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3D Loading and Supported Assets

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Olivier Biot edited this page Jun 17, 2026 · 1 revision

Part of Working in 3D.

3D geometry loads through the standard asset pipeline (me.loader), the same as images, audio, or Tiled maps. Two formats are supported:

Format Asset type Best for
Wavefront OBJ/MTL "obj" + "mtl" a single static model (prop, character billboard)
glTF 2.0 / GLB "gltf" / "glb" a whole authored scene — node hierarchy, multiple meshes, a camera (see Loading glTF / GLB scenes)

WebGL required. 3D meshes render only under the WebGL renderer (renderer: video.WEBGL). The Canvas2D renderer has no mesh path.

Loading an OBJ model

me.loader.preload([
  { name: "fox",    type: "obj",   src: "models/fox.obj" },
  { name: "fox",    type: "mtl",   src: "models/fox.mtl" },
  { name: "foxtex", type: "image", src: "models/fox.png" },
], () => {
  const mesh = new me.Mesh(400, 300, {
    model: "fox", material: "fox", texture: "foxtex",
    width: 200, height: 200,
  });
  me.game.world.addChild(mesh);
});

me.loader.getOBJ(name) / getMTL(name) return the raw parsed data if you need it directly. Multi-material OBJ files (multiple usemtl groups) are supported — each group's diffuse color is baked into a per-vertex color buffer, so multiple materials don't cost extra draw calls.

For importing a full scene (many meshes + hierarchy + camera) rather than a single model, see Loading glTF / GLB scenes.

Current support & limitations

The following applies to all 3D meshes regardless of source format.

Geometry

Supported Not yet
Positions, UVs (TEXCOORD_0), indexed triangles Multiple UV sets, tangents
Normals (parsed) Sparse accessors, Draco compression
Node hierarchy + per-node TRS (glTF) → Matrix3d Vertex colors from the file
Multi-material submeshes (OBJ usemtl groups)

Materials & textures

Supported Not yet
One diffuse / baseColor texture per material Metallic-roughness, normal, emissive, occlusion (AO) maps
Diffuse color (Kd / baseColorFactor) as tint Full PBR shading
Opacity (d / baseColorFactor.a) Alpha cutoff / per-material blend modes
Per-vertex tint multiply (WebGL) Two-color ("dark") tint on Canvas (WebGL-only)

Animation

Supported Not yet
Transform animation you drive yourself (mesh.rotate() / translate(), tweens) glTF animation channels (keyframed TRS)
Skeletal animation / skinning — rigged characters import at rest pose (strip the armature before export)
Morph targets (blend shapes)

For 2D skeletal animation, use the Spine plugin instead.

Lighting & shadows

None for 3D meshes. Meshes render unlit — final color is texture × tint, with no surface shading. Normals are parsed but not yet used for lighting, and Light2d is 2D-only. Flat-shaded / vertex-baked art (e.g. Kenney kits) looks correct; assets that rely on real-time lighting or normal maps will look flatter than in the authoring tool.

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