Packages

DriftEngine is a set of npm packages under the @driftengine scope, all released together on one version line. A game installs @driftengine/core and adds the others as it needs them.

What core is, and what it brings with it

@driftengine/core is the runtime: the loop, the renderer and its passes on both backends, the scene graph and culling, cameras, input, geometry builders, maths, storage and preferences. It depends on two other packages and re-exports both, so you can import their names from core:

• @driftengine/physics in full. The cameras and the ribbon builder use its collision sweep, so core cannot be built without it, and re-exporting it means PhysicsWorld and CharacterController come from the same import as createRenderer.
• @driftengine/drft for the mesh data type every package shares, MeshData. Its validator, validateMeshData, is imported from @driftengine/drft itself.

Everything else is optional, and a package that builds on core declares it as a peer dependency.

Every package on one version

Each package pins the exact version of every engine package it depends on, so a project uses one version for every @driftengine package it installs. Upgrade them together:

npm install @driftengine/core@latest @driftengine/audio@latest @driftengine/assets@latest

A mismatch is caught by npm at install time, as an unmet peer dependency, which is a better place to find it than a missing export at run time.

What each costs

The engine's size gate builds each entry point on its own and fails the engine's CI if the gzipped size moves more than 3% from the figure it holds. These are those figures, read from the gate at the release this site documents:

Most of core is shader source, generated WGSL for every combination of features the lit pass can be built with. Shader text barely minifies, which is why the optional packages look small beside it.

Features that live inside the lit pass cannot be packages, so they are compiled in only when a quality option asks for them: physically based maps, spot and area lights, clustered lighting, image-based lighting, depth of field, screen-space reflection, temporal antialiasing, colour grading and decals. A driver compiles the text it is given, so a feature that is off costs no GPU time.

Which package for what

Three packages that need nothing else

@driftengine/physics, @driftengine/entities and @driftengine/chemistry import no other engine package. A server that runs a simulation, or a worker that steps one, can import any of them without pulling a renderer into its module graph. That's what makes an authoritative multiplayer host possible in plain Node.

Built JavaScript or TypeScript source

Every package ships compiled JavaScript with declaration files, and that is what a bundler and Node find by default. Every package also ships its TypeScript source behind the drift-source export condition, for a project that depends on a checkout of the engine and wants an edit to it live with no build; Installation covers that set-up.