What is Three.js Sketches on mrdoob.neocities.org?

Updated

mrdoob.neocities.org is a personal archive of numbered Three.js sketches, each labeled with a date, created with the Three.js Editor and hosted on Neocities. It is not an official Three.js documentation site or a tutorial resource — it is a chronological collection of experiments. If you want to see small, self-contained WebGL scenes built by the creator of Three.js, this is the place; if you need installation guides, API references, or structured lessons, look elsewhere.

What the site actually contains

The page presents a plain list of entries in reverse chronological order, each combining a sketch number and a date:

  • 039 ~ 21 03 17
  • 038 ~ 21 03 10
  • 037 ~ 20 01 05
  • 036 ~ 20 01 04
  • 035 ~ 20 01 01
  • … continuing down to 001 ~ 15 11 11

Two things stand out from this structure:

  1. The numbering is sequential and starts at 001. The earliest entry is dated 15 11 11 (November 11, 2015), and the latest is 21 03 17 (March 17, 2021). This is a long-running personal log, not a curated product.
  2. Dates are formatted as YY MM DD. So 21 03 17 means 2021, March 17. The gaps between dates are irregular — some sketches appear on consecutive days, others are months apart.

The source description states the sketches were "done with Three.js Editor and uploaded to Neocities." That tells you the workflow: each piece was assembled in the browser-based Three.js Editor, then exported and hosted as a static page.

Why it exists on Neocities

Neocities is a free static web hosting service, often used for personal sites and creative experiments. Hosting these sketches there rather than on a custom domain or a code repository suggests the goal is simple, low-maintenance publishing — each sketch is just a page you can open and view.

This also means the site has no build system, no package manager, and no login requirement mentioned in the available information. You open a sketch and it runs.

Who this is for

If you are… This site is…
Curious what the Three.js creator experiments with Useful — direct access to raw sketches
Looking for official Three.js docs or API reference Not useful — go to the main Three.js site
Wanting step-by-step tutorials Not useful — there are no instructions here
Studying small WebGL scene structures Potentially useful — sketches are self-contained
Needing production-ready code or assets Not useful — these are personal experiments

What you can and cannot conclude

Supported by the page: The site is a personal collection, created with Three.js Editor, uploaded to Neocities, organized by number and date, spanning 2015 to 2021.

Not supported: There is no pricing information, no login requirement stated, and no indication that the sketches are maintained, updated, or documented beyond their titles. The page evidence does not show descriptions, source code links, or explanations for individual sketches — just the numbered list.

How to use it

  1. Open mrdoob.neocities.org in a browser.
  2. Pick a numbered entry — higher numbers are more recent.
  3. Open the sketch to view the WebGL scene.
  4. If you want to understand how it was built, you would need to inspect the page source in your browser's developer tools, since the site itself provides no commentary.

The main practical takeaway: treat this as a viewing archive of Three.js experiments, not as a learning curriculum or a reference manual.