Pearl Sandbox

In version 3 of the Pearl Sandbox, the interactivity of the 3D environment is significantly expanded. While the pearls in the previous version were statically predefined, this iteration introduces a click function: each mouse click spawns a cluster of new pink pearls in the upper section of the transparent 3D cube. These spheres fall from the ceiling; however, since the walls are not yet solid, the pearls pass right through them. The ability to freely rotate the camera using the mouse is also retained, allowing users to observe the action from any angle. The next stage of development will refine the spawning mechanism—moving away from a fixed origin at the ceiling to a system that uses raycasting to spawn pearls exactly where the user clicks on the box—with further updates to follow, including UI menus, color customization options, and a 3D orientation cube.

I’ve changed the setup: instead of the previous 2D, there is now a 3D space where you can view the scene and aditionally you can actually rotate the view. However, you can’t spawn spheres yourself; instead, there are some pre-existing ones. They are currently falling through the walls because I haven’t managed to create solid, transparent walls yet.

The initial release of the Pearl Sandbox project is a lightweight 2D prototype built entirely with HTML, CSS, and plain JavaScript. Designed to test core interaction and physics before moving into a full 3D space, this version uses an HTML canvas element to render colorful pearls within a bounded square box. Simple physics calculations handle continuous gravity, wall bounce dynamics, and basic velocity damping to make the movement feel natural. Players can interact directly with the simulation by clicking anywhere on the screen to instantly spawn clusters of pearls that fall, bounce off the walls, and settle at the bottom. As the project continues to evolve, these foundational mechanics will be expanded into a complete 3D environment.