pouët.net

I loled.
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This WebGL sensation of today will be the WebGL crap of tomorrow, so I think you can rest assure the hype will be over pretty soon.

Oh yeah. And kudos to Ellie Goulding (or her producer) for trying new stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdC3e_H53nY <- do zen by komplex.

Still, the web is a pretty neat delivery method compared to downloading zips from FTP sites and double clicking then selecting a resolution and then pressing OK.

knos: the combination of kindergarden and airport wifi prices made me appreciate offline things again.

Gargaj: next time, seat down next to the Business lounge ;) Free WiFi

gloom: Maybe I'm reading the article wrong, but Carlos (which as Zplex correctly said was "kind of" involved in the demoscene years ago) is not claiming to invent any of these tricks. He is just saying how they did it and the problems they faced, no super star attitude there. Oh, and the thing is, I'm aware that more complicated stuff was done for the thing, but he is not talking about that because that would be too much for the .net audience, which is not you.

Gloom speaks the truth and I think some of you misunderstand him. Personally, though, I'm not too angry since we are talking about the internet afterall.. Kim Kardishan is there and so are the sub-par wegGL-guys. Both get press, but the Hyde doesnt care. He doesnt. My lawn has a fence: garbage collection on one side, smooth cool 3d graphics on the other.

"go back in time, re-do all the alpha-blending demos of 2002, and win webgl to those newcomers" or "stay were we are with powerful graphics cards but without any audience, creating the future that others will take credit for in three years". you choose. produce and get fame, or create and live in the shadow.

gloom: What I find annoying of what you just did (which at first I thought you were joking) is that Carlos wrote that article with the hope of attracting and inspiring new people to do WebGL stuff. Yes, of course, he's well aware of the extra ventures this may give him, but that happens any time you write a tutorial on the net or write a demo too. But the article and the way the explanations are done are clearly for bringing new people in the field. Considering this, isn't your reaction pretty selfish and arrogant?

iq: what's the difference between "produce" and "create" then?

produce=copy/reuse/recreate create=innovate?

but anyway. i guess gloom's point is that there are cooler demos already in webgl and they'll never get the same opportunity to fame due to a variety of reasons, but mostly because they're not commissioned by umg artists whose label will shove the "interactive music video" down your throat whether you like it or not. see i kindof liked no comply because it has kraddy-music and its kinda funny, but as far as hype goes, it's only the mozilla name carrying it, not the actual visual quality of the prod, which looks worse than the first 3dmark from '99 and doesn't actually pull any interesting stuff, not because webgl is less capable (which it isn't), but because then it'd need to realize and admit what the benchmark for opengl is today (=idtech5). any of the aforementioned scene-webgl demos are closer to that point.

the way i see it right now is that the anarchistic attitude of the scene (i.e. doing really cool things but without a specific purpose) makes it impossible for people to relate to it the same way they can relate to an "interactive music video" that has all the "creative agency" marks and afterburners on it. (do you think all the blogs posting about it found the link themselves? surely not. ) the question is, should this be changed?

produce = something you find in a supermarket

I know I'm a broken record but, I believe the main reason mainstream doesn't care about these other cooler demos is because they're not interactive. Not interactive makes them no different from a video experience-wise for a common brain. And nowadays videos are way cooler than these other cooler demos.

Oh nice! Anaemia uses three.js! Wasn't aware of that one. Thanks for the tip!

the word "interactivity" always reminds me of RO.ME where as soon as it started i moved the cursor out of the way, and ended up staring at a wall for most of its duration because i never realized that i can move the camera around. (i literally only realized it when i saw the making-of videos afterwards and they were showing content i didn't see.)

really, does it get ANY better just because you can rotate the camera around?

Better or not, that doesn't matter. It's the fact that you can do it. And with a video you can't.

Regarding ROME, your use case is indeed a possibility, but you are used to be passive when dealing with demos. Internet users tend to be used to interact with websites.

Oh, and I've spoke with the Mozilla guys that did these No Comply & co some months ago. Apparently they won't be doing more demos, people seems to be unable to appreciate them. They'll be doing games now.

Good thing few on the scene do it for people's appreciation.

In my opinion this is exactly where you got it wrong. Almost nobody but the scene has any interest in this "despite of the platform" aspect.

Demoscene keeps going as an underground culture known to only a small number of people, and people outside the scene being aware of demoscene productions are very rare. WebGL suddenly allows to reach the lazy mainstream masses; shouldn't we just embrace it, rather than complaining that some under average prod gets under the spotlight?

I think those guys are very right to grab the low hanging fruits, especially if they get the opportunity to be paid for it. Doing demos for a living, talk about a great job.

Gargaj: In my opinion, it actually gets worse!
There are entire professions dedicated to making camera angles just right. There are people whose life's work has been to move cameras around on sets so that the framing is perfect.

There's a reason why you can't rotate the camera around in movies, and it's not just because of format limitations. When people make art in a 3D space (games and the like excepted), they usually want you to *look at something.*

I feel like removing the restrictions on the point of view of a demo cheapens the experience. It's akin to taking a theatre production and turning it into a carnival ride.

you say you are a broken record and claims to know what the mainstream wants.
its not a sensation nor a mindblowing experience like the author says. so its just use of words.

Mr.doob: Yeah, I was a bit harsh, however the point still stands.

Zavie: I think you've misunderstood me completely, I'm all for embracing the new platform, that's the point -- but with such simple techniques there is no pushing of the envelope. I guess there might be a commercial reason behind this though (getting the piece to run sufficiently fast on more computers).

MidKnight: I agree that interactivity has to move beyond "turn the camera around" to become interesting - as you say, the ability to specifically place a camera and move a shot is exactly what I like about demos (and movies, for that matter).

while i broadly agree with gloom, there's a bigger point - there's a whole world of "creative coders" out there making technically pretty trivial things in openframeworks and processing and getting lots of attention (and, yes - money) for it.

if you want to ask why arent demosceners getting a bigger piece of that pie when we completely rock them technically and have way more experience - it's an interesting debate. it's partly cos we dont really embrace interactivity; we have a pretty different asethetic compared to numedia world, which often battles against being cg rather than celebrating it (more like games in many ways); we don't pimp our stuff in the same circles; and we tend to make 5 minute things with 10 different parts to win demoparties for a demoscene audience not 90 second things with one core idea to look good on vimeo for a wider audience.
there's some things i'd take from that world into demos (and have done), and other things from demos im very much glad to keep.