Can anybody explain what's special about WebGL demos? I mean, don't we already know that WebGL exposes possibilities of OpenGL to JavaScript through browser? Am I missing something?
1. I click in Firefox and it just works
2. I click in IE and it just works
3. I click on my iPhone and it just works
… repeat as desired …
That's never been true of OpenGL (or 3D in general) before so there's always been this divide in what people consider possible for a web app (i.e. convenient, easily shared) and the conventional software model where someone needs to download and install something first – a big step up in delay and complexity, and a reasonable hesitation for the security-conscious.
The excitement comes from the fact that now none of that is necessary for many uses – if you're working on a non-AAA game, 3D object viewer, interactive diagram, etc. etc. etc. you get support for 70% of web users globally without having to take on the expense of desktop development and support or supporting so many different toolchains. This isn't a big change for the major players who are still going to do that for other reasons but it simplifies a ton of casual usage.
WebGL runs everywhere that is objectively a Good Thing™. Your criticism is aimed at the optimisation rather than the technology.
The person who created this could, theoretically, add a little slider to let you adjust the visual quality to meet your PC's performance characteristics.
Additionally WebGL can also be utilised for things which only get rendered once (e.g. single 3D frames). Like generating 3D graphs for one suitable example.
If they wanted to, they could even auto-scale the quality based on frame-rate to ensure that everybody had a good experience.
Right now, this is still maturing – e.g. for me that demo runs great even on an old iPhone 4S, 2010 MacBook Air, etc. but on a lowest-bidder Dell laptop with the cheapest possible Intel integrated graphics, it struggles. One hardware generation refresh, however, and even the cheap equipment is adequate for many uses - after all, that 2010 MBA was only $1k 4 years ago.
The upshot is that the excitement is because this is finally reaching the point where support will have matured by the time most people will ship a serious app. There are already some interesting WebGL-only applications like Polarr (https://www.polarr.co/editor) which suggest that the model is already plausible for many projects.
No not really. Just web developers being excited that the lords and masters who control their s̶h̶a̶c̶k̶l̶e̶s̶ sandbox have dropped them a few crumbs allowing them to compete with the native software of 1996.
Here's a list of actual software that was released in 1996:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_in_video_gaming
Notable entries for this conversation:
* Duke Nukem 3D * Civilization II * Quake * Command & Conquer: Red Alert * Diablo * Quake
These were good games, but not necessarily what anyone would consider graphical powerhouses with a modern frame of reference.
Compare a pixar film to your average AAA video game, hour(s) of rendering time vs millisecond(s).
The demo run just fine (perceivable 10-15fps) on my oldest chromebook - C710. And it is amazing.
Yes, a sense of joy.
Yes, you are able to see it by clicking a link on news.ycombinator.com.
In fact, all articles on Hacker News are viewable by clicking a link. That's why they're here.