
Show HN: Something pointless I made - dhotson
http://dn.ht/picklecat/
======
dhotson
I made this demo using [http://www.pixijs.com/](http://www.pixijs.com/)

Something I'm really happy with is the psuedo-3d effect on the cat using a
displacement map.

I took the cat sprite
([http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercat.png](http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercat.png))
and made a "depth map"
([http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercatdisplacement.jpg](http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercatdisplacement.jpg))
where white is closest and black is furthest. This information is used to
determine how far to move the underlying pixels. It's enough to give a subtle
illusion of depth.

~~~
rl3
I'd like to congratulate you for the fact that this has higher production
values than the majority of WebGL applications out there.

~~~
_pmf_
> I'd like to congratulate you for the fact that this has higher production
> values than the majority of WebGL applications out there.

1\. Doesn't crash video card driver. 2\. Doesn't crash browser. 3\. Doesn't
show empty tab. 4\. Doesn't cause 100% CPU usage. 5\. Doesn't hang browser
forever.

~~~
vonklaus
I am on mobile with a 3 year old iphone 5.

Works.

------
eugenekolo2
I wasn't sure HN was gonna deliver this year. But, now I know to continue
reading for another year.

------
bliti
It's not pointless. Demos like these help others discover libraries and
frameworks. I did not know of pixiejs and it's something I need for work.
Having the cat and pickles render in my cheap android device was proof enough
to try it out. Thanks for posting!

------
jashmenn
Fwiw this appears to be an awesome remix of (my cofounder) TJ Fuller's laser
eyes cat shooting cucumbers gif, which can be found here:
[http://giphy.com/gifs/cat-lasers-
cucumber-3oEduQAsYcJKQH2XsI](http://giphy.com/gifs/cat-lasers-
cucumber-3oEduQAsYcJKQH2XsI)

If you like this style of thing, check out the rest of TJs work at his
website: [http://www.tjfullerswebsite.com](http://www.tjfullerswebsite.com)

~~~
dhotson
Yup! Credit where credit is due—that is the gif that inspired this thing. Love
it!

I'm really curious how they made it in the first place.

------
yummybear
Interesting. How do you plan on monetizing this? Are you accepting investors
at this point?

~~~
aagha
He already has a market cap of around $6M. They're talking to Andreesen and
Kleiner. The biggest issue right now is lack of adoption: Growing at 137% a
day just isn't fast enough.

------
dan-silver
That's an interesting way to get background music. Wastes bandwidth on the
video though. <iframe
src="[https://www.youtube.com/embed/UsMewmMTA_c?autoplay=1"></ifra...](https://www.youtube.com/embed/UsMewmMTA_c?autoplay=1"></iframe>)

~~~
kowdermeister
Not really, a youtube video with a static image is VERY close to an MP3's
size.

~~~
dan-silver
I'm seeing 3.9 MB for audio and 7.8 MB for the video.

------
mrdrozdov
Heh, sourced the music from youtube. That's a slick strategy.

PS. Perhaps it was intentional, but this is quite topical given the recent
story of "cucumbers scaring cats".
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc0mi0Ei1CQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc0mi0Ei1CQ))

~~~
mbcrower
That's the greatest cat video I've seen so far

------
prawn
OP, you should make a silly site where people can combine faces (with depth
map) and a floating object. Let the internet hordes run with it from there.

~~~
benwaffle
users should be able to paint a depth map

------
Kortaggio
For everyone wondering "What's the music in the background?" It's here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsMewmMTA_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsMewmMTA_c)
cleverly linked to via an autoplaying, hidden embedded iframe in the page.

~~~
dhotson
The whole album is pretty fantastic:
[https://lazerhawk.bandcamp.com/album/redline](https://lazerhawk.bandcamp.com/album/redline)

~~~
Sujan
(Also in Spotify)

------
bovermyer
I just spent somewhere around five-ten minutes staring at this.

I may have to rethink my life.

------
bwha
Is the cat supposed to shoot lasers? Feels like it should but does not for me.
Hitting the mouse and space, as well as other keys, doesn't do anything.

~~~
HCIdivision17
My, where history's path takes us. I'm not really sure how to describe this
feeling; a clever hacker put a boggled cat and pickles on a star field and
it's _clearly_ missing lasers.

Like, I get there's a source GIF that inspired it, and lazoring pickles with a
cat has that sort of pseudo randomness like 'purple monkey dishwasher'. But I
still think it's _strange_ that it stands out as an omission over, say,
talking wrenches. (I think the awestruck cat is fine just how it is; just
flummoxed over how legitimate your quip was.)

~~~
benjamincburns
I think you're on to something here. I hadn't seen the cat/laser/cucumber gif
prior to reading this thread (after visiting the demo), and after I noticed
the cat following my mouse I tried clicking pickles with the expectation that
they would be attacked by laser vision.

It's odd that I can say straight-faced "of _course_ you would expect lasers to
shoot from that cat's eyes and destroy the pickle," but that I can't describe
why that assumption is so obvious.

~~~
igor47
I was going to leave a comment like "why isn't it shooting lasers at the
pickles", but then I did a search in the page and found this comment thread.
So... yeah. Our brains are all warped in the same way.

~~~
bwha
Yes my brain is totally warped. That said I do really like it.

------
n0us
The documentation for this project (pixi.js) is excellent. I look forward to
working with pixijs and I hadn't heard of it before.

[http://pixijs.github.io/docs/index.html](http://pixijs.github.io/docs/index.html)

------
pnt12
Seemed silly at first (well, still does, but in a good way). But from the
comments in this thread, I realized this is actually a pretty cool demo.

Completely unrelated to WebGL, but you might want to have the music loop
forever or use a long playlist. That'd be neat - I have it open in background
because the music is really sweet.

~~~
Shish2k
> the music is really sweet

Have an album :)
[https://lazerhawk.bandcamp.com/album/redline](https://lazerhawk.bandcamp.com/album/redline)

------
niuzeta
I did not know my weekend hadn't completed until I saw this.

------
orliesaurus
Uncaught Error: This browser does not support webGL. Try using the canvas
renderer :( :( :( :( :(

~~~
dhotson
Ah bummer, WebGL is pretty widely supported but still not quite 100% --
[http://caniuse.com/#feat=webgl](http://caniuse.com/#feat=webgl)

~~~
beeboop
I thought PixiJS was supposed to fall back to canvas if WebGL isn't enabled?

~~~
atrilumen
It does if you specify the `autoDetectRenderer`, rather than `WebGLRenderer`
or `CanvasRenderer`.

------
mrucci
Hey, I made something pointless too! [http://mrucci.github.io/dumb-
cat/](http://mrucci.github.io/dumb-cat/)

------
auston
@dhotson - please be sure to auction this site for art basel :)

------
joe563323
Amazing. I just looked at it for about 5 seconds and was scared and freezed at
the same time. What an Art!!!

------
ajslater
This looks like something from the 19A0's

[https://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-
decade...](https://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade.html)

    
    
      > Finally, evidence is mounting that points to a "lost decade"   
      > between what we now remember as the 1970s and 1980s, a time   
      > whose full cultural trauma and resulting suppression from   
      > memory was so complete as to effect itself even on the living.

------
tasnimreza
Big NO ! I can't say it is pointless, appreciate your effort. Didn't know
pixijs has such great power, I've looked at the documentation, it is awesome
:)

------
colejohnson66
Is it just me, or is the HTML file incomplete? I didn't see anything, so I
looked at the source and there's no canvas tag and the file abruptly ends
after the GA script tag:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20151130010039/http://i.imgur.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151130010039/http://i.imgur.com/tCB7x2Q.png)

~~~
re
<html> and <body> end tags are explicitly optional in HTML5 -- as are the
start tags. [http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/sections.html#the-body-
element](http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/sections.html#the-body-element)

The canvas element is added to page by JavaScript.

------
Pitarou
My 1 year old daughter loves it. I think you have a meme!

------
djtriptych
It'd be really cool to hack into an existing "3d-ish" capture tool, e.g.
seene[1]

[1]: [http://seene.co/a/popular/](http://seene.co/a/popular/)

------
ozzmotik
just seeing this lightened up my day slightly, so it really isn't a waste if
you ask me. prompted me to want to check out something new, and it was just
awesome to look out. Very interesting back story to it too

------
amai
Inbrowser demos like this should be a new category for the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)!

------
Shengbo
This is now one of the best things on the internet. Second only to
[http://www.omfgdogs.com/](http://www.omfgdogs.com/)

------
SarahofGaia
Gee, thanks a lot! The audio autoplay almost woke up everyone in the effing
house! Seriously, I like the cat, but is this 1998?! Jesus, give us a dang
warning at least!

------
yarper
Love it. Made me laugh.

------
pinkunicorn
How much does it cost to own a two letter domain name...?

~~~
dhotson
I got it for $129

Try this list: [https://catechgory.com/2-letter-domain-
names/](https://catechgory.com/2-letter-domain-names/)

I was pretty lucky to get one that matches my name. :)

~~~
timothybone
I read the domain as: DoN't HaTe

------
Mchl
Ok, so it's awesome and stuff, but for me the most important thing is the
discovery of the NewRetroWave music!

------
coderKen
Really cool, you could even make the cat sought of dance to the song by moving
your cursor

------
jhallenworld
My 11 year old likes it, so I think you have succeeded in creating the next
meme :-)

------
aakilfernandes
Well, this is just plain silly.

------
fringd
I registered pickle.cat and redirected it to you. Contact me if you want it.

------
DarkIye
For when your pickle cat needs that special extra something: analogue synths

------
ageofwant
You, Sir, have done well.

------
tnecniv
@dhotson

This is not rendering for me in Chrome on OSX. Is this a known issue?

~~~
benjamincburns
I'm using Chrome on an older rMBP with Intel 4400 graphics, and it took a
little while for the rendering to start for me. Once it got going it was nice
and smooth, however.

------
latenightcoding
10/10 will print each frame and hang in fridge

------
csvan
Getting a white page on Chrome 46, Fedora box.

------
motyar
Add a "fullscreen" button please

------
beeboop
What's the music from? Cool site.

------
szastupov
Lazerhawk and tripping cat - perfect.

~~~
yranadive
That cat is definitely on something

------
ruiramos
Looks great, congrats!

------
blobbers
this isn't pointless. this is really great.

------
iconjack
Pointless? Hardly.

------
cachvico
Great soundtrack!

------
ryan-allen
I am... yes.

------
boksiora
Genius!!!!

------
bigsteve78
Was hoping to see Ryan Gosling in a scorpion jacket make an appearance.

------
bigsteve78
Was hoping to see Ryan Gosling in a Scorpion jacket make an appearance.

------
pcunite
Scrubbing my eyes with my toothbrush ... please don't down vote me ... the
sting from close-up is painful enough.

