How Ant Financial’s Oasis 3D Engine Powers Web‑Based 3D Experiences

Why 3D Graphics Matter

Images are the visual foundation of human perception, and computer‑generated graphics are the most efficient way to create, display, and render them. These technologies underpin industries such as animation, film VFX, games, design, advertising, AR/VR, and data visualization.

Real‑Time vs. Offline Rendering

3D rendering can be divided into offline rendering , which prioritises realism and can take hours per frame, and real‑time rendering , which must produce frames within milliseconds to keep interactive experiences fluid. Real‑time rendering relies heavily on GPU parallelism and is essential for games, data visualisation, AR/VR, and most web scenarios.

Web‑Based 3D Rendering

To bring high‑performance 3D to browsers, the WebGL specification was released in 2011. WebGL allows rich 3D effects without requiring users to download heavyweight native applications, enabling low‑cost, on‑demand loading of 3D content that can be integrated into super‑apps like Alipay.

Typical web 3D use cases include:

Interactive 3D product models on e‑commerce platforms.

Browser‑based 3D interior design tools.

Instantly playable 3D mini‑games.

Dynamic 3D maps with on‑demand loading.

Oasis 3D Engine

Oasis 3D (Green Oasis Engine) is Ant Financial’s lightweight, self‑developed 3D engine. It offers a rich set of components and supports complex 3D rendering while shielding developers from deep graphics knowledge.

Key characteristics:

Micro‑kernel architecture : Core rendering is provided by a minimal kernel, which can be extended into specialised engines (game, animation, data‑visualisation, AR, etc.) following a Unix‑style “do one thing well” philosophy.

Component‑based development (CBD) : Instead of deep inheritance hierarchies, functionality is added via reusable components (e.g., FlyComponent, SwimComponent), simplifying extension and reducing code coupling.

Mobile‑friendly : The engine is lightweight, supports on‑demand loading, and has been optimised for thousands of mobile device models.

Core modules include SceneGraph management, lighting, meshes, materials, cameras, shadows, post‑processing, fog, glTF 2.0 + PBR support, animation systems (skeletal, interpolation, particle), collision detection, HUD, ray casting, framebuffer picking, FSM, and a math library.

Project History

Since its 2017 debut, Oasis 3D has powered projects such as Ant Farm’s “Star Planet” game, NetBank’s anniversary particle effects, Huabei’s Double‑11 promotions, and various mobile‑friendly low‑poly experiences. It also supports large‑screen visualisation dashboards.

Challenges in Web 3D Development

Heavy customisation required for performance‑constrained mobile devices.

High learning curve for front‑end engineers unfamiliar with graphics and game pipelines.

Limited reusable 3D design assets and case studies within the web ecosystem.

Complex asset conversion workflows involving Unity.

These obstacles hinder broader adoption of web‑based 3D within the Ant ecosystem.

Oasis Editor

To simplify the workflow, Ant Financial built the Oasis Editor, an online 3D content editor that visualises scene construction, animation, and interaction logic. It offers seamless asset conversion, rich component libraries, visual animation editing, and an integrated 3D content platform for resource sharing.

Future plans include integrating a visual shader editor and shader management platform to further reduce custom development effort.

Conclusion

Web browsers provide only low‑level drawing primitives, making advanced 3D development challenging for most developers. Oasis 3D abstracts the complex graphics layer, delivering efficient tools and a rich platform so that web‑based 3D projects become industrial‑grade and accessible to a wider audience.

Ant Financial is preparing to open the Oasis ecosystem to external users, inviting the broader web‑3D community to benefit from its capabilities.