Sensei Notes #03 - A tool to reverse-engineer any 3D site
Hey! Welcome to the Sensei Notes.
This week, we're looking ahead. The future of React Three Fiber just dropped in alpha, I'm sharing a tool to reverse-engineer any 3D website, and a philosophy that changed how I build everything. Let's dive in. 🚀 🔍 👨💻
🔥 News & Updates
R3F v10 and Drei v11 alphas are out! First-class WebGPU, LLM-friendly tooling, and a rearchitecture for larger 3D experiences. The future of React Three Fiber is looking bright. 🚀
PS: I had the opportunity to work with Dennis (the one doing the heavy lifting to bring WebGPU to R3F) on a 3D AI texture painting platform, and he's a fantastic developer. Follow him on X for more React Three Fiber insights!
🪄 Tips & Tricks
Needle Inspector Chrome extension is a Chrome extension that helps you understand how any Three.js or React Three Fiber website works under the hood. Think of it as the browser's default inspector, but specifically designed for 3D scenes letting you explore light settings, meshes, materials, and every parameter on any object.
It's a gold mine of information for learning from other projects and improving your own!
Big thanks to the Needle Tools team for their fantastic contributions to the Three.js ecosystem.
🕵️♂️ Behind-the-Scenes
New Pascal DevLog is out! In this episode, I share a philosophy that changed how I build everything: horizontal vs vertical development.
The short version: don't polish too early. Draft the whole thing first, then refine layer by layer. It's a concept I learned from writing music—and it applies perfectly to code.
I walk you through the progress we've made on Pascal, why the codebase got messy, and why that was actually the right call. Sometimes the fastest path to great architecture is building the wrong one first. 🤯
That's it for this one — let me know what topics you'd like me to cover next. Join the conversation on Discord!
Happy coding,
Wawa
