[mlsarecmg]

the scene is a real graph. the difference between imperative and declarative becomes more evident with examples, for instance three: https://codesandbox.io/s/basic-threejs-example-with-re-use-d... and react: https://codesandbox.io/s/basic-react-example-with-re-use-e2z...

declaring the graph in combination with hooks is how you form self-reliant components.

as for leaf nodes, if they pre-exist they are declared as props, but you can also declare them. they are part of the graph. the only difference is that they don't go into "children".