The default scene — what a new project opens to

cli tutorial Beginner ⏱ 4 min vgai 0.1.0

Prerequisites: Take the editor tour

What you'll learn

• Know what the default scene contains
• Understand how the editor chooses the default scene
• Know it's seeded on first run in the browser build

What you'll build: A terminal look at the default minimal box scene and the seeding flow.

When you open a fresh vgai project there’s already a minimal box scene on screen — the smallest useful starting point. There are actually two minimal starters: the one the template ships as a file, and the one the browser build seeds in code. This is a terminal look at both (real captured output below).

The default scene — what a new project opens to

# transcript pending capture — run: node site/media/capture-cli.mjs

Terminal — The default scene — what a new project opens to · captured by site/media/capture-cli.mjs

Steps

1. The template’s default scene. The template ships public/scenes/default.vscn.json (name Default) — the file the hosted/desktop editor fetches. Parsing it shows five entities: a hemisphere ambient light, a directional Sun (with shadows), a Ground box, a blue Box to look at, and a Camera. Nothing depends on external assets — it loads instantly.

2. How it’s chosen — and the browser starter. initial-scene.ts loads project.config.defaultScene ?? 'scenes/default.vscn.json'. The browser build doesn’t ship a file — seed.ts (seedIfEmpty) writes its own inline minimal scene (name Starter — a camera, a directional Sun + a hemisphere fill light, a ground plane, and a box) to that same path after the user explicitly chooses Create a new game, plus a default input map and a project manifest. A fresh hosted visit shows the intent router and writes nothing. seedIfEmpty is also self-healing: if the stored scene ever fails to parse, it re-seeds a valid one. Both are minimal box scenes; they differ in the small details, not the idea.

It's just a scene — replace it

Neither starter is special-cased: each is a normal .vscn.json you can edit, overwrite, or point away from. Set defaultScene in the project config to open to your own scene instead, or just edit scenes/default.vscn.json directly — it round-trips like any other scene.

Recap

New functionality

• Listed the template default scene's five entities
• Saw how the default is resolved and how explicit browser creation seeds its own starter

New concepts & skills

• the template ships scenes/default.vscn.json (Default); browser Create seeds an inline Starter scene in code
• both are asset-free minimal box scenes (lights, ground, box, camera) — they differ only in details
• initial-scene.ts resolves project.config.defaultScene ?? scenes/default.vscn.json

Next lesson → Scene I/O

See also

• Scene I/O · Take the editor tour