

This is a web page - Mozilla WebGL demo "No Comply" - windsurfer
https://mozillademos.org/demos/nocomply/demo.html

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mmastrac
Amazing work. This reminds me of those PC demos that pushed the limits of the
environment and eventually found their way into the gaming engines of the
time.

Seems to require FF4 (WebGL-enabled Chrome pops up error messages).

IE9 is looking pretty dated at this point. 2D acceleration when the
competition is doing this?

~~~
est
> IE9 is looking pretty dated at this point.

Just some retrospective: Microsoft introduced DirectAnimation in IE4, which
can do JScript/VBScript based hardware accelerated animation. They abandoned
it in IE7 for their Silverlight.

For "No Comply", yes it's cool, but it's far from pushing limits. Tons of ogg
and webm have to be downloaded to play this demo.

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windsurfer
The GitHub repo is here: <https://github.com/cjcliffe/NoComply>

I didn't make it, I just think it's awesome :)

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zerosanity
Ok... it downloads 22MB of ogg and webm files and then does nothing for me.
Just a black screen after clicking on continue. FF4 with GeForce 9600 GT on
Windows XP 32-bit

~~~
windsurfer
First, do you have JavaScript enabled?

If you type "about:config" in the location bar, and you search for a key
called "webgl.disabled", is that true?

You may also have old drivers for your video card - though pretty much all the
drivers in the past few years have OpenGL.

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ronaldj
Doesn't work at all for me on IE6.

~~~
windsurfer
Does not work on my TI-83 either

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solarmist
That's pretty awesome, but it was really choppy on in my browser and I've got
a pretty decent laptop (2011 MBP). Did anyone else have that problem?

~~~
mmastrac
Worked flawlessly for me on a 2009 non-unibody MBP. I'd suggest checking
Activity Monitor for something consuming lots of CPU, or check that you aren't
using the low-power GPU.

~~~
solarmist
I restarted Firefox and it worked well until the last minute or so then it
started getting choppy again. Neither my memory or CPU was spiking much and I
was on discrete graphics the whole time.

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randall
Holy crap that's awesome. FF4 = no choppyness w/ my mbp '10

~~~
oconnore
Also no choppiness on my HP dm1z netbook. :)

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spiralganglion
The web page of the future! Only works for certain people on certain machines,
but without any clear causes of failure. Looks an awful lot like Wolfenstein
3D, but with some sort of interlaced-squiggly effect like you're watching this
on an old cathode TV. Contains no interactive elements — a staple of the
future (long live physical media!). Takes an awful lot of time and energy to
make a relatively simple point.

~~~
windsurfer
This demo should only be interesting to developers - normal users are going to
say "What's the point?". Developers, creative thinkers, and creators are going
to look at this and say "Wow!" and develop something the average consumer will
enjoy.

I'm sorry, but this demo took a lot of work, a lot of invention, and a lot of
talented people. 8 people 4 months of their free time, 4 new javascript
libraries, and patches for both Firefox and Blender, to be exact. It isn't the
demo that's the problem (if that's what you're saying in your sarcastic
comment), it's you.

~~~
spiralganglion
I've been making 3d animations since 1996, websites since 1998, and compiled
software since 2005. I've been employed in these capacities for the majority
of my working life. So I'm speaking as a developer familiar with every aspect
of a project like this. I know the amount of work that goes in to pioneering
new technologies and the practical methodologies that capitalize on them. I
realize that WebGL (et al.) is new, and presents challenges both technical and
artistic surpassed only by the their afforded opportunities for new creative
expression.

I can clearly see the tremendous amount of effort that went into realizing
this. But given that effort, shouldn't there have been greater regard given to
the quality of the finished product? For instance, there's no technical
limitation which accounts for the length of the demo, nor is there any benefit
to that length. If the piece had been of a more concise focus, the artists
involved may have been able to create imagery was as visually stunning as it
was technically impressive. Instead, the graphical elements feel quite
unpolished, dated, and they detract from the impact of the project. This is
but one of many examples of how I feel this piece is a failure to deliver on
this technology's potential.

Certainly, the content of the work isn't as important as the technical systems
needed to realize it. But if the purpose of such a demo is to show off what
many splendours await us in this new era of the internet, wouldn't it be
prudent to ensure that this demo actually works as expected? Why are so many
people with Firefox 4 failing to run it? Why did it take me 5 tries to load
the page? This isn't progress.

It bothers me that so much effort went into something that comes very close to
a level where the average consumer would be impressed, but falls short because
of a lack of ability to execute. If this were a commercial product, the market
would slaughter you. And while I realize that tech demos aren't commercial
products in and of themselves, they're still marketing something. A
technology, a technique, a browser.

The recent advances in the web (CSS3, WebGL, HTML5, etc) are focused on
improving online experiences. The biggest part of this is that they make it
ever easier for all developers to create beautiful work. So it just bothers me
to no end that people working on the forefront of this movement have such
little regard for the beauty of their work. They're the ones carving the path.
They should be showing us the new highs we may hit, on every level. They
should be leading by example. There's no reason this tech demo couldn't have
been as visually stunning as, say, the websites for 2advanced were back in the
early days of Flash.

As long as a Flash solution like Papervision3D would provide a superior
realtime 3d experience to a majority of web surfers (if this demo is anything
to go by), we're not yet at the Web Page Of The Future.

~~~
windsurfer
I don't have any comment on your subjective criticism of the demo as art or
some kind of advertisement, since I don't see it as either. I see it as an
impressive demo. I understand your point and respect it, I simply see it
differently.

However, you then state:

 _As long as a Flash solution like Papervision3D would provide a superior
realtime 3d experience to a majority of web surfers (if this demo is anything
to go by), we're not yet at the Web Page Of The Future._

Excuse me but have you seen Papervision stuff? It's pretty lousy by
comparison. No real-time video textures, no realtime shaders, no fancy
lighting. Yes, flash is _going_ to get 3D support (I worked at Adobe on Flash
stuff, since we're flaunting our credentials) but this is at least 10 times as
technically impressive, even to users. Did you notice there was a pause
button? Can't do that in Flash without a major overhaul of the broken timeline
system. Did you notice the beat detection? It was awesome. It would be a huge
CPU hog in flash (if you have the security rights to access the audio stream)
- no problem in Javascript with the Firefox Audio API. Oh, and your browser
still acted like a browser, with all the preferences you had set.

Papervision looks like a toy compared to the power of these technologies.
Compare the laggy and simplistic Papervision demo:
<http://helloenjoy.com/projects/monstertruck/> to the WebGL one by the same
company: <http://helloracer.com/webgl/> . Technically speaking, there's no
contest.

~~~
whatever_dude
If you want to get technical,

 _Excuse me but have you seen Papervision stuff? It's pretty lousy by
comparison. No real-time video textures,_

One absolutely can have real-time video textures, even using an outdated
technology like PaperVision (and more so with the new, still not gpu
accelerated, 3d software renderer).

 _Did you notice there was a pause button? Can't do that in Flash without a
major overhaul of the broken timeline system._

The "timeline system" is not used in any real animation project.

 _Did you notice the beat detection? It was awesome. It would be a huge CPU
hog in flash (if you have the security rights to access the audio stream) - no
problem in Javascript with the Firefox Audio API._

It's not a CPU hog, and audio spectrum analysis features have been present in
Flash for a long time - google "AS3 SoundMixer.computeSpectrum" for a
specific, player-based API for that. And if you want to compare AS3 speed to
JS -- you're dreaming if you think JS is that fast compared to AS3.

On top of it all, Flash 11 beta already supports GPU-accelerated 3d on top of
OpenGL (or DirectX or OpenGL ES, _and_ a software renderer if all of these are
unavailable). If you want to present features like the ones from this demo -
that only a handful of people will see - then compare to the next version of
Flash Player too instead, and let's see who doesn't support enough shaders.

<http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=molehill+flash>

Want to run them yourself? Here, this one puts that f1 car one to shame.

<http://alternativaplatform.com/en/demos/maxracer/>

I guarantee you: Flash Player 11 will reach 90% penetration on desktop devices
before webgl even reaches half of that.

Say what you will about the subjective advantages of this demo. But don't lie
about the technology you're trying to advice against.

~~~
windsurfer
First of all, what? You don't use any timelines on a "real" animation project?
Sure you do.

That Flash 11 demo wasn't made with Papervision. I was referring to
Papervision.

FF4 is now. Flash 11 is beta, and tomorrow.

~~~
whatever_dude
You clearly don't work with Flash, or hasn't looked at Flash in the past 5
years. The timeline is only good for hand-drawn, keyframed animation. No
serious rich media work use it; the most complex animation you'll see will use
code instead. And if you _do_ use the timeline? "stop()" will pause, and
"play()" will resume. Why you think a play/pause button is something so hard
is beyond me.

You're right that demo wasn't made with Papervision. It's because it's not
fair of you to talk about Papervision (a framework that hasn't been updated in
a very long time, and was made for a Flash Version 2 versions prior) if you're
comparing to Webgl, something that is barely supported nowadays. What now,
should I compare equivalent demos in Flash 10 vs HTML 1.0 then use the same
lame excuse? If you wanna compare the same result in both technologies, use
examples created in the same time range.

Finally, both FF4 and Flash 11 are available for installation now. You say I
need to have a specific browser, turn on an specific config setting, using
specific cards, and a specific amount of memory; I say you need to install the
public Flash 11 beta. Both are here now.

Or maybe not now, because this demo is still not working on my second machine,
also using FF4, Windows 7, plenty of memory, and a great video card; nor on
Chrome, latest dev build. I had to go to youtube and watch a video in Flash to
understand what the demo was even about. Go standards.

~~~
spiralganglion
Whatever, dude! I concur with everything you've said. Especially the bit about
not using the timeline. The web is for interactive content, people, not
timeline-based animation. Flash shifted focus to the former long, long ago.

I want to clarify why I mentioned Papervision. Papervision will achieve a
_similar_ effect to WebGL (you get textured polygons in your browser), and it
won't require installing anything that 90% of users don't already have.

For developers and creative types (of the sort called out in response to my
initial post), we need solutions that work _today_. There's no sense in
getting us excited about tech we can't use; it's just showing-off that your
particular platform has more _bling_. Tech demos are impressive when the
technology is available to everyone. What we're seeing with these demos is as
indicative of what can be done on the internet, now or in the near future, as
a pre-rendered cinematic is indicative of the graphics in a video game.
They're boastful and deceptive.

------
neovive
Very impressive. I really like the vintage feel of this demo! Runs very well
on 2010 MBP with FF4.

For those that didn't make it to the end, here is the list of applications,
libraries and file formats used:

    
    
      BeatDetektor.js, Beat Detection Library (@ccliffe)
    
      Blender, 3D Modelling and Animation
    
      Burst.js, JS Animation Engine (@F1LT3R)
    
      COLLADA, Asset Exchange Format
    
      CubicVR.js, 3D Engine (@ccliffe)
    
      DSP.js, Signal Processing (@corban)
    
      HTML5 <audio>, <canvas>, <video>
    
      JSON, Data Encapsulation Format
    
      Mozilla Audio Data API
    
      mozRequestAnimationFrame :-)
    
      OGG Vorbis, Audio Format
    
      Processing.js, Visualization Library
    
      SpriteViking.js, Sprite Engine (@F1LT3R)
    
      GML, Graffiti Markup Language
    
      WebGL,3D API
    
      WebM, Video Format

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exit
doesn't work at all for me. macosx.6 / neither on chrome or ff4

~~~
rajasharan
in FF4 go to about:config and set webgl.force-enabled to true;

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nerdyworm
Ubuntu 10.10 with an ATI video card I had to start ff4 with
MOZ_GLX_IGNORE_BLACKLIST=1 env variable (I need to update my video card
drivers).

Then it crashed after the train broke out of the tunnel, still well worth the
effort to getting it to work. Fantastic demo of what is possible.

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cubtastic71
MBP works fine in FireFox only - Chrome is a no go. <3 Kraddy as the audio.
It's a nice throwback to the c64 Demo Scene. I think it lacks some
interactivity though, nice to watch by rather see how I can interact past the
load screen.

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splatcollision
This is seriously crazy work, very awesome.

Bummer it only works in Firefox.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Running Linux? Try "MOZ_GLX_IGNORE_BLACKLIST=1 firefox".

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dholowiski
Could not initilise WebGL, Sorry :( To me, it's just a big black window.

~~~
windsurfer
Maybe you don't have enough video memory? I know if you're trying this on the
N900, you're going to run into that problem.

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becomevocal
Awesome work. Wouldn't say 'available now!', but definitely a glimpse into the
future. Absolutely cannot wait until we get some broad _mobile_ WebGL support.

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jakubmal
lots of errors only, oh and blackscreen on FF4 4.0.1 win7

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ocharles
Worked almost flawlessy on my i5 with an nVidia Geforce 8200 (!). Very
impressive :)

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AlexC04
Nothing on a mac :(

~~~
solarmist
I'm on a mac and I didn't have a problem, just choppy.

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jsprinkles
My big complaint about switching to something like Chrome OS was playing
immersive games in a browser. Appears the recent development effort in
browsers has heard my griping.

~~~
hapless
This demo fails using mozilla.com's Firefox 4 build on my very vanilla core i5
Linux PC with Intel graphics. It's certainly not going to run on e.g. cr48,
which has considerably less power to work with.

"Unfortunately, while your browser supports WebGL, your video drivers may be
too old. To view any of the demos tagged with WebGL, try updating your drivers
at NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel."

That's the great thing about standards: even if you choose the right standard,
there may not be any usable implementations.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Firefox unfortunately has an explicit whitelist on Linux for drivers it allows
for WebGL, because they didn't want to hit driver/GL bugs that crashed the
browser. More unfortunately, the whitelist in Firefox 4 doesn't include the
Intel driver, even though it works fine and doesn't crash. I worked with
upstream to provide the necessary information about the driver, and Firefox 5
should have the Intel driver on the whitelist. In the meantime, try running
"MOZ_GLX_IGNORE_BLACKLIST=1 firefox" from the command line.

