Reference

Three.js r160 Changelog

What changed in Three.js r160 (December 2023): breaking changes, new features, deprecations, and migration steps from r158/r159.

Breaking Changes

Area Change
WebGLRenderer Breaking renderer.outputEncoding removed. Use renderer.outputColorSpace instead (THREE.SRGBColorSpace or THREE.LinearSRGBColorSpace)
Textures Breaking texture.encoding removed. Use texture.colorSpace (THREE.SRGBColorSpace for sRGB images, THREE.NoColorSpace for normal maps/data)
CubeCamera Breaking Constructor parameter order changed. Second arg is now renderTarget instead of resolution. Use new THREE.WebGLCubeRenderTarget(size) explicitly
Points / Lines Breaking PointsMaterial.sizeAttenuation default changed — verify existing point clouds render correctly
PMREMGenerator Breaking fromEquirectangular() now returns the render target directly rather than an object. Update: const envMap = pmrem.fromEquirectangular(hdrTexture).texture → const envMap = pmrem.fromEquirectangular(hdrTexture)

New Features

Feature Description
NodeMaterial system New Composable node-based material system for WebGPU and WebGL backends. MeshStandardNodeMaterial, MeshPhysicalNodeMaterial, etc.
BatchedMesh New Like InstancedMesh but allows different geometries in a single draw call. GPU-driven with frustum culling support
WebGPURenderer New Preview WebGPU renderer in three/examples/jsm/renderers/webgpu/. Drop-in replacement with same API as WebGLRenderer
TSL (Three Shading Language) New JavaScript-embedded shading language for writing portable shaders that compile to GLSL or WGSL
ColorManagement New THREE.ColorManagement.enabled = true (default). Replaces manual gamma encoding. All color inputs are assumed sRGB

Deprecations

Deprecated Use Instead
THREE.sRGBEncoding THREE.SRGBColorSpace
THREE.LinearEncoding THREE.LinearSRGBColorSpace
THREE.RGBEEncoding THREE.NoColorSpace (data texture)
renderer.outputEncoding renderer.outputColorSpace
texture.encoding texture.colorSpace
Color.convertSRGBToLinear() ColorManagement.toWorkingColorSpace(color, SRGBColorSpace)
Geometry (old, V1) Fully removed — only BufferGeometry remains

WebGPU Backend Preview

r160 ships a nearly-complete WebGPU renderer under three/addons/. It shares the same scene graph but uses WGSL shaders compiled via TSL. 

// Using the WebGPU renderer (drop-in API)
import WebGPURenderer from 'three/addons/renderers/common/Renderer.js';

const renderer = new WebGPURenderer({ antialias: true });
await renderer.init();
document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);
The WebGPU renderer requires Chrome 113+ or Firefox Nightly with WebGPU enabled. Safari support is partial as of r160. For production, continue using WebGLRenderer.

Migration from r158/r159

The most common migration tasks in r160 are the color space API rename: 

// BEFORE (r158)
renderer.outputEncoding = THREE.sRGBEncoding;
texture.encoding = THREE.sRGBEncoding;
normalMap.encoding = THREE.LinearEncoding;

// AFTER (r160)
renderer.outputColorSpace = THREE.SRGBColorSpace;
texture.colorSpace = THREE.SRGBColorSpace;
normalMap.colorSpace = THREE.NoColorSpace;  // data textures = no color space
  • Search your codebase for Encoding — rename all occurrences to equivalent ColorSpace values
  • Check PMREMGenerator usage — the return value changed
  • ColorManagement.enabled is true by default from r152+. If you see incorrect lighting, check you're not double-encoding colors
  • Run the official migration script: npx three-migrate (handles most renames automatically)