Render Loop

At the core of PixiJS lies its render loop, a repeating cycle that updates and redraws your scene every frame. Unlike traditional web development where rendering is event-based (e.g. on user input), PixiJS uses a continuous animation loop that provides full control over real-time rendering.

This guide provides a deep dive into how PixiJS structures this loop internally, from the moment a frame begins to when it is rendered to the screen. Understanding this will help you write more performant, well-structured applications.

Overview

Each frame, PixiJS performs the following sequence:

1. Tickers are executed (user logic)
2. Scene graph is updated (transforms and culling)
3. Rendering occurs (GPU draw calls)

This cycle repeats as long as your application is running and its ticker is active.

Step 1: Running Ticker Callbacks

The render loop is driven by the Ticker class, which uses requestAnimationFrame to schedule work. Each tick:

• Measures elapsed time since the previous frame
• Caps it based on minFPS and maxFPS
• Calls every listener registered with ticker.add() or app.ticker.add()

Example

app.ticker.add((ticker) => {
  bunny.rotation += ticker.deltaTime * 0.1;
});

Every callback receives the current Ticker instance. You can access ticker.deltaTime (scaled frame delta) and ticker.elapsedMS (unscaled delta in ms) to time animations.

Step 2: Updating the Scene Graph

PixiJS uses a hierarchical scene graph to represent all visual objects. Before rendering, the engine traverses the tree to:

• Recalculate world transforms (position, rotation, scale propagated from parent to child)
• Run onRender callbacks on individual display objects
• Skip off-screen objects if culling is enabled

The onRender hook lets you attach per-frame logic directly to a display object, as an alternative to a global ticker callback:

sprite.onRender = () => {
  sprite.rotation += 0.01;
};

Step 3: Rendering the Scene

Once the scene graph is ready, the renderer walks the display list starting at app.stage:

1. Applies global and local transformations
2. Batches draw calls when possible
3. Uploads geometry, textures, and uniforms
4. Issues GPU commands

All rendering is retained mode: objects persist across frames unless explicitly removed.

Rendering is done via either WebGL or WebGPU, depending on your environment. The renderer abstracts away the differences behind a common API.

Full Frame Lifecycle Diagram

requestAnimationFrame
        │
    [Ticker._tick()]
        │
    ├─ Compute elapsed time
    ├─ Call user ticker listeners
    ├─ Update world transforms
    │   └─ sprite.onRender (called per-object during traversal)
    ├─ Cull display objects (if enabled)
    └─ Render stage
            ├─ Traverse display list
            ├─ Upload data to GPU
            └─ Draw

Controlling the Loop

You can pause the loop by stopping the ticker, and resume it later:

app.ticker.stop();  // Pause rendering
app.ticker.start(); // Resume rendering

To cap the frame rate (useful for reducing battery usage on mobile):

app.ticker.maxFPS = 30; // Cap at 30 FPS

For manual rendering without a ticker at all:

app.ticker.stop();

function customLoop() {
  requestAnimationFrame(customLoop);
  app.renderer.render(app.stage);
}
customLoop();