flutter3d_backend #

Which graphics backend a build draws through, chosen at compile time.

import 'package:flutter3d_backend/flutter3d_backend.dart';

final device = await openDevice(width: 1280, height: 720);

openDevice returns a GraphicsDevice from flutter3d_hardware. No backend appears in any signature: on a desktop or a phone the device is flutter3d_impeller's, in a browser it is flutter3d_webgl's, and web-or-native is a conditional export rather than a runtime branch — flutter_gpu does not compile for the web and dart:js_interop does not compile for macOS, so a file importing both could target neither.

Two backends are reached at run time instead, because what decides them is not visible to a compiler. On the native half, flutter3d_cpu's software rasteriser is where a build lands when Impeller will not start. On the browser half:

flutter build web --dart-define=FLUTTER3D_WEBGPU=true

asks for flutter3d_webgpu first and falls back to WebGL2 where the browser has no navigator.gpu or hands out no adapter. Off unless a build asks, and that is about size rather than about WebGPU: the probe has to be able to call both openers, so a build that has it carries both backends and one that has not folds the branch away. On apps/flutter3d_demo_strategy that is 376,649 bytes of main.dart.js — 2,529,865 off against 2,906,514 on, 14.9% more script and 368 KiB on the whole of build/web. Whether a particular game pays it is the game's call, the same way its resolution and shadow budget are.

An ordinary web build still draws through WebGL2, and that is the decision this default records rather than an accident of which backend was written first. WebGL2 is the browser backend with a recorded reference set behind it and the one three shipped games have been looked at on; moving every browser build onto the newer API by having the probe on would change what those games draw without anybody having asked, and would charge every one of them the bytes above. So the choice is a game's to make, and making it is one flag.

What it does not decide #

Resolution and shadow budget stay in the application. kFixedResolution tells a caller whether the backend renders to a fixed internal target — true in a browser, where a WebGL canvas resets its drawing buffer when it is resized — and what size is the game's own trade against its own scene. The three games in this repository answer it differently and each says why where the number is.

Why it is a package #

The conditional import and openDevice were three files in each of three games, byte-identical in two of them down to the paragraph explaining the conditional.

flutter3d_session was the obvious home and is the wrong one: it would have to depend on both backends, and then apps/flutter3d_editor — which opens a file, changes it and writes it back, and has no browser build to choose for — would pull WebGL through it. Session stays backend-neutral, which is what lets it be mounted over a CpuDevice in its own tests.

Part of flutter3d, an independent implementation of a 3D engine for Flutter — not a fork or a binding of another engine, and not affiliated with the Flutter team. Three switchable rendering backends: Impeller via Flutter GPU, WebGL2, and a software rasteriser. glTF, OBJ and .f3d loading, six lighting models, shadows, bloom, skinning, animation, BVH culling and picking; a deterministic fixed-step game layer with collision, navigation, positional audio, and gamepad and touch input. Three example games — shooter, platformer, racing — each built on its genre package: flutter3d_game_shooter, flutter3d_game_platformer, flutter3d_game_racing. A new game starts from the editor's scaffold, which writes one from a template: https://flutter3d.pleion.dev/first-project/. Documentation: https://flutter3d.pleion.dev.