@react-three/native

React Native bindings for @react-three/fiber, bringing the power of declarative 3D graphics to mobile and native platforms.

This repo is the migration of the native code out of r3f core into a dedicated repo/project.

With SIGNIFICANT performance issues with ExpoGL most of us internally are pretty anti-React-Native.

However, recent webGPU projects have had great successes. So we have decided to push Native usage to the WebGPU versions of things as there is very active development there (both OSS and corporate) and we hope for much more stability there.

Right now its raw, pre alpha and unusable. R3F v10 is in early alpha and I'm almost at the point to bring this to alpha soon.

Getting a package up in Native is incredibly difficult and requires many tools and platforms and almost NEVER works out of the box.

Lets all be ready for a headache and random errors, but eventually we'll get through it.

🚨 !

Active Migration!

DO NOT USE YET
This package is currently undergoing major internal changes.
Unstable, incomplete, and probably broken. Proceed at your own peril.

(Come back soon! We're working on it 🚧)

📦 Monorepo Structure

This is a monorepo containing:

• packages/native - The @react-three/native library
• apps/example - Standard Expo example with basic 3D scene
• apps/webgpu-example - WebGPU-enabled example using react-native-webgpu

🚀 Quick Start

For Users

# Install core fiber and native packages
npm install @react-three/fiber @react-three/native three

# Install expo dependencies
npx expo install expo-gl expo-asset expo-file-system

For Development

# Enable Yarn 4 (one-time setup)
corepack enable

# Install all dependencies
yarn install

# Build the library
yarn build:lib

# Run examples
yarn dev:example        # Standard Expo example
yarn dev:webgpu        # WebGPU example

Installation

# Install core fiber and native packages
npm install @react-three/fiber @react-three/native three

# Install expo dependencies
npx expo install expo-gl expo-asset expo-file-system

Usage

import { Canvas } from "@react-three/native";

function App() {
  return (
    <Canvas>
      <mesh>
        <boxGeometry />
        <meshStandardMaterial color="orange" />
      </mesh>
      <ambientLight intensity={0.5} />
      <pointLight position={[10, 10, 10]} />
    </Canvas>
  );
}

Migration from v9

In v10, React Native support has been moved to a separate package for cleaner dependency management.

Before (v9)

npm install @react-three/fiber three

import { Canvas } from "@react-three/fiber/native";

After (v10)

npm install @react-three/fiber @react-three/native three
npx expo install expo-gl expo-asset expo-file-system

import { Canvas } from "@react-three/native";

API

Canvas

The native Canvas component accepts all the same props as the web Canvas, with some native-specific behavior:

• Uses expo-gl for GL context by default
• Automatically applies native DPR via PixelRatio.get()
• Touch events are translated to pointer events via PanResponder

import { Canvas } from "@react-three/native";
<Canvas
  camera={{ position: [0, 0, 5] }}
  onCreated={(state) => console.log("Canvas ready!")}
>
  {/* Your 3D scene */}
</Canvas>;

Polyfills

Polyfills are automatically applied on import. They patch:

• THREE.TextureLoader - Uses expo-asset for texture loading
• THREE.FileLoader - Uses expo-file-system for file loading
• URL.createObjectURL - Blob handling for React Native
• THREE.LoaderUtils - URL base extraction

If you need to control when polyfills are applied:

// Import without auto-polyfills
import { Canvas } from "@react-three/native/Canvas";
import { polyfills } from "@react-three/native/polyfills";

// Apply manually
polyfills();

Custom GL Context (Advanced)

For future WebGPU support or custom GL implementations:

import { Canvas, GLContextProvider } from "@react-three/native";
import { CustomGLView } from "some-gl-library";
<GLContextProvider
  value={{
    GLView: CustomGLView,
    contextType: "webgl", // or 'webgpu'
  }}
>
  <Canvas>{/* Your scene */}</Canvas>
</GLContextProvider>;

Requirements

• React Native >= 0.78
• Expo SDK >= 43
• React >= 19

Features

Everything from @react-three/fiber works, plus:

• Touch event handling (tap, pan, pinch)
• Asset loading via expo-asset
• Texture loading with proper RN image handling
• Automatic polyfills for Three.js loaders

Troubleshooting

"expo-gl not found"

Make sure you've installed expo-gl:

npx expo install expo-gl

Textures not loading

Ensure expo-asset and expo-file-system are installed:

npx expo install expo-asset expo-file-system

TypeScript errors

Make sure you have the correct types:

npm install -D @types/three @types/react-native

Contributing

This is a standalone package split from the main @react-three/fiber monorepo. Contributions are welcome!

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

See DEVELOPMENT.md for development setup and build instructions.

License

MIT