BMW i8 in WebGL(car.playcanvas.com)
car.playcanvas.com
BMW i8 in WebGL
http://car.playcanvas.com
140 comments
This has to be lifted from some internal BMW models, though - or maybe the creator wants to get a job there?
Plenty of BMW i8 models out there:
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm?featureID=5360209...
This was done by PlayCanvas, so the goal is marketing of their platform / engine.
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm?featureID=5360209...
This was done by PlayCanvas, so the goal is marketing of their platform / engine.
PlayCanvas also have a site that lets you view an iPhone in 360°, presumably for marketing that their engine can be used for product demos.
I remember waiting 30 minutes for a crappy vrml model of the Enterprise to download over a 28k modem years ago.
This is both impressive, and makes me feel very old.
This is both impressive, and makes me feel very old.
Exactly! Now this loads on my phone!
That's because it's not a phone but a computer which can be used as a phone.
Just like the other other computers that I own that can be used as a toaster, and a fridge!
I recently applied for homeowners insurance, buying my first house, and one of the optional coverages was "computer insurance" for like 3 bucks a year or something silly. The first thing that crossed my mind was: "Well, does that cover the washer/dryer, microwave, dishwasher, oven, coffeepot" etc.
I didn't ask, but the thought was amusing to me.
I didn't ask, but the thought was amusing to me.
It locks up my browser and takes 20 seconds to render one frame. (I guess that would be 0.05 FPS.)
So: no, not really impressive. Feels like a regression, actually.
(At least the mobile devices of 2015 managed to do 3D acceleration properly. Too bad that desktop never caught up and that the mobile landscape formed by accident due to commoditization, not due to an understanding of open standards.)
So: no, not really impressive. Feels like a regression, actually.
(At least the mobile devices of 2015 managed to do 3D acceleration properly. Too bad that desktop never caught up and that the mobile landscape formed by accident due to commoditization, not due to an understanding of open standards.)
Out of curiosity, I tried it on a 5K Imac (i5 cpu)
http://imgur.com/zmSOfPK
with other 25 chrome windows(god knows how many tabs), one showing live tv
http://imgur.com/zmSOfPK
with other 25 chrome windows(god knows how many tabs), one showing live tv
What device are you testing this on?
A Linux machine with an "Intel Integrated Graphics Controller".
I doubt an equivalent Windows machine would fare better.
I doubt an equivalent Windows machine would fare better.
It rendered smoothly for me on a macbook pro running MacOS 10.11, iPhone 6Plus with iOS 9, A Virtual Box running Kali Linux, and a Virtual Box running windows 10. I'd say the issue is with you machine/setup.
I think you have a driver problem. Absolutely fine here on Linux Mint with intel integrated graphics.
Huh. It's running perfectly fine on my 2009-era thinkpad x201 (i5 with Intel integrated graphics...) Are you using the Intel driver, with mesa-libgl?
I'm viewing it in Firefox on Arch linux.
I'm viewing it in Firefox on Arch linux.
Must be a driver issue or very, very old Intel graphics. It works fine on Chrome/Android, and usually my Intel HD4000 on Linux/Chrome renders WebGL many times quicker than this phone...
Rendered just fine for me.
Linux machine with i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz and i915 integrated graphics, running Chrome.
If it's as slow as you say, it sounds like you're getting software rendering.
Linux machine with i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz and i915 integrated graphics, running Chrome.
If it's as slow as you say, it sounds like you're getting software rendering.
Software rendering is ~20x faster, or 1 fps.
(If you are on Mesa drivers you can try it with env LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 firefox http://car.playcanvas.com/)
(If you are on Mesa drivers you can try it with env LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 firefox http://car.playcanvas.com/)
Huh. I'm running it on a Linux machine with a Core i5 (Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210M CPU @ 2.60GHz according to /proc/cpuinfo), and it's a bit CPU-intensive (it makes my laptop's fan kick into gear) but it's smooth and responsive and everything obviously works the way it's supposed to. Doesn't even come close to eating a gig of RAM, out of the eight I have.
Firefox 41.0.2 on Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (3.19.0-31-generic), on a LinuxCertified.com LC2430E. (Good laptop. No Microsoft tax. Yes, that is a blatant plug. So's this WebGL demo.)
Firefox 41.0.2 on Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (3.19.0-31-generic), on a LinuxCertified.com LC2430E. (Good laptop. No Microsoft tax. Yes, that is a blatant plug. So's this WebGL demo.)
This renders fine on my Linux machine with integrated graphics (chromium).
An occasional hanging frame, but nothing serious.
An occasional hanging frame, but nothing serious.
2007 Thinkpad X61T here (Intel GMA 950, Core2Duo 1.6 GHz) running Linux Mint. Works about 5-8 fps (at SXGA+ resolution no less), fast enough to be enjoyable.
I reckon this is quite RAM-intensive, at least a few hundred megabytes, which might be leading to problems for some people.
I reckon this is quite RAM-intensive, at least a few hundred megabytes, which might be leading to problems for some people.
I can confirm that the machine from 2008 with the Intel Integrated Graphics 965 really doesn't work. This stuff obviously needs the newer technology. If your machine is more recent, then the problem could be the drivers.
For what it's worth, it's working pretty smoothly on my Nexus 5. Maybe it depends on some hardware acceleration that only newer (but not necessarily high-end) GPUs have
Rendered perfect for me. 2009 HP computer here.
Runs fine on my Xeon Goobuntu workstation. Not really usable on macbook air.
Runs fine on my air. Fan whirs a bit.
To whoever it was a few weeks back who said it looks like the i8 was "giving birth to a Porsche", you were right: Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.
As this visualization demonstrates in nice 3d form.
As this visualization demonstrates in nice 3d form.
To anyone looking why: http://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aBKqR1D_700b.jpg
I think the design has a few too many un-necessary flourishes, and it probably won't age very well.
It definitely grabs your attention, but in a few years when electric cars are less rare I bet it will look kind of gimmicky.
It definitely grabs your attention, but in a few years when electric cars are less rare I bet it will look kind of gimmicky.
Generally cars in this segment don't age well to begin with. For example a new BMW 750i will cost you $100k+. A used 2009 750i with only 60k miles though? $30k. Not just BMW, either, a certified-used 2009 911 Turbo can be yours for $70k, less the half the starting MSRP of $150k.
But the people who buy them don't care. They'll just buy whatever the new thing is.
But the people who buy them don't care. They'll just buy whatever the new thing is.
Meanwhile the people who buy 2009 7-series for $30K get a ridiculously nice car for the price of a Camry... but they pay maintenance costs which are a lot higher than the Camry driver's. There's a reason not everyone is buying cheap used luxury cars.
Absolutely, I certainly wouldn't recommend it. But the maintaince aspect is yet another argument in favor of my point, which is that people dropping over $100k on a car typically don't care if it holds value.
It's irrelevant if the i8 is still cool in 5 years to the people that can afford an i8.
It's irrelevant if the i8 is still cool in 5 years to the people that can afford an i8.
I think the design antitheses of the i8 is the Nissan Leaf. It costs 1/4 as much, and has a little less than 1/3 the horsepower. However, its also visually indistinguishable from other sub-compacts. The Leaf is for people who don't want to notice that their car is electric. I can see why someone who spends $130K doesn't want to just blend in with traffic.
The Leaf is instantly recognizable. It's so weirdly shaped compared to other crossovers/hatchbacks. The Volt, on the other hand, looks a bit more like a "regular" car from far away. The most normal-looking electric vehicles are the ones that are variants of existing gas vehicles, like the eGolf or Ford's EVs.
The Leaf is a Versa hatchback with some design flourishes. It's really not that different (though it does look better).
Regular car manufacturers making electric cars want to visually distinguish then from their normal vehicles. But any good-looking design consistent with their existing design language is something they've already built. So they make something that's either ugly (i3) or impractical (i8).
Tesla doesn't have regular cars to distinguish from, so they can afford to make something that just looks like a normal luxury car (a Jag crossed with a Maserati).
You can also buy an electric RAV4 which looks just like a normal one but nobody does because what's the point of driving an electric car if strangers can't see how rich and virtuous you are?
Tesla doesn't have regular cars to distinguish from, so they can afford to make something that just looks like a normal luxury car (a Jag crossed with a Maserati).
You can also buy an electric RAV4 which looks just like a normal one but nobody does because what's the point of driving an electric car if strangers can't see how rich and virtuous you are?
The electric car as a virtuous statement matters to the company as well. VW has made an e-Golf that is indistinguishable from an oil burning Golf. The NOx Incident has people saying VW is a dinosaur with no plans for the electrically powered future. They should have made a headline-grabber instead.
I feel like it looks gimmicky already. I would seriously consider one of these if not for the (to me) hideous styling. The Model S is clearly better from a pure performance standpoint, but I expect the details of the BMW would be better, as well as likely the handling (although would have to drive them to see!) Also I don't live near a Tesla repair facility, which is really making me second guess getting one.
However, I really don't think I can drive a car that looks like this. Especially with the silly blue trim.
However, I really don't think I can drive a car that looks like this. Especially with the silly blue trim.
I assume that BMW knows what they're doing and this is a look that the target customer actually wants. Sometimes fashion is about getting noticed, and that can result in design elements that are either ugly or easily dated. It would be interesting to see a "Jony Ive" version with all of the horrible parts removed from the body.
I don't know, I thought it looked pretty cool and I didn't even know it was an electric car.
It should be in good company at least, I don't think any 1G electric cars will age well (it's hard finding old parts for cars these days, but I imagine finding old software will be quite tricky).
Don't know about that - I still think the i8 is one of the best looking cars I've seen. (And I've owned a high end BMW in the past that I wasn't hugely impressed with, so it's not like I'm biased in favour of BMW).
This took a short while to figure out, but it is so true.
It can be best observed in white-blue color.
It can be best observed in white-blue color.
Damn it! I can totally see it! I used to think this car was pretty awesome looking, now I'm just gonna see Porsche-birth :\
Sorry! The i8 is still a good looking car anyway.
Reminds me more of the Audi R8?
I am perplexed. Modern games are fantastically more visually appealing and contentwise impressive than this. Modern films utilize computer graphics that are far more impressive still. What is it about single model viewer that makes it headline material? It looks nice, though.
WebGL is like the dancing bear; even if it doesn't dance very well, there is nevertheless endless fascination when it dances at all.
Sounds like Colin's dancing bear: it doesn't dance very well but it's a constant source of fascination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiARsQSlzDc
I wouldn't be that dismissive of WebGL precisely. It's a real time graphics driver frontend- a few generations old DX 9 equivalent. Once the shaders and vertices are uploaded to the GPU it's not that consequential what the front end is (within a very charitable margin but still).
I think there is probably a slight shearing layer in the way WebGL integrates with the rest of the browser programming interfaces since it's the lowest level API by far that is exposed. Thus, platform developers who are served ala carte technologies that provide a facade for traditionally very non-trivial things (layout, font rendering and font server, vector graphics rendering, etc. etc.) are suddenly given raw substrate which requires one or two abstraction levels before it's near even SVG which itself can be considered really low level when compared with HTML and CSS.
Traditionally, web developers expect a higher level experience and I think the organizations that usually serve web development services have not taken into account that you need a team of computer graphics experts if one wants to develop anything on top of WebGL.
I'm not dismissing web developers - I'm a graphics programmer myself - but basically, for a non-genious level person like me even grokking the transform stack requires re-orientation every time I'm not touching linear algebra code for a couple of weeks.
It's not a fault of webgl, per se - the other graphics aspects a browser serves do have pretty well figured out conventions and grammar that can be standardized to provide the ala-carte publishing experience a browser provides. But we don't really have any "standard" conventions in computer graphics yet that could be formalized to the level a page layout can. And is it surprising? Publishing has a history as an industrial craft of 500 years. All the conventions have been figured out, and are implementable in algorithmic form.
While realistic art has been practiced thousands of years only 2D graphics really has the industrial basis where we can say that everyone understands and can formalize what they want from their image.
3D graphics is a whole new ballpark. When pixar introduced their shader language 30 years ago they laid out the foundations for formalizing the colorization in visual grammar. The concept of a scene graph is pretty formalized, as well as the perspective projection of a camera. There are some "usual" convention in 3D interaction like the arcball rotation in an editor like scene.
But other than that? The visual world is infinitely rich. We are not ready for a "standard" representation of an infinitely rich universe of expression.
Of course, that does not mean there are no representations that could not be formalized - there are the standard materials of 3D engines and so on, and physical rendering approaches are slowly converging on the best model - but, I don't know if we can ever reach the standardization of desk top publishing in 3D graphics.
I think there is probably a slight shearing layer in the way WebGL integrates with the rest of the browser programming interfaces since it's the lowest level API by far that is exposed. Thus, platform developers who are served ala carte technologies that provide a facade for traditionally very non-trivial things (layout, font rendering and font server, vector graphics rendering, etc. etc.) are suddenly given raw substrate which requires one or two abstraction levels before it's near even SVG which itself can be considered really low level when compared with HTML and CSS.
Traditionally, web developers expect a higher level experience and I think the organizations that usually serve web development services have not taken into account that you need a team of computer graphics experts if one wants to develop anything on top of WebGL.
I'm not dismissing web developers - I'm a graphics programmer myself - but basically, for a non-genious level person like me even grokking the transform stack requires re-orientation every time I'm not touching linear algebra code for a couple of weeks.
It's not a fault of webgl, per se - the other graphics aspects a browser serves do have pretty well figured out conventions and grammar that can be standardized to provide the ala-carte publishing experience a browser provides. But we don't really have any "standard" conventions in computer graphics yet that could be formalized to the level a page layout can. And is it surprising? Publishing has a history as an industrial craft of 500 years. All the conventions have been figured out, and are implementable in algorithmic form.
While realistic art has been practiced thousands of years only 2D graphics really has the industrial basis where we can say that everyone understands and can formalize what they want from their image.
3D graphics is a whole new ballpark. When pixar introduced their shader language 30 years ago they laid out the foundations for formalizing the colorization in visual grammar. The concept of a scene graph is pretty formalized, as well as the perspective projection of a camera. There are some "usual" convention in 3D interaction like the arcball rotation in an editor like scene.
But other than that? The visual world is infinitely rich. We are not ready for a "standard" representation of an infinitely rich universe of expression.
Of course, that does not mean there are no representations that could not be formalized - there are the standard materials of 3D engines and so on, and physical rendering approaches are slowly converging on the best model - but, I don't know if we can ever reach the standardization of desk top publishing in 3D graphics.
Thinking about your comment made me realize that the lackluster performance often seen in WebGL pages has very little to do with overhead in WebGL itself, and a lot to do with the application developer's failure to optimize for performance.
Native Quake III on a Pentium 4-era system was much smoother than most of the WebGL stuff I see on a modern system, but the fact that a WebGL demo [1] of a subset of Quake III is very smooth seems to support this idea.
You make a lot of good points about the difficulties that the low-level nature of graphics programming present to standardization. I agree that there probably isn't necessarily an easy solution to this which doesn't unnecessarily restrict the space of possibilities in the name of performance or interoperability.
[1] http://media.tojicode.com/q3bsp/
Native Quake III on a Pentium 4-era system was much smoother than most of the WebGL stuff I see on a modern system, but the fact that a WebGL demo [1] of a subset of Quake III is very smooth seems to support this idea.
You make a lot of good points about the difficulties that the low-level nature of graphics programming present to standardization. I agree that there probably isn't necessarily an easy solution to this which doesn't unnecessarily restrict the space of possibilities in the name of performance or interoperability.
[1] http://media.tojicode.com/q3bsp/
One difference: I was casually browsing web pages on my phone, saw the link, and was able to try out the demo after 15 seconds of loading. Then when I was done I closed the tab and that's the end of it. Nothing to install or uninstall, near-instant casual 3D interactivity (at least on a modern cell phone). I'd say that part is pretty cool.
Its neat because its a desirable car I guess and because its WebGL, but right now you can download Unity3D, build whatever, and push it out into WebGL trivially. This seems a year too late to be impressive. I think a lot of the people impressed by this haven't been keeping up with WebGL. If you want your mind blown you should see this game that runs in WebGL:
https://ga.me/games/polycraft
https://ga.me/games/polycraft
You can't make this in Unity. Unity doesn't support the mobile browser whereas this runs on an iPhone 4S.
Have you tried it on your mobile? The fact you can experience this kind of content in the mobile browser and even mobile Facebook and Twitter clients without having to visit an app store is new and IMHO, very exciting.
I think it was Cooper who compared this kind of achievements to dancing bear. Yes, the fact that bear is dancing is amusing, but in no way that negates the fact that that's still very lame dance.
I have, and it's painfully slow, even on my Galaxy S6. A single model at 10fps is mot impressive in the least to me.
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Think 3D content with minimal deployment issues* across a huge variety of devices, and suddenly it becomes a bit clearer.
The trick with the web is not the actual tech inside, as much as the instant delivery capability across a huge variety of devices which support the tech.
* Yes, yes, I know that there are tons of compatibility issues, but native support across the same range of devices is 10x harder. If not 100x or 1000x.
The trick with the web is not the actual tech inside, as much as the instant delivery capability across a huge variety of devices which support the tech.
* Yes, yes, I know that there are tons of compatibility issues, but native support across the same range of devices is 10x harder. If not 100x or 1000x.
I gave it a quick check and it works on multiple desktop browsers and on my iPhone - that's pretty impressive.
This is one of the most impressive bits of WebGL work I've seen recently - https://ga.me/games/polycraft - a full, playable, and actually very fun cel-shaded game that shows off what WebGL is capable of very nicely.
The purpose of this visualization is to present a car, which requires a good single model viewer. If this was a link to a more visually appealing .exe game, many of us wouldn't be able to run it, because it would require a specific platform, many would be afraid to run it, and many wouldn't bother to download and install executable just to see a car.
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You wouldn't download a car?
Im just curious, do people know that the original is actually "You wouldn't steal a car?"
I only every see it as 'download' in comments.
I only every see it as 'download' in comments.
that's the joke. Some explanation here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piracy-its-a-crime
Also, the IT Crowd version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuxO6CZptck
Well done. This one reminds me http://helloracer.com/webgl/.
One of my friends noticed you can see the city skyline cubemap they used, but haven't used as the actual sky in the demo: http://i.imgur.com/NbREnqS.png
The sky used in the demo is actually the same as the reflection just a very blurred version of it :)
Very nice render there. That is one of the few cars which I have to say looks so much better up close than in pictures.
MIND BLOWN - this is using WebGL? Unbelievable!
The only thing I wish it had was more interactions, but as is it demonstrates that WebGL is not just a toy, but something to be taken more seriously in the GL community.
The only thing I wish it had was more interactions, but as is it demonstrates that WebGL is not just a toy, but something to be taken more seriously in the GL community.
> this is using WebGL? Unbelievable!
What, have you never seen a WebGL demo before?
> it demonstrates that WebGL is not just a toy, but something to be taken more seriously in the GL community.
It already is taken seriously. WebGL is merely a variant of OpenGL ES for JavaScript. Heck, the whole of Unity and the Unreal Engine can run on it.
What, have you never seen a WebGL demo before?
> it demonstrates that WebGL is not just a toy, but something to be taken more seriously in the GL community.
It already is taken seriously. WebGL is merely a variant of OpenGL ES for JavaScript. Heck, the whole of Unity and the Unreal Engine can run on it.
Unity and Unreal Engine don't support the mobile browser.
Interesting. That's presumably just due to performance issues, there shouldn't be a technical reason.
It's because Unity and Epic cross-compile large codebases to many MBs of JavaScript. This simply overwhelms the JavaScript engines on mobile. The PlayCanvas engine on the other hand is hand-written and is 125KB of JavaScript.
"..,but something to be taken more seriously" outside "the GL community"
Awesome, especially in black I think. But WebGL still has an aliasing problem, made worse when we introduce movement. It was the same in the watch movement sim on HN a few days ago. Not to take away from the amazing work of the authors, but are there higher quality anti-aliasing options which won't cause my eye to distract to the high-velocity pixel movements on the car's shutlines as it moves along? (Full HD machine - dunno if this issue disappears at HiDPI).
Oh and another thing. PlayCanvas looks great but also looks properly expensive. I'm having to cough some pretty serious dough as a single experimental developer, without even getting above bronze support. Not hugely garage-outfit friendly though I will say it looks very professional.
Oh and another thing. PlayCanvas looks great but also looks properly expensive. I'm having to cough some pretty serious dough as a single experimental developer, without even getting above bronze support. Not hugely garage-outfit friendly though I will say it looks very professional.
The engine itself is open source (MIT license): https://github.com/playcanvas/engine If you want a fancy editor to build more quickly, it's free to work in public. And for 'garage-outfits' that want to work in private, it's $15/month. I wouldn't call that serious dough. My gym membership is $70/month!
The scene looks very nice albeit I'm not sure what's so spectacular about displaying a single model? I've noticed someone saying in the thread that it's impressive because you can view it on mobile, but why wouldn't you? Modern phones are equipped with hardware better than the one we had over a decade ago, and we had 3D games back then, so displaying a single higher poly model on way better hardware doesn't really amuse me. Besides, I don't really dig the whole idea of WebGL, but the damage's done already.
"So what?" Classic HN.
Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
Also, there's a huge difference between "it should be this way" and "it is this way." The fact that the person who made this made it the way it should be is impressive, when so few people seem capable of that.
Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
Also, there's a huge difference between "it should be this way" and "it is this way." The fact that the person who made this made it the way it should be is impressive, when so few people seem capable of that.
>Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
If I were to mind read I would say the general objection is usually the over abundance of praise for projects that do not "deserve" it. I can't say that I'm not sympathetic to such viewpoints. For e.g. "You're great at math" can mean anything from you can do long division in your head to you passed college to you won the fields medal. Raising the floor of appreciation reduces the number of bits at the top end to accurately communicate the emotional importance of things. Its a fair criticism in general. The other end of the argument is that encouragement motivates people to greater things, and that certainly is also valid.
If I were to mind read I would say the general objection is usually the over abundance of praise for projects that do not "deserve" it. I can't say that I'm not sympathetic to such viewpoints. For e.g. "You're great at math" can mean anything from you can do long division in your head to you passed college to you won the fields medal. Raising the floor of appreciation reduces the number of bits at the top end to accurately communicate the emotional importance of things. Its a fair criticism in general. The other end of the argument is that encouragement motivates people to greater things, and that certainly is also valid.
Well it's not so much about displaying a single model, but demonstrating the power of physically based rendering using WebGL and the wide range of devices that can be used to view this beautiful content. Current interactive car demos found in official car web sites are much lower quality than this.
I'm sorry I'm not keen on making games for only one platform at a time.
Unless you're talking about casual games that reality is never going to be realized. AAA games are written as close to the hardware as possible/feasible, as you probably already know. For every developer willing to develop against an abstraction like the Web, there will be others unwilling to give up that performance.
For every indie who has made it trying to make AAA games... wait, there aren't any. AAA games are for companies with the resources to port code to every platform they can imagine.
I'm not a diehard gamer, myopically focused on only AAA to the detriment of my livelihood. I'm a developer. There is more business for me in "casual" games--whatever that actually means, because it seems to only ever be used as a pejorative that means "not Call of Duty"--than is realistically possible in AAA.
I'm not a diehard gamer, myopically focused on only AAA to the detriment of my livelihood. I'm a developer. There is more business for me in "casual" games--whatever that actually means, because it seems to only ever be used as a pejorative that means "not Call of Duty"--than is realistically possible in AAA.
My point is just like you aren't keen on porting, other people aren't keen on throwing performance away.
What you're really really after is a single OS, single hardware platform world. That would require the least amount of porting effort which is your goal.
People (and you might not be one of those) think that the Web is going to bring about this great cross-platform revolution, but its a lie except for the basic UI, low-perf applications for two easy-to-identify reasons. First, the standards themselves are poorly specified and contain ambiguities (by design to give leeway to implementors on different hardware). No standard body even puts out a reference implementation. Second, each platform implementation will be implemented differently causing people shipping cross-platform to care about weird implementation quirks that cause the performance of their game to tank in weird ways.
What you're really really after is a single OS, single hardware platform world. That would require the least amount of porting effort which is your goal.
People (and you might not be one of those) think that the Web is going to bring about this great cross-platform revolution, but its a lie except for the basic UI, low-perf applications for two easy-to-identify reasons. First, the standards themselves are poorly specified and contain ambiguities (by design to give leeway to implementors on different hardware). No standard body even puts out a reference implementation. Second, each platform implementation will be implemented differently causing people shipping cross-platform to care about weird implementation quirks that cause the performance of their game to tank in weird ways.
Because cross-platform non-browser solutions don't exist :^).
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They all come with massive compromises.
I LOVED the Orangey-Brown colour scheme so much that I went straight to the BMW website to see if it was really an option that you can buy. Sadly, it's not. /sadface
BMW Individual. For a good amount of money, any color scheme, exterior, interior, leather stitching, etc. can be yours. They can do a lot as their "custom" shop is kinda separate. You're almost getting a "hand-built" car. On their website they list a few common Individual options, but if you actually work with a rep, they can do whatever you want.
I think I flew the orangey-brown one in EVE Online a while ago. Got podded in nullsec. Shame about that.
Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric... No thanks. Nice demo though!
> Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric
Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
> Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they?
As an owner of a Tesla, no, there is no such thing (at least in the US), and please stop spreading misinformation (if you are talking about the US).
And the car is not COMPLETELY silent... the wheels make noise on the road. I've driven a completely electric car for at least a year, never got even closely into a pedestrian "situation", and I live in a highly populated area (NYC and its suburbs).
As an owner of a Tesla, no, there is no such thing (at least in the US), and please stop spreading misinformation (if you are talking about the US).
And the car is not COMPLETELY silent... the wheels make noise on the road. I've driven a completely electric car for at least a year, never got even closely into a pedestrian "situation", and I live in a highly populated area (NYC and its suburbs).
> Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they?
Not yet in the US, though there are active proposals to change that.
> Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
A completely silent car, driven properly, wouldn't kill anyone.
Not yet in the US, though there are active proposals to change that.
> Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
A completely silent car, driven properly, wouldn't kill anyone.
I'm not aware of any statute, it felt very self-regulatory to me.
it is different to have simulated engine noise inside the car and some exterior noises to alert pedestrians/etc that a car is coming
I hope that they only add this fake noise when no radio is playing or that it can easily be disabled.
Cars with internal fake noise generally have an option to disable it. There are plenty of gas cars with small, turbo engines that have this noise, it's not particular to cars that are part or all electric.
Super cool! Do the camera controls 'invert' when you hop into the car, however? When outside the car, grab a point on the car and drag, and that point roughly tracks where you drag your mouse pointer to. Inside the car, the opposite happens. Grab a point, drag the mouse, and the point moves away from the cursor.
In Firefox I get "Loading...". In IE it shows only a blurry picture of what appears to be the front lights?
I am a little bit disappointed that it has automatic transmission. But this is probably catered to an American audience, of which the common denominator doesn't even know that manual cars exist. Other than that, really impressive. This only needs some controls and motion, and then you have basic gameplay!
Very nice. Runs full speed (60 fps or so as best as I can tell) on Chrome/Galaxy Note 3.
Semi-related, are there any "accurate" WebGL models of a working V6/V8 engine?
In case anyone is having similar issues, this loaded a LOT better in Firefox than Chrome
First time in a long time that my laptop fan peaks a little :P
Very cool. The look of the turning steering wheel seemed a little off to me though. As if it's slightly off-center.
Why I love graphics programming! Math & Art come together into a holistic whole! Great work!
This is stunning. Excellent work!
Beautifully done. I particularly like the lights glow effect.
On an iPad, I can only see the top left quarter of the view.
It's a cool demo but I wish it wouldn't autorotate. Makes clicking the door interaction point much more difficult than it should be. A pretty picture over usability decision.
Autorotation turned off for me once I dragged the first time.
Impressive...
Congratulations guys at PlayCanvas!
Just sat at loading screen in Chrome Win 7 x64.
That is just gorgeous - nice work!
Runs about .1 - .2 fps on my iPhone 4s equivalent potato. They've certainly lost MY expensive-new-car business!
I'm not sure what's up with your iPhone 4S (although you do say 'equivalent') but on my 4S, I get around 10FPS. Not fast, but usable.
Interesting. It's an android, and the cpu/gpu specs seem close to the 4s, with most 3D openGL apps being fast and smooth. I wonder why you're getting 100x better performance? Could be JS performance, but I'm using the latest FF, which is usually good.
That looks really cool
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When you enter and steer the driving wheel and then get out, the wheels are also turned :)
But you can't honk :)
I think this might not be a real bmw...
> I think this might not be a real bmw...
Yeah. It's been a half-hour and it hasn't needed maintenance.
Yeah. It's been a half-hour and it hasn't needed maintenance.
I love camera behaviour! Good job
Just wanted to chime in and agree, the camera control is slick. So many 3D apps have atrocious camera controls.
Porsche[1] and Renault[2] did something similar lately. It's great to see WebGL used for this in production. Honestly, I'm surprised it took so long. Visualizing cars with WebGL seems like a no brainer, especially when most current websites load dozens of images for their "360° views".
[1] http://www.porsche.com/microsite/911/germany.aspx#showroom/9...
[2] http://www.littleworkshop.fr/renaultespace/