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Comment by mlsarecmg | Hacker News Reader

you can't express a 3d scene with markup alone, that is why VRML didn't succeed. the JSX you see just masks function calls, it is not XML or HTML, but the true power is in components and hooks (useFrame, etc). a r3f component is self-contained, it will even subscribe to the render-loop. click into these two examples to see the difference: https://twitter.com/0xca0a/status/1426924274527477764

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> you can't express a 3d scene with markup alone

What?

you want your view to do something, to participate in the render loop, to animate, user interaction etc. look at the example on the main page: https://github.com/pmndrs/react-three-fiber#what-does-it-loo...

So just do it with VRML5 like HTML5.

...

No reason the above can't be done. But many people will come up with lame excuses about why we shouldn't have nice things.

i can't say why webgl took over, as well as threejs, but i like how close to the metal they are. i would also much rather have a lower level representation underneath instead of starting outright with a markup language. i think that's why vrml eventually faded. i generally don't see why 3d should be represented in html.

as for react, it merely expresses threejs, and adds something which three doesn't have: self contained components that are now sharable. something like this: https://twitter.com/0xca0a/status/1394697847556149250 just didn't exist in the web previously.

I mean, this looks like a nice, more modern approach - but vrml did allow full interaction? For something that works in current browsers, see eg:

https://github.com/create3000/x_ite/wiki/Sensing-viewer-acti...

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