---
title: "3D World"
package: "@phaser-ae/world-3d"
tier: Free
version: 3.0.0-4
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "The perspective world for 3D games, where every mesh is an ordinary game object, with the camera, materials and screen-to-world picking a 3D game needs."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/world-3d
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# 3D World

The world every game seen in perspective is built in. A mesh is an ordinary game object with a pose, so everything
that works on sprites works on it, and the camera, materials and picking are ready to use.

## What it does

The space is fixed and simple: y is up, it is right-handed, and a camera at yaw 0 looks along +z, with increasing yaw
turning right. Every 3D object is an ordinary object in the game, the same kind as a sprite, that also carries a pose,
yaw, pitch, roll and a scale on three axes, and the mesh it wears. Scenes, tweens, tags, queries and timers work on it
unchanged, and spawning a mesh through `game.spawn` means other packs' spawn data, a collider or a physics body, comes
with it.

The camera has one model for the common rigs. With `distance` at 0, its position is the eye, for first person and
free flight; above 0, the eye pulls back along the view so the position is the point it orbits or chases. `roll`
banks the view for a flyer turning hard. Rig packs drive it, so a game rarely touches it by hand.

From the screen back into the world, `toGround` and `groundAt` find where a tap meets the ground or any horizontal
plane, `screenRay` gives the world ray under a point, and `pick` and `pickAll` find the objects it passes through. A
turret aims at the pointer at its own height in two lines. The pack draws nothing itself: it gathers what is in view,
near to far with frustum culling, and `render-3d` draws it. A 2D game never composes it, so a 2D build ships no 3D
code.

## Features

- **Meshes as game objects** — a pose, a mesh, a colour, a texture or a material, and billboarding, on the same
  objects scenes, tweens and queries already handle.
- **Primitives and your own meshes** — `mesh` builds or reuses a primitive, `defineMesh` registers your own vertices,
  and packs can register, replace and update meshes of their own.
- **Named materials** — metallic, roughness, emission, unlit, texture maps, shadow casting, soft translucency and
  procedural patterns, with `materialAt` changing every object that wears one at once.
- **One camera for every view** — first person at distance 0, orbit and chase above it, with field of view, pitch
  and roll.
- **Screen to world** — `toScreen`, `toGround`, `groundAt` and `screenRay`.
- **Picking** — `pick` for the nearest object under a point and `pickAll` for everything along the ray, both with a
  filter.
- **Facing** — `lookAt` turns an object to a world point once, upright if you ask.
- **Frustum culling** — on by default, switchable live, with a count of what it dropped.

## Good for

- **Third-person action and chase-camera games** — the camera orbits or follows at a distance.
- **First-person games and free-flight cameras** — the camera at distance 0 is the player's eye.
- **3D board and tabletop games** — `pick` finds the piece under a tap and `groundAt` the square.
- **Tower defence and turret games** — `groundAt` at the turret's height, then `lookAt`, aims at the pointer.
- **Flight games** — the camera's roll banks into the turns.
- **Prototypes from primitives** — boxes and coloured, patterned materials stand in before any model is made.

## Make it yours

The options name the draw layers back to front, set the near and far clip planes, and switch CPU culling on or off.
Beyond that, a game's look is its meshes and materials: primitives, your own vertices, and materials whose roughness
or metalness you can change live for every object wearing them.

The same world serves very different games. A first-person maze keeps the camera at distance 0, driven by
`rig-fps`, with walls as box meshes. A tabletop strategy game pulls the camera back into an orbit over the board and
uses `pick` to select units and `groundAt` to send them to the square under the pointer.

## A quick look

A patterned floor, and a turret turned to face the pointer at its own height:

```ts
const tiles = game.world3d.material({ name: 'tiles', rough: 0.9, pattern: { kind: 'checker', colors: ['#8a3a2a'], scale: 0.5 } });
game.spawn({ id: 'floor', mesh: 'box', x: 0, y: -0.05, z: 0, size: [12, 0.1, 12], color: '#e8d8b8', material: tiles });
const p = game.input.pointer;
const at = p ? game.world3d.groundAt(p.x, p.y, 1) : null;     // the pointer at the turret's height
if (at) game.world3d.lookAt(turret, at.x, at.y, at.z, true);
```

## Works with

- `core-3d` — includes it with the renderer, lighting, an orbit camera, models and collisions, so most 3D games have
  it already.
- `render-3d` — required beside it; it draws what this world gathers.
- `world-screen` — a HUD drawn over the 3D view.
- `rig-orbit`, `rig-fps` and `rig-minecraft` — the camera rigs that move the view.
- `aim-3d` — keeps a turret or a head facing the pointer; `turntable` spins a dragged object.
- `pointer` — tap and hover handlers on individual objects.

## Good to know

- Ray picking tests each object's oriented box, which is exact for a box and generous for a sphere or a model;
  `render-3d` offers picking against the real geometry.
- `pickAll` is linear in the number of objects, so a very large scene should filter its candidates.
- `toGround` returns world x and z in an `{ x, y }` pair, the same shape as the 2D transform.
- It needs a backend that draws meshes; the build refuses one that does not.

---

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