WebGL Path Tracing • Hacker News Board

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#11

Post by pstadler » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 2:34 PM UTC

timb wrote: post #10

Beautiful... the fading grain as it renders is extremely pleasing.

Indeed, very polished. It's so awesome! Nice experience, very smooth (OSX/Radeon/FF5).

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#12

Post by davidwparker » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 2:37 PM UTC

Fantastic use of WebGL. It's amazing how much can be done in browsers today. Also amazing how much it heats up my MBP!

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#13

Post by sonnyz » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 2:43 PM UTC

dark_c wrote: post #2

Warning: caused a complete system hangup here with Chrome 13 on Windows 7, Intel graphics.

Worked great for me until I switched tabs back to HN to read comments. My screens instantly went black while my video card driver thew up all over my desk.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#14

Post by redfloatplane » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:10 PM UTC

dualogy wrote: post #8

redfloatplane wrote: post #6

That's fantastic. I've been meaning to get into WebGL (perhaps make some sort of tech demo game with it). I've held off because of performance issues (also, I admit, I'm not too excited about dealing with shaders). I think I should stop procrastinating now and actually do something with it. This is very exciting!

Shaders are fun! Looks a bit like "scary c++" at first but not too steep a learning-curve actually. No header files, pointers and the likes. Just a couple of maths functions and maths types (vec3, float etc). Pixel shaders return a "color" vector, vertex shaders a vertex "position" and "that's about it".

Oh, really? That sounds eminently doable. Do you happen to have any fantastic resource for shaders?

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#15

Post by evilswan » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:14 PM UTC

Works splendidly - 2011 MBP w/Radeon latest FF stable.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#16

Post by ansonparker » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:21 PM UTC

This is killer. Be sure to try dragging the scene/objects!

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#17

Post by ansonparker » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

Found a little easter egg. Enter

javascript:ui.setObjects(makeRecursiveSpheres())

in the location bar with the page open and you'll really torture your graphics card.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#18

Post by windsurfer » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:39 PM UTC

Works great! Until I overloaded it. Made my graphic driver crash.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#19

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 3:51 PM UTC

This is one of the coolest things I've seen all year, without exaggeration. The gradual rendering alone is new to me (and utterly fascinating), but the fact that diffuse lighting can be rendered in a browser... this completely redefines what I understand a browser to be capable of. Seriously amazing.

Re: WebGL Path Tracing

#20

Post by AndrewMoffat » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 4:09 PM UTC

redfloatplane wrote: post #14

dualogy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaders are fun! Looks a bit like "scary c++" at first but not too steep a learning-curve actually. No header files, pointers and the likes. Just a couple of maths functions and maths types (vec3, float etc). Pixel shaders return a "color" vector, vertex shaders a vertex "position" and "that's about it".

Oh, really? That sounds eminently doable. Do you happen to have any fantastic resource for shaders?

The OpenGL orange book has helped me tremendously http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HMJYC4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...