Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS • Hacker News Board

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#31

Post by mcdonje » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

alexaholic wrote: post #9

We used to do this during the Web 2.0 era with PNGs, GIFs and `progid:DXImageTransform` because back then you couldn't do it with standard CSS alone. Then as CSS (and MS!) evolved to enable it, the world moved on to flat UIs. It's ironic, isn't it?

There was a lot of one-upsmanship at the time. People did it because it was hard. When it wasn't difficult to do anymore, they stopped because it wasn't actually good clean design.

Also, early on, there was an idea that cyberspace should resemble meatspace so the meats don't get confused. That's no longer much of a concern.

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#32

Post by jdiff » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

microflash wrote: post #30

irickt wrote: post #24

https://github.com/kikkupico/ambientcss

> A user you’ve blocked has previously contributed to this repository. Sigh.

Only 5 "contributors," did you block one of the AI bots bouncing around in there?

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#33

Post by Quitschquat » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

Why must UI/UX be a fashion. I knew this skeuomorphic shit would return eventually.

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#34

Post by drfloyd51 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

charlesrice wrote: post #15

My favorite is the knobs where some of them you can grab and rotate like they are physical but other ones only react to the vertical position of the cursor so you feel like a crazy person trying to use them

Worked like crap on mobile as well.

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#35

Post by noduerme » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

I wrote something a bit like this years ago as an experimental portfolio site... a sort of responsive engine managing flat "cards" with CSS shadow cues for depth. (The responsive aspects are all JS on a loop that tweens everything). Ever since Photoshop released drop shadows on the world, I've generally thought that their overuse was a way to mask bad design, but I thought it was interesting at the time to see how far you could get using only drop shadows. Note: This site hasn't been updated in a decade. Not made for dark mode.

https://thestrikeagency.com

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#36

Post by microflash » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

jdiff wrote: post #32

microflash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A user you’ve blocked has previously contributed to this repository. Sigh.

Only 5 "contributors," did you block one of the AI bots bouncing around in there?

Yup.

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#37

Post by TechSquidTV » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

I had tried (and failed) to do something similar. https://analogui.com/

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#38

Post by jdiff » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

microflash wrote: post #36

jdiff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 5 "contributors," did you block one of the AI bots bouncing around in there?

Yup.

Just Claude or have you managed to block Jules as well? I haven't figured out Jules yet myself.

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#39

Post by wasmperson » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

The keyboard controls to select a radio button shouldn't depend on the visual orientation of the radio buttons. Browsers get this right by default, but the radio buttons aren't implemented with `` and instead are just a row of plain buttons and a bunch of javascript. A quick check in the dev tools confirms the other widgets are similarly implemented :(

I love the look, though!

Re: Ambient CSS v3 – Blender meets CSS

#40

Post by thesuitonym » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

mcdonje wrote: post #31

alexaholic wrote: post #9

We used to do this during the Web 2.0 era with PNGs, GIFs and `progid:DXImageTransform` because back then you couldn't do it with standard CSS alone. Then as CSS (and MS!) evolved to enable it, the world moved on to flat UIs. It's ironic, isn't it?

There was a lot of one-upsmanship at the time. People did it because it was hard. When it wasn't difficult to do anymore, they stopped because it wasn't actually good clean design. Also, early on, there was an idea that cyberspace should resemble meatspace so the meats don't get confused. That's no longer much of a concern.

> they stopped because it wasn't actually good clean design.

Unfortunately, they didn't replace it with good, clean design.