Matter.js Official Examples and Demos

Matter.js provides an extensive collection of official interactive examples and source code implementations designed to help developers understand 2D physics on the web. This guide highlights where to access these official demonstrations, the core physics mechanics they showcase, and how to examine and run them locally to accelerate your development workflow.

Accessing the Official Examples

The primary repository of official Matter.js examples is maintained directly by the library's creator on GitHub and hosted on the project's official website.

1. Interactive Demo Showcase: The official Matter.js website features a live demo gallery where you can view dozens of preconfigured physics simulations. This interface allows you to interact with objects using mouse controls, toggle rendering options like wireframes, and select various physics scenarios from a dropdown menu.
2. GitHub Source Repository: Every interactive demo correlates directly to an isolated JavaScript file within the examples/ directory of the official liabru/matter-js GitHub repository. These source files are concise, minimal, and dependency-free, making them ideal references for understanding implementation details.

Mechanics Covered in the Examples

The official examples span introductory concepts to complex multi-body simulations, including:

• Basic Rigid Bodies: Creating rectangles, circles, trapezoids, and custom polygons with varying properties such as friction, density, restitution (bounciness), and static states.
• Constraints and Joints: Building dynamic structures like rope bridges, chains, pendulums, and soft-body meshes using elastic and rigid constraints.
• Complex Composites: Assembling functional compound objects, including working cars with suspension, catapults, and ragdoll figures.
• Collision Detection and Events: Utilizing collision filters, category masks, sensors (non-colliding triggers), and listening to collision lifecycle events (collisionStart, collisionActive, collisionEnd).
• Environmental Forces: Manipulating continuous gravity, applying localized forces, handling atmospheric friction, and simulating buoyancy.

How to Use the Examples for Learning

To learn effectively from these resources, locate an example that mirrors your target functionality in the live demo gallery, then open the corresponding source file in the GitHub repository. Each example follows a standardized structure: initializing the Engine, setting up the Render and Runner modules, constructing the composite bodies, and adding a MouseConstraint for interaction.

You can clone the Matter.js repository to run the entire demo suite locally, or copy a single example file directly into modern sandbox environments such as CodePen or JSFiddle to experiment with physics parameters in real time.