Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL • Hacker News Board

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#171

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

kroltan wrote: post #166

westoncb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice because scrolling is a 1d interaction, and the path you're navigating is 1d. It's superior to a movie because this scheme makes it super simple to control how long you spend at various points, and they open up optional interactions at various points. I don't understand why a lot of scrolling would be problematic, doesn't seem different then e.g. pushing arrow keys over and over when playing a video game.

A single repeated movement is very tiring. You compare to games, but games have you press different buttons, and there is usually either some rythm and variety to it, or at least hold the button (e.g. in a racing game you usually hold the acceleration button) In this website you need to keep scrolling, which is pretty monotonous, it would be equivalent of spamming "next" on an overly complicated late 2000s Windows so…

> In this website you need to keep scrolling, which is pretty monotonous, it would be equivalent of spamming "next" on an overly complicated late 2000s Windows software installer. Or watching a Youtube video by spamming the frame skip shortcut.

Or scrolling through a long document, as the scroll wheel is designed to do?

You're not supposed to scroll straight through, there's stuff to see and read! If you want to skip around, there's navigation on the right side.

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#172

Post by LeftHandPath » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

globalise83 wrote: post #77

Just explored it with my 4 year old son. He insisted on a second tour and on clicking all of the interactive exhibits. Amazing design and execution!

What a great experience for a curious child! I was lucky enough to have grown up in the 2000s, when History / Science / Discovery channels still aired proper documentaries instead of reality TV. But I would have killed to have access to presentations like these.

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#173

Post by LeftHandPath » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #148

This is cool, but since all positional movement is on-rails, I find myself questioning their decision to use real-time rendering, as opposed to a pre-rendered video that users can scroll through. The latter approach would have allowed Getty to use higher quality models and lighting, and made the experience smoother on low-end devices, possibly at the cost of bandwidth. A conventional video would mean loosing the abil…

I'm not sure that I would've watched this as a video. Being tangentially involved -- having to actively scroll -- seems to make it more engaging. And I wouldn't have been so impressed by the website from a technical perspective.

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#174

Post by simplicio » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

behnamoh wrote: post #147

stackbutterflow wrote: post #37

This is really cool. Seeing these beautiful colors I realize how much how I imagine the ancient world is shaped by museum artifacts and photos in textbooks, which show raw and brown/grey/white stones, rusty tools and weapons. I've grown thinking about pre-medieval times as a landscape of ruins. It would be like if future humans were picturing our current world as nothing but bombed cities. It's a really cool project.…

It's cool indeed. But I find it sad that such a tremendous piece of architecture is not listed on the world's 7 ancient wonders while the Temple of Artemis and other Greek structures are on the list. No surprises there, given that the list was created by the Greek historian Herodotus.

Pretty sure the canonical list of Wonders isn't due to Herodotus, as several of the items on it were built after his death.

(apparently Herodotus also had a list of wonders, but it didn't survive. Given his interest in Persia though, I suspect it would've had several Persian monuments on it)

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#175

Post by vanderZwan » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #132

vanderZwan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've grown thinking about pre-medieval times as a landscape of ruins. Jimmy Carr joked about that in QI once, how movies and series set in ancient Rome and Greece also tend to do this. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58rbknKBJvc

"This video contains content from Fremantle International, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds"

Sorry about that. I looked for official clips (it's just before a relatively famous segment) but they don't include the Jimmy Carr joke

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#176

Post by seanw444 » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

garyfirestorm wrote: post #154

I have a 12 pro max and the scrolling part is stuttering a lot. Almost unusable 5-10 fps.

Ran buttery smooth on my OnePlus 9 Pro.

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#177

Post by mmphosis » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

westoncb wrote: post #115

Extremely well done (at least for desktop). Many seem to dislike that it's scroll-controlled, but tbh I would've given up immediately if it were free navigation—I didn't feel like wandering around looking for things, just wanted to observe the sights. And since the core structure is a sequential list of sights, the scroll interface is a nice way of keeping that linear structure in place while automatically choosing n…

What if I am using a mouse without a scroll wheel?

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#178

Post by shepherdjerred » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

It's astounding to me that something so beautiful like this was ever real with or without modern technology. It's incredible what you can do with enough man-hours.

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#179

Post by djKianoosh » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

mmphosis wrote: post #177

westoncb wrote: post #115

Extremely well done (at least for desktop). Many seem to dislike that it's scroll-controlled, but tbh I would've given up immediately if it were free navigation—I didn't feel like wandering around looking for things, just wanted to observe the sights. And since the core structure is a sequential list of sights, the scroll interface is a nice way of keeping that linear structure in place while automatically choosing n…

What if I am using a mouse without a scroll wheel?

I would guess arrow keys?

Re: Persepolis of ancient Persia rendered in WebGL

#180

Post by mrbonner » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

I played Assassin Creed Origin (ACO) few years ago, the 1st AC game I felt really immersed in. I played the AC1 back in the early 2000s but it didn't click for me. ACO is different: totally open world. You could climb anywhere, even to the top of the pyramid of Giza during its glorious time with the golden top. You can climb to the light-house on top of the library of Alexandria. The sceneries are majestic. I feel like I travel back in time and live in the era.

At the end of the game, you have an option to "explore and learn". In this mode, there would be no fighting and you are given a guided tour through ancient Egypt. This is truly the most fascinating moment in my gaming life. The other one would be wandering aimlessly in Microsoft Encatar exploring mode.

I couldn't wait to experience all this again in a truly HD VR world. Maybe some day!