Babylon Lite: Make `removeFromScene()` symmetric with `addToScene()

Bugs
1

addToScene() accepts several entity types:

addToScene(
  scene: SceneContext,
  entity:
    | Camera
    | Mesh
    | SceneNode
    | LightBase
    | ShadowGenerator
    | AssetContainer,
): void;

But removeFromScene() does not appear to support the same set of types.

This makes the API asymmetric: if an app can add an entity/container with addToScene(), it should also be able to remove the same thing with removeFromScene().

Expected API

removeFromScene(
  scene: SceneContext,
  entity:
    | Camera
    | Mesh
    | SceneNode
    | LightBase
    | ShadowGenerator
    | AssetContainer,
): void;

Or, if some types should not be removable, the difference should be explicit and documented.

GLB use case

loadGltf() returns an AssetContainer:

const container: AssetContainer = await loadGltf(engine, url);

addToScene(scene, container);

// Later:
removeFromScene(scene, container);

Currently, there is no clear public way to fully remove/dispose everything added from the loaded container.

Expected behavior for AssetContainer

When removing an AssetContainer, removeFromScene() should undo what addToScene(scene, container) did:

  • recursively remove container.entities
  • dispose/free mesh GPU resources where applicable
  • unregister container animation groups
  • unregister related render/update callbacks
  • remove container-owned lights/camera/shadow generators if they were added
  • clean skeleton/material variant metadata if applicable
  • be safe to call more than once

Request

Please make removeFromScene() symmetric with addToScene(), especially for AssetContainer, so loaded GLB/GLTF models can be safely unloaded.

2

Love the suggestion do you want to PR it ? let s see what @ryantrem and @RaananW think

3

Oh, i am already working on that in the background :slight_smile:

PR is already open - feat(scene): make removeFromScene symmetric with addToScene by RaananW · Pull Request #337 · BabylonJS/Babylon-Lite · GitHub