
The main problem it solves is the lack of advanced, real-time lighting capabilities within PixiJS, a popular 2D rendering engine. Traditional 2D lighting often relies on baked lighting or simple overlays, which lack dynamism and depth. This plugin introduces deferred shading, a technique typically found in 3D graphics, to the 2D world.
Key features include:
- Deferred Shading: Renders lighting information separately from geometry, allowing for complex lighting calculations without impacting initial render performance.
- Support for various light types: Currently includes ambient and point lights, with plans for spot, hemisphere, and area lights.
- Integration with PixiJS: Seamlessly integrates with PixiJS v7.0.0+ and
@pixi/layersv2.0.1+. - Node.js and Browser Support: Provides build outputs for both CommonJS and ES Modules, along with a UMD build for direct script inclusion.
Target users are game developers, interactive application creators, and anyone building visually rich 2D experiences with PixiJS who needs to go beyond basic sprite rendering and implement realistic or stylized lighting. This is particularly useful for projects aiming for a more polished or atmospheric visual style.