TSL: ShadowNode: prevent memory leaks. Add webgpu_test_memory

[querielo]

Summary

Prevent memory leaks caused by ShadowNode instances and their associated resources by:

• Ensuring LightsNode disposes obsolete ShadowNode instances when lights change and when the node itself is disposed.
• Resetting internal caches so RenderObjects and their references to meshes can be garbage collected.

The PR partially resolves the issue. At least for now, the GC successfully deallocates meshes when I recreate the light sources.

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Background / Problem

A ShadowNode can have associated runtime resources (shadow materials, textures, RenderObject's created for different light nodes)

If we do not dispose ShadowNode instances:

• Their associated shadow materials are never disposed.
• This implies their render objects are also never disposed.
• These render objects keep references to all meshes they were created for.
• Even if the renderer no longer uses these nodes in renderer._nodes, those meshes remain indirectly reachable via nodes.nodeBuilderCache.

So, as long as a ShadowNode sticks around, the JS GC cannot reclaim:

• Shadow materials
• Render objects
• Meshes referenced by those render objects (geometry, materials, textures)

This makes long-running apps slowly accumulate “dead” meshes, materials, geometries in memory.

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There is a bigger problem

WebGPURenderer: Right now it’s too hard to clean memory of meshes, even if the user explicitly disposes geometry, materials and textures and remove references.

The reason is:

• A mesh “does not know” with which materials it was rendered (scene.overrideMaterial)
• Each PassNode / override material can create one or more RenderObjects behind the scenes.
• Those RenderObjects can only be destroyed when the corresponding material is disposed.
• As a result, it’s not enough to dispose just the resources (geometry, materials, textures).
  You must also dispose all nodes that use overrideMaterial (including ShadowNode and PP nodes), or RenderObjects will stay alive and keep meshes strongly referenced.

There is still a problem that a user have to recreate PP and light sources to clean references on removed meshes so GC can deallocate removed meshes.

@sunag @Mugen87 Should I create an issue?

[github-actions]

📦 Bundle size

Full ESM build, minified and gzipped.

	Before	After	Diff
WebGL	350.26 83.06	350.26 83.06	+0 B +0 B
WebGPU	613.66 170.42	614.26 170.53	+605 B +113 B
WebGPU Nodes	612.26 170.14	612.87 170.26	+605 B +119 B

🌳 Bundle size after tree-shaking

Minimal build including a renderer, camera, empty scene, and dependencies.

	Before	After	Diff
WebGL	482.25 117.84	482.25 117.84	+0 B +0 B
WebGPU	684.79 186.19	685.43 186.31	+632 B +118 B
WebGPU Nodes	634.63 173.37	635.26 173.48	+632 B +106 B

[sunag]

@sunag @Mugen87 Should I create an issue?

If there is a simple way to reproduce this problem, it will certainly help us identify the best way to fix it.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR addresses memory leaks in the WebGPU renderer related to LightNode instances and their associated shadow resources. The changes ensure proper disposal of shadow materials, textures, and render objects when lights are disposed or modified, preventing memory accumulation in long-running applications.

Key Changes:

• Added disposal mechanism for shadow materials through disposeShadowMaterial function
• Implemented event-driven cleanup where AnalyticLightNode responds to shadow disposal events
• Extended LightShadow to dispatch disposal events via EventDispatcher

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/nodes/lighting/ShadowFilterNode.js	Added disposeShadowMaterial function to properly dispose shadow materials and remove them from the material library
src/nodes/lighting/ShadowNode.js	Integrated disposeShadowMaterial call in the _reset() method to clean up shadow materials during node disposal
src/nodes/lighting/AnalyticLightNode.js	Added event listener for shadow disposal and disposeShadow() method to clean up shadow-related nodes and restore color nodes
src/lights/LightShadow.js	Extended EventDispatcher to enable disposal event dispatching, allowing dependent nodes to respond to shadow cleanup
examples/webgpu_test_memory.html	Added memory test example demonstrating proper disposal patterns for meshes, lights, and post-processing effects
examples/screenshots/webgpu_test_memory.jpg	Screenshot for the new memory test example
examples/files.json	Registered the new memory test example in the examples list
test/e2e/puppeteer.js	Added the new example to the test exception list for investigation

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[querielo]

@sunag I’ve just updated the PR.

The next video was recorded inside the dev branch. As you can see, there’s no way for the GC to collect the unused memory after enabling and disabling shadows, then recreating the shadow light. NOTE: RenderObject are not cleared until I disable PP and shadows

Video (dev branch):

output2.mp4

Here is the behavior in the PR branch:

output1.mp4

I'll create an issue for this. It would be great to have a way to notify Renderer that a mesh is no longer needed, so it can remove all RenderObject instances associated with that mesh.

[cmhhelgeson]

https://raw.githack.com/querielo/three.js/kirill/lighting-memory-leak/examples/webgpu_test_memory.html

[querielo]

@cmhhelgeson The PR does not include the engine build.

So, we can treat your link as the dev branch, and this link as the PR version (it is a branch with the built engine):
https://raw.githack.com/querielo/three.js/kirill/lighting-memory-leak-build-engine/examples/webgpu_test_memory.html