three.js/threejs/lessons/threejs-setup.md

Title: Three.js Setup Description: How to setup your development environment for three.js

This article is one in a series of articles about three.js. The first article was about three.js fundamentals. If you haven't read that yet you might want to start there.

Before we go any further we need to talk about setting up your computer to do developement. In particular, for security reasons, WebGL can not use images from your hard drive directly. That means in order to do development you need to use a web server. Fortunately development webservers are super easy to setup and use.

First off if you'd like you can download this entire site from this link. Once downloaded double click the zip file to unpack the files.

Next download one of these simple web servers

If you'd prefer a web server with a user interface there's Servez

{{{image url="resources/servez.gif" className="border" }}}

Just point it at the folder where you unzipped the files, click "Start", then go to in your browser http://localhost:8080/ or if you'd like to browse the samples go to http://localhost:8080/threejs.

To stop serving pick stop or quit Servez.

If you prefer the command line (I do), another way is to use node.js. Download it, install it, then open a command prompt / console / terminal window. If you're on Windows the installer will add a special "Node Command Prompt" so use that.

Then install the http-server by typing

npm -g install http-server

If you're on OSX use

sudo npm -g install http-server

Once you've done that type

http-server path/to/folder/where/you/unzipped/files

It should print something like

{{{image url="resources/http-server-response.png" }}}

Then in your browser go to http://localhost:8080/.

If you don't specify a path then http-server will serve the current folder.

If either of those options are not to your liking there are many other simple servers to choose from.

Now that you have a server setup we can move on to textures.